MONOTHEISM

belief in the existence of one god, or in the oneness of God. As such, monotheism is distinguished from polytheism, the belief in the existence of many gods, and from atheism, or the belief that there is no god. Monotheism characterizes the traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and elements of the belief are discernible in numerous other religions. In the three great monotheistic religions, the essence and character of God are believed to be unique and fundamentally different from those of gods found in other religions. God is viewed as the creator of the world and of humanity. Moreover, he has not abandoned his creation but continues to lead it through his power and wisdom. God has created not only the natural world but also the ethical order to which humanity ought to conform. God is holy and is the source of the highest good. He is supreme and unique in both his being and his worth. Such a monotheistic belief system results in the rejection of all other belief systems as false religions, and this rejection partly explains the exceptionally aggressive or intolerant stance of monotheistic religions throughout history. Evidence in the Hebrew scripture indicates that the Israelites practiced monolatry (i.e., the worship of one god without denying the existence of other gods). However, Israel's enthusiastic confession of Yahweh as the one God and its rejection of other gods make it more appropriate to label the religion of Israel as monotheistic, and thus also the hellenistic and rabbinic Judaism that developed from it. The Islamic interpretation of monotheism is more literal and uncompromising than that of any other religion. Allah is confessed as being one, eternal, unbegotten, unequaled, and beyond partnership of any kind. The trinitarian creed of Christianity, on the other hand, sets it apart from the two other classical monotheistic religions. Although the Bible of Christians includes no assertions about God that are specifically trinitarian, it does invoke the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in triadic liturgical formulas. The early church, in reflecting upon the reality of God as related to Jesus, developed a theological language about the Trinity, speaking of three Persons that are one in substance. Historians of religion have given much attention to the reform of Egyptian religion as effected by the pharaoh Akhenaton (Amenophis IV) in the 14th century BC. It is generally agreed that Akhenaton's theology, if not full monotheistic, in any case strongly tended toward monotheism. belief in the existence of one god, or in the oneness of God; as such, it is distinguished from polytheism, the belief in the existence of many gods, and from atheism, the belief that there is no god. Monotheism characterizes the traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and elements of the belief are discernible in numerous other religions. Monotheism and polytheism are often thought of in rather simple terms; e.g., as a merely numerical contrast between the one and the many. The history of religions, however, indicates many phenomena and concepts that should warn against oversimplification in this matter. There is no valid reason to assume, for example, that monotheism is a later development in the history of religions than polytheism. There exists no historical material to prove that one system of belief is older than the other, although many scholars hold that monotheism is a higher form of religion and, therefore, must be a later development, assuming that what is higher came later. Moreover, it is not the oneness of god that counts in monotheism but his uniqueness; one god is not affirmed as the logical opposite to many gods but as an expression of divine might and power. The choice of either monotheism, or polytheism, however, leads to problems, because neither can give a satisfactory answer to all questions that may reasonably be put. The weakness of polytheism is especially revealed in the realm of questions about the ultimate origin of things, whereas monotheism runs into difficulties in trying to answer the question concerning the origin of evil in a universe under the government of one god. There remains always an antithesis between the multiplicity of forms of the divine manifestations and the unity that can be thought or posited behind them. The one and the many form no static contradistinction: there is rather a polarity and a dialectic tension between them. The history of religions shows various efforts to combine unity and multiplicity in the conception of the divine. Because Christianity is a monotheistic religion, the monotheistic conception of the divine has assumed for Western culture the value of a self-evident axiom. This unquestioned assumption becomes clear when it is realized that for Western culture there is no longer an acceptable choice between monotheism and polytheism but only between monotheism and atheism. Additional reading General works on monotheism include Josiah Royce, Monotheism, in the Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, vol. 8 (1928); Monotheismus und Polytheismus, in Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, vol. 4 (1913); T.P. van Baaren, Doolhof der goden (1960); G. van der Leeuw, Phnomenologie der Religion (1933; Eng. trans., Religion in Essence and Manifestation, 2 vol., 1963); and R. Otto, Das Heilige (1917; Eng. trans., The Idea of the Holy, 2nd ed., 1950). For primitive religions, see T.P. van Baaren, Menschen wie wir (1964); and P. Radin, Monotheism Among Primitive Peoples (1954); on the high gods, see H. Zwicker, Das Hchste Wesen (1970); and E.O. James, The Concept of Deity (1950), the only general systematic study of a later date treating the problems of monotheism. H.R. Niebuhr, Radical Monotheism and Western Culture (1960), is a modern, incisive Protestant theological presentation of absolute monotheism.