 No doubt many pantheists self-consciously and deliberately reject theism, while many theists strongly reject pantheism. But to conclude from this that pantheism should be understood as essentially opposed to theism would seem precipitous (like concluding mutual incompatibility from the fact that many Christians oppose socialism and many socialists oppose Christianity). Without being drawn into doctrinal questions well outside the purview of this essay, two points may be made. Many philosophers who have put forward pantheist beliefs have thought there was no need for anyone who accepted them to abandon traditional religion (for example, Spinoza, Hegel, or Edward  Caird—who argues that “the religious consciousness is not the consciousness of another object than that which is present in finite experience and science, but simply a higher way of knowing the same object,” (1892, 464) but whom nonetheless considered himself Christian.) From the other side, many committed theologians have advanced positions with deeply pantheistic implications (e.g. the ‘Christian Pantheism’ of Teilhard de Chardin or the ‘Ethical Pantheism’ of Albert Schweitzer.)