In
theology,
monotheism
(from
Greek "only" and "
God") is the belief that only one
God
exists. The concept of "monotheism" tends to be dominated by the
concept of
God in the
Abrahamic religions, such as
Judaism,
Christianity
and
Islam, and the
Platonic concept of
God as
put forward by
Pseudo-Dionysius the
Areopagite. Some forms of
Hinduism also
use this form of religion.
The concept of monotheism has largely been defined in contrast with
polytheistic and
pantheistic religions, and monotheism tends to
overlap with other
Unitary concepts, such as
monism.
Whereas monotheism is a self-description of religions subsumed
under this term, there is no equivalent self-description for
polytheist religions: monotheism asserts itself by opposing
polytheism, while polytheism does not use the same argumentative
device, as it includes a concept of divine unity despite
worshipping a plethora of gods.
Ostensibly monotheistic religions may still include concepts of a
plurality of the divine. For example, the
Trinity in which God is one being in three personal
dimensions (the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit). Additionally,
most Christian churches teach Jesus to be
two natures , each possessing the full
attributes of that nature, without mixture or intermingling of
those attributes. This view is not shared by all Christians,
notably the
Oriental Orthodox
(
miaphysite) churches. Although Christian
theology reserves worship for the Divine, the distinction between
worshipping the divine nature of Jesus but not the human nature of
Jesus can be difficult for non-Christians (and even Christian
laity) to follow. Christians of the
Catholic tradition
venerate the
Saints, (among
them
Mary), as human beings who had
remarkable qualities, lived their faith in God to the extreme and
are believed to
continue to
assist in the process of salvation for others. The concept of
Monotheism in Islam and Judaism however, is far more direct where
God's oneness is unquestionable and there is no room for the
plurality of God.
Origin and development
The word
monotheism is
derived from the
Greek meaning
"single" and meaning "
God". The
English term was first used by
Henry More
(1614–1687).
The concept sees a gradual development out of notions of
henotheism (worshiping a single god while
accepting the existence or possible existence of other deities) and
monolatrism (the recognition of the
existence of many gods, but with the consistent worship of only one
deity).
In
the Ancient Near East, each
city had a local
patron deity, such as Shamash at Larsa
or Sin at Ur
. The first claims of global supremacy of a
specific god date to the
Late Bronze
Age, with
Akhenaten's
Great Hymn to the Aten
(speculatively connected to
Judaism by
Sigmund Freud in his
Moses and Monotheism). Currents of
monism or monotheism emerge in
Vedic
India in the same period, with e.g. the
Nasadiya Sukta. Philosophical monotheism and
the associated concept of absolute
good
and evil emerges in
Classical
Antiquity, notably with
Plato (c.f.
Euthyphro dilemma), elaborated
into the idea of
The One in
Neoplatonism, later culminating in the
doctrines of
Christology in
Early Christianity and finally (by the
7th century) in the
tawhid in
Islam.
In Islamic theology, a person who spontaneously "discovers"
monotheism is called a
ḥanīf, the original
ḥanīf
being
Abraham.
Austrian anthropologist
Wilhelm
Schmidt in the 1910s postulated an
Urmonotheismus, "original" or "primitive
monotheism."
Varieties
Some argue that there are various forms of monotheism, including:
- Henotheism involves devotion to a
single god while accepting the existence of other gods. Similarly,
monolatrism is the worship of a single
deity independent of the ontological claims regarding that
deity.
- Deism posits the existence of a single
god, or the Designer of the designs in Nature. Some Deists believe
in an impersonal god that does not intervene in the world while
other Deists believe in intervention through Providence.
- Monistic Theism is the type of
monotheism found in Hinduism, encompassing pantheistic and panentheistic monism,
and at the same time the concept of a personal god.
- Pantheism holds that the universe itself is God. The existence of a
transcendent supreme extraneous to nature is denied.
- Panentheism, is a form of monistic
monotheism which holds that God is all of existence, containing,
but not identical to, the Universe. The
'one God' is omnipotent and all-pervading, the universe is part of
God, and God is both immanent and transcendent.
- Substance monotheism, found
in some indigenous African religions, holds that the many gods are
different forms of a single underlying substance.
- Trinitarian monotheism is the belief in
one God with three distinct subsistences; God the Father, God the
Son & God the Holy Spirit.
On the surface, monotheism is in contrast with
polytheism, which is the belief in several
deities. Polytheism is however reconcilable
with
Inclusive monotheism,
which claims that all deities are just different names or forms of
a single god. This approach is common in
Hinduism, e.g. in
Smartism.
Exclusive monotheism, on the
other hand, actively opposes polytheism. Monotheism is often
contrasted with theistic
dualism (ditheism).
However, in dualistic theologies as that of
Gnosticism, the two deities are not of equal
rank, and the role of the Gnostic
demiurge
is closer to that of
Satan in Christian
theology than that of a
diarch on equal
terms with God (who is represented in pantheistic fashion, as
Pleroma).
Early history
In ancient Egypt
Ancient
Middle-Eastern religions may
have worshipped a single God within a pantheon and the abolition of
all others, as in the case of the
Aten cult in
the reign of the
Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten.
Iconoclasm during this pharaoh's rule is
considered a chief origin for the subsequent destruction by some
groups of idols, holding that no other god is before the preferred
deity (dually and subtly acknowledging the existence of the other
gods, but only as foes to be destroyed for their drawing of
attention away from the primary deity).
Other issues such as
Divine Right
of Kings may possibly also stem 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, perhaps exemplify this relationship between the
pharaoh and the heavens.
Zoroastrianism
Zoroastrianism is considered by many
to be the first monotheistic religion.
In Zoroaster's revelation,
Ahura Mazda
is a transcendental and universal
God, the one
uncreated creator (standard appellation) and to whom all worship is
ultimately directed. However, Zoroaster also perceives Mazda to be
completely good, and that his creation is completely good. In
conflict with creation is
anti-creation, evident in the
created world as decay and disorder. There is no "devil" in
Zoroastrianism. The "devil" is "Ahriman", which is actually an
"evil spirit". It faces "Spenta Minyiu", which is the "good spirit"
(but not God). So the "evil spirit" does not confront God. God is
the only supreme Being and its aspects are represented by the seven
angels and by the good spirit. Against this good spirit, there is
an evil spirit, that man cultivates by doing bad things (cheating,
lying, killing, etc.) Man can cultivate this spirit because God
created the man free, so it's the man's role to choose between good
and bad.
In the
Gathas, Zoroaster did not acknowledge
any divinity other than Ahura Mazda.
Zoroastrianism thus can be considered monotheistic insofar as all
worship is ultimately directed to Ahura Mazda. However, unlike
Zurvanite Zoroastrianism, neither revealed
nor present-day Zoroastrianism is monist. At no time did
Zoroastrianism preclude the existence or worship of other
divinities, which are today considered to be aspects or evidence of
creation and hence of the Creator. The invocation of divinities
besides Ahura Mazda is however common practice in Zoroastrian
tradition, and is not necessarily either a sign of henotheism (the
one extreme interpretation) or the worship of pure abstractions
(the other extreme): In the past it was common for an individual,
household or clan to adopt a patron divinity and although several
attempts have been made to define ancient Zoroastrianism on the
evidence of such adoptions - for instance, in inscriptions or in
theophoric names - these are
inherently unsuitable for that purpose.
Abrahamic religions
The major source of monotheism in the modern
Western World is the narrative of the
Hebrew Bible, the source of
Judaism.
Judaism may have received influences from
various non-biblical religions present in Egypt
and Syria
. This
can be seen by the
Torah's reference to
Egyptian culture in Genesis and the
story of Moses, as well as the mention of
Hittite and
Hurrian
cultures of Syria in the Genesis story of Abraham. Although,
orthodox Jews would dispute this based on the Jewish fundamental
that the Torah was received from God on Mount Sinai in 1313 BCE
(Hebrew year 2448). References to other cultures are included to
understand the specific references of the topic discussed or to
give context to the narrative.
In traditional
Jewish thought, which provided
the basis of the
Christian and
Islamic religions, monotheism was regarded as its
most basic belief.
Judaism and Islam have traditionally attempted to interpret
scripture as exclusively
monotheistic whilst Christianity
adopts Trinitarianism, a more complex form of monotheism, as a
result of considering the Holy Spirit to be God, and attributing
divinity to Jesus, a Judean
Jew, in the first century AD, defining him as the
Son of God. Thus, "Father, Son and Holy Spirit".
Monotheism in the Hebrew Bible
In Isaiah 44:6 YHWH (read Adonay) states: "There is no God Beside
Me"
Some scholars interpret the Torah to state that God reveals himself
as the only existing god, while some modern interpretations
maintain that the
Torah takes a position not
of monotheism, but of
monolatrism or
henotheism. God reveals himself not as
the only god, but rather as the god whom Abraham knows (Gen 15:7).
In such a respect, the God of Israel is not God alone, but the God
who was worshipped by Abraham's clan. In this context, the God of
Israel was at the time a type of tribal deity, that although was
worshipped alone, did not explicitly exclude the existence of other
gods, who were not relevant to them.
There are interpretations of the biblical text which hold that in
the early development of Judaism, the possibility of other gods is
left an open question, although by this stage Israel claims that
their god is greater (Ex 18:11). Traditional views differ on this
point. This same subtle shift is shown in 2 Chr 2:5, and could
indicate that Israel understood that the god they recognized was
God alone, and other gods were therefore false. This would be
Monotheism in the proper sense of the word. By the time of
the prophet Isaiah,
Monotheism is solidly and explicitly
accepted. "Thus says the , the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the
of hosts: "I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no
god." (Is 44:6) Thus, the development of the people of Israel to a
true
Monotheism, appears to be a gradual process, with the
exception of Gen 1:1 - which thus casts substantial doubt on the
legitimacy of that hypothesis. It is into this context that
Christianity emerges, and thus Christianity was from the outset
Monotheistic. (John 1:1)
A strictly literal interpretation of Deuteronomy 4:39 excludes the
possibility of henotheism. The verse states: "Know this day, and
take it to heart, that
the is God in
heaven above and on earth below; there is none else." If one were
to view that Deuteronomy is a late addition to the Five Books of
Moses, this would reflect the later adoption of monotheism.
However, if Deuteronomy is taken to be part of the original text,
as it generally is among those who use it as scripture, this would
indicate that the monotheistic concept existed from the time the
Torah was composed.
In the west, the
Hebrew Bible has been
the
primary source describing how and
when Monotheism was introduced into the Middle East and the west.
As believed by followers of some of the
Abrahamic religions, it teaches that
when
Abraham discovered God (
Genesis 12:1-9; 13:14-18; 15 18; and 22), he
thus became the world's first monotheist. According to these, until
then, in
ancient history all
cultures believed in a variety of multiple deities as in
idolatry, forces and creatures of
nature as in
animism, or in
celestial bodies as in
astrology, but did
not know the one and only true
god.
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:
Jewish view
Judaism is the first and oldest known monotheistic faith. The
best-known Jewish statements of monotheism occur in the
Shema prayer, the
Ten Commandments and
Maimonides'
13
Principles of faith, Second Principle:
There has historically been disagreement between the
Hasidic Jews and the
Mitnagdim Jews on various Jewish philosophical
issues surrounding certain concepts of monotheism. A similar
situation of differing views is seen in modern times among
Dor Daim, students of the
Rambam, segments of
Lithuanian Jewry, and portions of the
Modern Orthodox world toward Jewish
communities that are more thoroughly influenced by
Lurianic Kabbalistic
teachings such as
Hasidism and large
segments of the
Sepharadi and
Mizrahi communities. This dispute is likely rooted
in the differences between what are popularly referred to as the
"philosophically inclined" sources and the "
kabbalistic sources;" the "philosophic sources"
include such Rabbis as
Saadia Gaon,
Rabenu
Bahya ibn Paquda,
Abraham ibn Ezra, and
Maimonides. The "kabbalistic sources" include
Rabbis such as
Nahmanides,
Bahya ben Asher, Rabbi
Yitzhak Saggi Nehor, and
Azriel.
The Vilna Gaon is usually granted great respect in
modern times by those who side with both views; by the more
kabbalistic segments of Judaism he is regarded as a great
kabbalist; those who take the other side of the issue regard him as
a strict advocate of the people of Israel
's historical
monotheism.
The Shema
Judaism's earliest
history,
beliefs,
laws, and
practices are
preserved and taught in the
Torah (the
Hebrew Bible) which provides a clear
textual source for the rise and development of what is named
Judaism's
Ethical Monotheism
which means that:
- (1) There is one God from whom emanates one morality for
all humanity. (2) God's primary demand of people is that
they act decently toward one another...The God of ethical
monotheism is the God first revealed to the world in the Hebrew
Bible. Through it, we can establish God's four primary
characteristics:
- God is supernatural.
- God is personal.
- God is good.
- God is holy.
- ...in the study of Hebrew history: Israel's monotheism was
an ethical monotheism. Dennis Prager
When Moses returned with the
Ten
Commandments, the second of those stated that "you shall have
no other gods before me" (
Exodus
20:3), right after the first, which affirmed the existence of God.
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.
The Shema
Hebrew |
שמע ישראל יי אלהנו יי אחד |
Common transliteration |
Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad |
English |
Hear, O Israel! The is our God! The is One! |
The literal word meanings are roughly as follows:
- Shema — 'listen' or 'hear.' The word also implies
comprehension.
- Yisrael — 'Israel', in the sense of the people or congregation
of Israel
- Adonai — often translated as 'Lord', it is used in place of the
Tetragrammaton
- Eloheinu — 'our God', a plural noun (said to imply majesty
rather than plural number) with a pronominal suffix ('our')
- Echad — 'one'
In this case,
Elohim is used in the plural as a form of
respect and not polytheism.
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
vayyomer ויאמר with singular inflection, and not
vayyomru ויאמרו with plural inflection), and yet in this
case the "our" and "us" seems to create a presumption of plurality,
though it may just be God talking to angels and not another
god.
Judaism, however, insists that the " 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).
Christian view
Christians believe in the
Trinity, an idea
which does not conform to unitarian monotheistic beliefs.
Historically, most Christian churches have taught that the nature
of God is a
mystery, in the original, technical meaning;
something that must be revealed by
special revelation rather than deduced
through
general revelation. Among
Early Christians there was
considerable debate over the nature of
Godhead, with some factions arguing for the deity of
Jesus and others calling for a unitarian conception of God. These
issues of
Christology were to form one
of the main subjects of contention at the
First Council of Nicea.
The
First Council of Nicaea, held in Nicaea
in Bithynia (in present-day
Turkey
), convoked by the Roman
Emperor Constantine I in
325, was the first ecumenical
conference of bishops of the Christian
Church, and most significantly resulted in the first uniform
Christian doctrine, called the Nicene Creed. With the creation of the
creed, a precedent was established for subsequent 'general
(
ecumenical) councils of Bishops'
(
Synods) to create statements of belief and
canons of doctrinal
orthodoxy— the intent being to define unity of
beliefs for the whole of
Christendom.
The purpose of the council was to resolve disagreements in the
Church of
Alexandria over the nature of
Jesus in
relationship to the Father; in particular, whether Jesus was of the
same
substance as
God the Father or merely of similar
substance.
St. Alexander of
Alexandria and
Athanasius took the
first position; the popular
presbyter
Arius, from whom the term
Arian controversy comes, took the second. The
council decided against the Arians overwhelmingly (of the estimated
250-318 attendees, all but 2
voted against
Arius).
Christian orthodox traditions (Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic,
Protestant, and Evangelical) follow this decision, which was
codified in 381 and reached its full development through the work
of the
Cappadocian Fathers. They
consider God to be a triune entity, called the
Trinity, comprising the three "Persons"
God the Father,
God
the Son, and
God the Holy
Spirit, the three of this unity are described as being "of the
same substance" ( ). The true nature of an infinite God, however,
is beyond definition, and "the word 'person' is but an imperfect
expression of the idea and is not Biblical. In common parlance it
denotes a separate rational and moral individual, possessed of
self-consciousness, and conscious of his identity amid all changes.
Experience teaches that where you have a person, you also have a
distinct individual essence. Every person is a distinct and
separate individual, in whom human nature is individualized. But in
God there are no three individuals alongside of, and separate from,
one another, but only personal self distinctions within the Divine
essence, which is not only generically, but also numerically,
one."
Some commentaters contend that the trinity originated in the
Pagan Celtic
tradition, in which many gods and goddesses were
tripartite, and that its incorporation into
Christianity is a corruption of the original doctrines, similar to
the adoption of many Pagan gods and goddesses such as
Brigid as Christian
Saints.
Other critics contend that because of the adoption of a tripartite
conception of deity, Christianity is actually a form of
Tritheism or
Polytheism.
This concept dates from the teachings of the Alexandrian Church,
which claimed that Jesus, having appeared later in the Bible than
his "Father," had to be a secondary, lesser, and therefore
"distinct" God. This controversy led to the convention of the
Nicean council in 325 CE.
For
Jews and
Muslims,
the idea of God as a
trinity is
heretical - it is considered akin to
polytheism. Christians overwhelmingly assert that
monotheism is central to the Christian faith, as the very Nicene
Creed (among others) which gives the orthodox Christian definition
of the Trinity does begin with: "I believe in one God".
Some groups that are self-identified as Christians eschew orthodox
theology; such as the
Jehovah's
Witnesses,
Mormonism,
Oneness Pentecostals, the
Unitarians,
Christadelphians,
Church of God
General Conference ,
Socinian and some
of the Radical Reformers (Anabaptists), do not teach the doctrine
of the Trinity at all. The
Rastafarians, like many Christians, hold
that God is both a unity and a trinity, in their case God being
Haile Selassie.
Islamic view
The
holy book of
Islam, the
Qur'an, asserts the
existence of a single and absolute truth that transcends the world;
a unique and indivisible being who is independent of the creation.
The indivisibility of God implies the indivisibility of
God's (called
Allah in
Arabic) sovereignty which in turn leads to
the conception of the universe as just, coherent and moral rather
than as an existential and moral chaos(as in
polytheism). Similarly the Qur'an rejects the
binary modes of thinking such as the idea of a duality of God by
arguing that both
good and evil
generate from God's creative act and that evil forces have no power
to create anything. God in Islam is a universal god rather than a
local, tribal or parochial one; an absolute who integrates all
affirmative values and brooks no evil.
Tawhid constitutes the foremost article of
the Muslim profession. To attribute divinity to a created entity is
the only unpardonable sin mentioned in the
Qur'an.
Muslims believe that
the entirety of the Islamic teaching rests on the principle of
Tawhid (Oneness of God).
Islam is a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the teachings
of the Qur’an, a religious book considered by its adherents to be
the verbatim word of God (Arabic: الله, Allāh), and the Islamic
prophet Muhammad's personally demonstrated examples (collected
through narration of his companions in the volumes of Hadith) for
implementing them. The word Islam is a homograph, having multiple
meanings, and a triliteral of the word salam, which directly
translates as peace. Other meanings include submission, or the
total surrender of oneself to God (see Islam (term)).[1] An
adherent of Islam is known as a Muslim, meaning "one who submits
(to God)".[2][3] The word Muslim is the participle of the same verb
of which Islām is the infinitive. Muslims regard Islam as the
complete and universal version of the original monotheistic faith
revealed to peoples before, including to Adam, Abraham, Moses,
Jesus, and other prophets. Islamic tradition holds that previous
messages have changed and the revelations were distorted.[4]
Religious practices include the Five Pillars of Islam, which are
five duties that unite Muslims into a community.[5] Islamic law
(Arabic: 'شريعة Šarīʿah) touches on virtually every aspect of life
and society, encompassing everything from dietary laws and banking
to warfare and welfare.
Bahá'í view
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
existence. 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 entity. God is taught to be a
personal god in that God is conscious of his
creation and 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 teaches that human
knowledge of God is limited to those attributes and qualities which
are understandable 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 of revealed text they can grow
closer to God. The
obligatory prayers in
the Bahá'í Faith involve explicit monotheistic testimony.
Chinese view
The
orthodox faith system held by most dynasties of China
since at
least the Shang Dynasty (1766 BC)
until the modern period centered on the worship of Shangdi (literally "Above Sovereign", generally
translated as "God") or Heaven as an omnipotent
force. This faith system pre-dated the development of
Confucianism and
Taoism and the introduction of
Buddhism and
Christianity. It has features of monotheism in
that Heaven is seen as an omnipotent entity, endowed with
personality but no corporeal form. From the writings of
Confucius in the
Analects, we find that Confucius himself
believed that Heaven cannot be deceived, Heaven guides people's
lives and maintains a personal relationship with them, and that
Heaven gives tasks for people to fulfill in order to teach them of
virtues and morality. However, this faith system was not truly
monotheistic since other lesser gods and spirits, which varied with
locality, were also worshiped along with
Shangdi. Still,
variants such as
Mohism approached high
monotheism, teaching that the function of lesser gods and ancestral
spirits is merely to carry out the will of
Shangdi, akin
to angels in Western civilization. In
Mozi's
Will of Heaven (天志), he writes:
Worship of
Shangdi and Heaven in ancient China includes the erection
of shrines, the last and greatest being the Temple of
Heaven
in Beijing, and the offering of prayers. The
ruler of China in every Chinese dynasty would perform annual
sacrificial rituals to
Shangdi, usually by slaughtering a
completely healthy bull as sacrifice. Although its popularity
gradually diminished after the advent of Taoism and Buddhism, among
other religions, its concepts remained in use throughout the
pre-modern period and have been incorporated in later religions in
China, including terminology used by early Christians in
China.
Indian religions
Hinduism
In
Hinduism, views are broad and range from
monism,
pantheism to
panentheism – alternatively called
monistic theism by some scholars – to monotheism (also see
Hindu denominations).
Vaishnavism is one of the earliest
implicit manifestations of monotheism in the traditions of Vedas.
Svayam Bhagavan is a
Sanskrit term for the original deity of the Supreme God worshiped
across many traditions of the Vaishnavism, the monotheistic
absolute deity. This term is often applied to
Krishna in some branches of Vaishnavism. Traditions
of Gaudiya Vaishnavas, the
Nimbarka
Sampradaya and followers of
Swaminarayan and
Vallabha considers him to be the source of all
avataras, and the source of
Vishnu himself, or to be the same as
Narayana. As such, he is therefore regarded as
Svayam Bhagavan.
When
Krishna is recognized to be
Svayam
Bhagavan, it can be understood that this is the belief of
Gaudiya Vaishnavism, the
Vallabha Sampradaya, and the
Nimbarka Sampradaya, where
Krishna is accepted to be the source of all other avatars, and the
source of
Vishnu himself. This belief is
drawn primarily "from the famous statement of the
Bhagavatam"(1.3.28). A different viewpoint differing from this
theological concept is the concept of
Krishna as an
avatara of
Narayana or
Vishnu. It should be however noted that
although it is usual to speak of Vishnu as the source of the
avataras, this is only one of the names of the God of
Vaishnavism, who is also known as
Narayana,
Vasudeva and
Krishna and behind each of those names there is a divine figure
with attributed supremacy in
Vaishnavism.
The Rig Veda, the very first book, discusses monotheistic thought.
So does Atharva Veda and Yajur Veda.
"The One Truth, sages know by many names" (
Rig Veda 1.164.46)
"When at first the unborn sprung into being, He won His own
dominion beyond which nothing higher has been in existence"
(
Atharva Veda 10.7.31)
"There is none to compare with Him. There is no parallel to Him,
whose glory, verily, is great." (
Yajur
Veda 32.3)
The number of auspicious qualities of God are countless, with the
following six qualities being the most important:
- Jñāna (Omniscience), defined as the power to know
about all beings simultaneously
- Aishvarya (Sovereignty, derived from the word Ishvara), which consists in unchallenged rule over
all
- Shakti (Energy), or power, which is the capacity to
make the impossible possible
- Bala (Strength), which is the capacity to support
everything by will and without any fatigue
- Vīrya (Vigor), which indicates the power to retain
immateriality as the supreme being in spite of being the material
cause of mutable creations
- Tejas (Splendor), which expresses His self-sufficiency
and the capacity to overpower everything by His spiritual
effulgence
The
Nyaya school of Hinduism has made several
arguments regarding a monotheistic view. The Naiyanikas have given
an argument that such a god can only be one. In the
Nyaya
Kusumanjali, this is discussed against the proposition of the
Mimamsa school that let us assume there were
many demigods (
deva) and sages
(
rishis) in the beginning, who wrote the Vedas
and created the world. Nyaya says that:
[If they assume such] omniscient beings, those endowed
with the various superhuman faculties of assuming infinitesimal
size, and so on, and capable of creating everything, then we reply
that the law of parsimony bids us assume only one such,
namely Him, the adorable Lord.
There can be no confidence in a non-eternal and
non-omniscient being, and hence it follows that according to the
system which rejects God, the tradition of the Veda is
simultaneously overthrown; there is no other way open.
In other words, Nyaya says that the polytheist would have to give
elaborate proofs for the existence and origin of his several
celestial spirits, none of which would be logical, and that it is
more logical to assume one eternal, omniscient god.
Sikhism
Sikhism is a strict monotheistic faith (with some
panentheistic features) that arose 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:
- Transliteration: Ik ōaṅkār(or
ikoo) sat nām karatā purakh nirabha'u niravair akāl mūrat ajūnī
saibhaṁ gur prasād.
- By Guru's Grace ~
The word
"ੴ" is pronounced
"Ik
ōaṅkār" and is comprised to two parts. The first part is
simply:
"੧" - This is simply the digit
"1" in
Gurmukhi signifying
the singularity of the creator. Together the word means:
"There is only one creator god"
It is often said that the 1430 pages of the
Sri 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 Sikh holy scriptures refer to the One God who pervades the
whole of space and is the creator of all beings in the
universe. The following quotation from the
Guru Granth Sahib highlights this
point:
Sikhs believe that God has many names, but they call God
VāhiGurū. The word
Guru means teacher in
Sanskrit.
Sikhs believe that members of other religions such as Islam,
Hinduism and Christianity all worship the same god, and the names
Allah,
Hari,
Raam,
Paarbrahm and
Krsna are frequently mentioned in the Sikh holy
scriptures. The Sikh god is known as the
Akal Purakh (which means "the true immortal") or
Waheguru, the primal being.
Notes
- “Monotheism”, in Britannica, 15th ed. (1986), 8:266.
- Assman, Jan, Monotheism and Polytheism, in Johnston,
Sarah Iles, Ancient Religions, pp. 17, The Belknap Press
of Harvard University (2007), ISBN 978-0-674-02548-6
- The Orthodox Church. Ware, Timothy. Penguin Books,
1997. ISBN 0-14-014656-3
- Monos, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott,
A Greek-English Lexicon, at Perseus
- Theos, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott,
A Greek-English Lexicon, at Perseus
- The compound is current only in Modern Greek. There is a single
attestation of in a Byzantine hymn (Canones Junii 20.6.43;
A. Acconcia Longo and G. Schirò, Analecta hymnica graeca, vol.
11 e codicibus eruta Italiae inferioris. Rome: Istituto di
Studi Bizantini e Neoellenici. Università di Roma, 1978)
-
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/zoroastrianism-the-foundation-of-monotheism.html
- http://www.religioustolerance.org/zoroastr.htm
- http://www.zoroastrianism.cc/discussions_register.html
-
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=isaiah%2044:6-8;&version=49;
- R.G.Vincent, "Monotheism (in the Bible)" in New Catholic
Encyclopedia, (1967), 9:1066.
-
http://bible.ort.org/books/pentd2.asp?ACTION=displaypage&BOOK=1&CHAPTER=12
-
http://bible.ort.org/books/pentd2.asp?ACTION=displaypage&BOOK=1&CHAPTER=13
-
http://bible.ort.org/books/pentd2.asp?ACTION=displaypage&BOOK=1&CHAPTER=15
-
http://bible.ort.org/books/pentd2.asp?ACTION=displaypage&BOOK=1&CHAPTER=18
-
http://bible.ort.org/books/pentd2.asp?ACTION=displaypage&BOOK=1&CHAPTER=22
- Ecumenical, from Koine Greek oikoumenikos, literally meaning worldwide but
generally assumed to be limited to the Roman Empire as in Augustus'
claim to be ruler of the oikoumene/world; the earliest extant uses
of the term for a council are Eusebius' Life of
Constantine 3.6[1] around 338 " " (he convoked an Ecumenical
council), Athanasius' Ad Afros Epistola Synodica in 369[2], and the Letter in 382 to Pope Damasus I and the
Latin bishops from the First Council of
Constantinople[3]
- Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology, page 87
- Vincent J. Cornell, Encyclopedia of Religion, Vol 5,
pp.3561-3562
- Asma Barlas, Believing Women in Islam, p.96
- D. Gimaret, Tawhid, Encyclopedia
of Islam
- Ramadan (2005), p.230
- Homer H. Dubs, "Theism and Naturalism in Ancient Chinese
Philosophy," Philosophy of East and West, Vol. 9, No. 3/4,
1959
- Bhagawan Swaminarayan bicentenary commemoration volume,
1781-1981. p. 154: ...Shri Vallabhacharya [and] Shri
Swaminarayan... Both of them designate the highest reality as
Krishna, who is both the highest avatara and also the source of
other avataras. To quote R. Kaladhar Bhatt in this context. "In
this transcendental devotieon (Nirguna Bhakti), the sole Deity and
only" is Krishna. New Dimensions in Vedanta Philosophy - Page
154, Sahajānanda, Vedanta. 1981
- page 132
- "Early Vaishnava worship focuses on three deities who become
fused together, namely Vasudeva-Krishna, Krishna-Gopala, and
Narayana, who in turn all become identified with Vishnu. Put
simply, Vasudeva-Krishna and Krishna-Gopala were worshiped by
groups generally referred to as Bhagavatas, while Narayana was
worshipped by the Pancaratra sect."
- Essential Hinduism S. Rosen, 2006, Greenwood Publishing
Group p.124 ISBN 0275990060
- Rig Veda: A Metrically Restored Text with an Introduction
and Notes, HOS, 1994
- Atharva Veda: Spiritual & Philosophical
Hymns
- Shukla Yajur Veda: The transcendental
"That"
Further reading
- Dever, William G.; (2003). Who Were the Early
Israelites?, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids,
MI.
- Silberman, Neil A.; and colleagues, Simon and Schuster; (2001)
The Bible Unearthed New York.
- Whitelam, Keith; (1997). The Invention of Ancient
Israel, Routledge, New York.
- Hans Köchler, The Concept
of Monotheism in Islam and Christianity. Vienna: Braumüller,
1982. ISBN 3-7003-0339-4 ( Google Print)
See also
External links