The Tao

From chapter one of the Tao Te Ching.

Quote :

The Tao that can be explained with words is not the Tao.
If it could be named so simply, it would not be the eternal Tao.

Heaven and Earth began from the nameless,
but the multitudes of things around us were created by names.

We desire to understand the world by giving names to the things we see,
but these things are only the effects of something subtle.

When we see beyond the desire to use names,
we can sense the nameless cause of these effects.

The cause and the effects are aspects of the same, one thing.
They are both mysterious and profound.
At their most mysterious and profound point lies the "Gate of the Great Truth".

There's an amazing amount of wisdom in this little passage but there is one passage that really stuck out at me.

Quote :

The cause and the effects are aspects of the same, one thing.
They are both mysterious and profound.
At their most mysterious and profound point lies the "Gate of the Great Truth".

This describes my view of deity as well as anything I've ever read. So do you think that philosophical Taoism is a type of Panendeism, is it the other way around, or is it just a case of TomAto/Tomato?

I've certainly thought so. In fact, I think it is possible for traditions heavily associated with theism to have deistic counterparts. Of course Taoism doesn't have many theistic qualities. Maybe Lao Tsu being 900 years old when he was born!

-TC