In theology, monotheism (in Greek μόνος = single and θεός = God) is the belief in the existence of one deity or God, or in the oneness of God. In Western context, the concept of "monotheism" tends to be exclusively tied to the concept of the Abrahamic God of the Abrahamic religions —typically as a whole group, but may be used in particular reference to the God as defined by a specific religion or sect. The concept of monotheism has largely been defined in contrast with earlier polytheistic (belief in many gods) religions, and beyond a general concept of "oneness", monotheism tends to overlap with other Unitary or Unifying theory concepts such as The All, and Ultimate Reality, just as the name "God" has some parallels with concepts such as the Supreme Being, The One, etc.
The very term "monotheism" is controversial in larger contexts, as Western culture has a noted tendency for classification and terminology which draws distinctions and differentiations according to increasingly specialised concepts rather than by the integration or inclusion of similar ones. Hence it is important to understand the facile distinctions between the concepts of theism as referring to beliefs, as opposed to those referring to concepts of essence and nature. Beliefs such as monism assert a belief in the universe as composed of the same metaphysical substance, and in certain regard may transclude the monotheism concept.
The term polytheism has been used ostensibly to refer to religions which believe in God which is not unitary, but divided. According to Joseph Campbell, Eastern (or "Dharmic") religions regard a transcendent truth that is unknowable to mortal human beings but is knowable and approachable through its aspects or manifestations, which are deified. In contrast, Campbell claims that Western culture deifies a singular being of transcendent consciousness, whose will is absolute, and whose manifestations are too infinite to be deified in part.
To further complicate matters, religions typically regarded as monotheistic have as part of their doctrines aspects which resemble the aspect and manifestation principles of Eastern religions —for example Christians who in regarding Jesus as divine (as part of a "Trinity") have been accused of having ostensibly polytheistic beliefs. Within Christianity, Catholicism uses Saints as projections of divine or revered examples, and these may be seen to form a pantheon-hierarchy of lesser and greater deities.
Other issues like the Divine Right of Kings may possibly also stems from pharaonic laws on the ruler being the demigod or representative of the Creator on Earth. The massive tombs in the Egyptian pyramids which aligned with astronomical observations, exemplify this relationship between the pharaoh and the heavens and was subsequently adopted by Christian royalty by claiming a direct lease on ruling by the grace of God.
Zoroastrianism is considered to be one of the earliest monotheistic beliefs, though some derivatives of it are not fully so, as the chief god in derivatives such as Zurvanism is not the sole creator. Zoroastrian monotheism has had major influence on the religions of the middle eastern monotheisms in adaptations of such concepts as heavens, hells, judgement day and messianic figures.
In traditional Jewish, Christian, and Islamic thought, monotheism was regarded as their most basic belief. They have traditionally interpreted scriptures as exclusive monotheism.
Judaism is one of the oldest known monotheistic faiths. The best-known Jewish statements of monotheism occur in the Shema prayer, the Ten Commandments and Maimonides' 13 Principles of faith.
Christians profess a belief in one God. Historically, most Christian churches have taught that the nature of God is something of a mystery: while being a unity, God also manifests as three persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit (collectively called the Trinity), the classic Christian "three becomes one" formula. Typically, Christian orthodoxy holds that these three persons are not independent but are homoousios (a Hellenistic Greek transliteration), meaning sharing the same essence or substance of divinity. The true nature of the Trinity is held to be an inexplicable mystery, deduced from New Testament teaching but never formulaically explained. However, some critics consider that Christianity is a form of Tritheism. For Muslim critiques, see Allah Almighty's Response to pagan and trinitarian polytheism; Miller, Dr. Gary, A concise reply to Christianity. Christians overwhelmingly assert that montheism is central to the Christian faith; "I believe in one God" is a key statement in the most widely used Christian creeds. Moreover, some small Christian sects, such as the Jehovah's Witnesses and Oneness Pentecostals, deny the idea of Trinity altogether. Other small Christian groups have their own unique viewpoint. For example, the Rastafarians, like many Christians, hold that God is both a unity and a trinity, in their case God being Haile Selassie. Some Christian denominations, such as the Roman Catholic Church practice Veneration of Saints, which critics claim is a form of polytheism. However, Roman Catholic teaching regards veneration of saints and prayers to saints as no different from petitioning a living person to pray to God on behalf of the petitioner.
| Arabic | قل هو الله احد | الله الصمد
|---|---|
| Transliteration | Qul huwa Allahu ahadun | Allahu alssamadu
| Translation | Say: He is God, the One and Only; | God, the Eternal, Absolute;
Islam is a fully monotheistic religion. This monotheism is absolute, not relative or pluralistic in any sense of the word. The Arabic word for monotheism is Tawhīd which means 'unification', i.e. to unify or to keep something unified.
The Shahadah (الشهادة), or the Islamic creed, is the declaration of belief in the unity of God (Allah in Arabic) and the prophethood of Muhammad. It goes as follows (Transliteration): "Ashhadu An La Ilah Ila Allah, Wa Ashhadu An Mohammedan Rasool Allah", Its translation: I testify that there is no God but Allah, and I testify that Mohammed is Allah's prophet. Its recitation is considered one of the Five Pillars of Islam by Sunni Muslims, in fact, it is the first pillar of Islam. When sincerely stated aloud, one is considered to have officially declared oneself a convert to Islam. The (salaat) in Islam, for example, involve explicit monotheistic testimony. Islam declares the "Unity of God" as their primary teaching. Furthermore, Islam considers Christianity's Trinity as a distortion of Jesus's original teaching after the fact.
The Oneness of God is one of the core teachings of the Bahá'í Faith. Bahá'ís believe that there is one supernatural being, God, who has created all the creatures and forces in the universe. God is described as "a personal God, unknowable, inaccessible, the source of all Revelation, eternal, omniscient, omnipresent and almighty." * Bahá'ís believe that although people have different concepts of God and His nature, and call Him by different names, everyone is speaking of the same one Being. God is taught to be a personal God in that God is conscious of His creation, has a mind, will and purpose. At the same time the Bahá'í teachings state that God is too great for humans to fully understand Him or to create a complete and accurate image of Him. Bahá'u'lláh attributed titles to God such as the All-Powerful, and the All-Loving, which are derived from the limited human experiences of power, love, or justice. Bahá'u'lláh teaches that human knowledge of God is limited to those attributes and qualities which are perceptible to us, and thus direct knowledge about the essence of God is not possible. Bahá'ís believe, thus, that through daily prayer, meditation and study they can grow closer to God. The obligatory prayers in the Bahá'í Faith involve explicit monotheistic testimony.
Furthermore Bahá'u'lláh states that the knowledge of the attributes of God is revealed to humanity through the messengers he sends to humanity. The Bahá'í Faith accepts the authenticity of the founders of monotheistic faiths such as Abraham, Jesus, Muhammad, et cetera. Given Bahá'í beliefs in the unity of religion and that revelation is progressive, some non-Abrahamanic religions are accepted and seen as providing an earlier or partial understanding of the unity of God. This is not only true of seemingly polytheistic traditions such as popular Hinduism, which follows Smarta tradition, for the most part but even of what are sometimes interpreted as atheistic teachings, such as Buddhism.
The Vedas are the most sacred texts (śruti) in Hinduism. The oldest of them, the Rigveda, at more than 3000 years old, in its youngest books (books 1 and 10) contains evidence for emerging monotheistic thought. Often quoted are pada 1.164.46c,
in 1.164.46c means "One Being" or "One Truth". In Hinduism, views are broad and range from polytheism, monism, dualism, pantheism, panentheism, alternatively called monistic theism by some scholars, to strict monotheism, see Hindu denominations.
Contemporary Hinduism is divided into four major divisions, Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Shaktism, and Smartism . The denominations all believe in one God but differ in their conceptions. The two primary form of differences are between the two monotheistic denominations of Vaishnavism which conceives God as Vishnu and Shaivism, which conceives God as Shiva. Other aspects of God are in fact aspects of Vishnu or Shiva. Smartas, who follow Advaita philosophy, are monists, and view multiple manifestations of the one God or source of being. Hindu monists see one unity, with the personal Gods, different aspects of only One Supreme Being, like a single beam of light separated into colours by a prism, and are valid to worship. Some of the Smarta aspects of God include Devi, Vishnu, Ganesh, and Siva. It is the Smarta view that dominates the view of Hinduism in the West. By contrast with Smarta/Advaita belief, Vaishnavism and Shaivism follows a singular concept of God, or panentheistic monotheism or panentheistic monism.
Many Hindus believe that God has six attributes. However, the actual number of auspicious qualities of God, are countless, with the following six qualities being the most important.
Additionally, many Hindus, including Smartas, believe in God having three aspects as Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, the Trimurti (also called the Hindu trinity.) and these different aspects are part of the one and the same God.
Sikhism is a distinct monotheistic faith that rose in northern India during the 16th and 17th centuries. Sikhs believe in one, timeless, omnipresent, supreme creator. The opening verse of the Guru Granth Sahib, known as the Mool Mantra signifies this:
It is often said that the 1430 pages of the Guru Granth Sahib are all expansions on the Mool Mantra. Although the Sikhs have many names for God, they all refer to the same supreme being.
The earliest examples of monotheism include two Rigvedic (1500 - 1200 BCE) hymns (10.129,130) to a Panentheistic creator God; the Shri Rudram, a Vedic hymn to Rudra, an earlier aspect of Hinduism's Shiva often referred to by the ancient Brahmans as Stiva, a masculine fertility god, expressed monistic theism, and is still chanted today; the Zoroastrian Ahuramazda and Chinese Shang Ti.
In the Ancient Orient, many cities had their own local god, though this henotheistic worship of a single god did not imply denial of the existence of other gods. The Hebrew Ark of the Covenant is supposed (by some scholars) to have adapted this practice to a nomadic lifestyle, paving their way for a singular God. Yet, many scholars now believe that it may have been the Zoroastrian religion of the Persian Empire that was the first monotheistic religion, and the Jews were influenced by such notions (this controversy is still in debate)*.
The iconoclastic cult of the Egyptian solar god Aten was promoted by the pharaoh Akhenaten (Amenophis IV), who ruled between 1358 and 1340 BC. The Aten cult is often cited as the earliest known example of monotheism, and is sometimes claimed to have been a formative influence on early Judaism, due to the presence of Hebrew slaves in Egypt. But even though Akhenaten's hymn to Aten offers strong evidence that Akhenaten considered Aten to be the sole, omnipotent creator, Akhenaten's program to enforce this monotheistic world-view ended with his death; the worship of other gods beside Aten never ceased outside his court, and the older polytheistic cults soon regained precedence.
The worship of polytheistic gods, on the other hand, is seen by many to predate monotheism, reaching back as far as the Paleolithic. Today, monotheistic religions are dominant, though other systems of belief still exist.
| Hebrew | שמע ישראל יי אלהנו יי אחד |
| Common transliteration | Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad |
| English | Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God! The LORD is One! |
The literal word meanings are roughly as follows:
This is a declaration of the fundamental nature of God as being one whole "unity" from the suggestive plurality of the Elohim.
Gen.1:26 And Elohim said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
Elohim is morphologically plural in form in Hebrew, but generally takes singular agreement when it refers to the God of Israel (so the verb meaning "said" in this verse is wayyomer ויאמר with singular inflection, and not wayyomru ויאמרו with plural inflection), and yet in this case the "our" and "us" seems to create a presumption of plurality.
Judaism, however, insists that the "LORD is One," as in the Shema, and at least two interpretations exist to explain the Torah's use of the plural form. The first is that the plural form "Elohim" is analogous to the royal plural as used in English. The second is that, in order to set an example for human kings, Elohim consulted with his court (the angels, just created) before making a major decision (creating man).
However, the Hebrew Bible teaches that, at Creation, Adam and Eve knew God (and so did their descendants) but that over the ages, God and his name were forgotten. This is how one of the most important Jewish sages, Maimonides describes the process in his work the Mishneh Torah:
Judaism claims to have an important advantage over all other religions because its earliest history, beliefs, laws, and practices are preserved and taught in the Torah (the Hebrew Bible) which provides the clearest textual source for the rise and development of what is named Judaism's ethical monotheism which means that:
When Moses returned with the Ten Commandments. The first stated that "you shall have no other gods before me" (Exodus 20:3). Furthermore, Israelites recite the Shema Yisrael ("Hear O' Israel") which partly says, "Hear, O' Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one." Monotheism was and is the central tenet of the Israelite and the Jewish religion.
Some argue that there are various forms of monotheism, including:
On the surface, monotheism is in contrast with polytheism, which believes in worship of many gods/divinities. In actuality there are many faiths that hold both beliefs. For instance, Inclusive monotheism claims that all deities are just different names/forms for the single monotheistic God; Smartism, a major denomination of Hinduism, adheres to this belief in the oneness of God (Brahman/Ishwar) who can be envisioned with different aspects and can be called by different names. Exclusive monotheism, on the other hand, claims that worship of divinities such as angels and gods that are other than the one God is incorrect or demonic, though they may believe in their existence. Many strains of Vaishnavism, a denomination of Hinduism, regards the worship of anyone other than Vishnu as incorrect. Exclusive monotheism is a well-known tenet in the beliefs of the Abrahamic religions.
Dualism, from a western religion's perspective, teaches that there are two independent divine beings or eternal principles, the one good, and the other evil, as set forth especially in early Zoroastrianism (modern Zoroastrianism is strictly monotheistic), but more fully in its later offshoots in Gnostic systems, such as Manichaeism. From the perspective of Hinduism, Dualism (Dvaita) is a monotheistic philosophy that teaches that God is separate from his creation and contrasts with monism. From this perspective, both monistic and dualistic philosophies are monotheistic and are differentiated by their stance in the immanance and transcendence of God.
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