One God, Many Problems: How Monotheism Changed Everything

Monotheism. First and foremost, does the theological concept of Monotheism even exist? It is the most hotly debated spiritual belief style to exist. Let me quickly tangent though because I just said, “spiritual belief style.” That is what the last few posts have been describing rather than specific practices tied to these various styles. Animism and Shamanism are too synonymous to separate so they are belief styles with thousands of specific practices. And I want to quickly add that the vast majority of folk practices fall under this style. We have covered Animism, Polytheism, and Pantheons so far for the purpose of explaining what different styles of belief exist. 

Those first three are kind of the simplest to understand. Animism equates to a belief style where everything that exists has a voice or innate spiritual association. Polytheism classifies spirits and even names them creating deities or beings that stand in as spiritual representatives of everything that exists, both tangible and intangible. Pantheons are hierarchical structures of the beings classified through Polytheism ordered by power and consistent results of those beings. 

Monotheism in the most simplistic definition is a belief style that has a single supreme being that controls everything that exists. Why do I say it that way? Because there is nothing simple about Monotheism. There are more camps of Monotheism than I really care to discuss and so I won’t. Examples though include monistic, dualistic, pluralistic, pantheism which is separate from pantheons of polytheism, and more. There’s a lot, ok? 

The reason for that is because of Monotheism’s belief style of having a single supreme being. The different camps are each trying to explain something different about how that supreme being interacts with the world. Just borrowing briefly from above monistic is most similar to an animist’s view by saying the supreme force or being exists inherently in all things and all things are that supreme being. While dualistic argues that the supreme being and the world are two separated entities with the supreme being overseeing and dictating the events that transpire. See what I mean? It is already getting confusing.

The reason for all of this confusion is because what existed before Monotheism would explain each experience or sensation as a new spiritual being or aspect. It made it easier to keep things separated but in a respectful way. If a storm came and began to ravage an area animists would appeal to the weather as a spirit for guidance or as a plea to subside. Polytheists would go to whatever being  was in control of storms and make petitions asking for them to calm their fury. There was this understanding from these older practices that what was “good” and what was “bad” were not distinct or separated. What brought “bad” could also bring “good” and vice versa. 

Again, Polytheism and the growth of Pantheons gave rise to codifying or classifying spiritual beings/entities/phenomena. Monotheism took this to the next level and added in the power struggle between Good and Evil. Before Monotheism’s rise this was not really a topic. But Monotheism failed to explain how there could be good vs. evil if there was only one supreme spiritual being. Because if there is only one supreme being then that must mean the being in question is both good and evil as animists and polytheists would originally say. But this did not fit within the narrative that early monotheistic beliefs wanted to perpetuate. 

This gave rise to the ideas of either lesser beings who were born of the negative deeds of humanity, extensions of the supreme being as “aspects” of said being diverging from what is “right”, or negative forces outside of the supreme being’s creation that wish to infiltrate and destroy the creations of the supreme being. And we cannot forget the stories of rebellions of the supreme being’s creations. All of these different schools of thought created further logistical issues and confusion. As the stories built bigger and wider the divide between Monotheism and Polytheism got thinner and thinner.

This may have sounded like a slam on Monotheism so far, but there is essential truth to be found in what the early monotheists were trying to impart. There is a source and from that source all things come. And that is a prevalent belief in Animistic and Polytheistic styles. What monotheism was attempting to accomplish with its teachings was to ignore what it would deem “lesser beings” and instead shoot all of our inquiries, prayers, pleas, etc. directly to this ultimate source. And while that sounds good in theory it kind of sucked in actual practice. Which is why monotheists had to then recreate the wheel by incorporating “intermediaries” to assist in the communications to whatever source they preached off. 

The priests/priestesses of Polytheism were originally meant to be more of stewards to the “deities.” Meaning they mostly volunteered to be in service to a deity as a way of garnering favor for their own prayers or to just be in service and devotion. Their tasks were simple like cleaning the temple and tending to the grounds. 

In Monotheism though, the priesthoods (male and female) evolved into what we view them as today, jobs under the guise of a divine calling. They became the “gifted” ones who could talk directly to whatever the ultimate source was and make it easier to relay prayers and petitions on behalf of whomever came calling for assistance. The offerings once left at the feet of the gods were now being used as “payment” or “salary” for this new rendition of priesthoods. Which led to competition as the “quality” of the offerings became important and the higher this status was the more priority was given to that petitioner. 

This eventually bled over into the Polytheistic practices as well which is why we see this trope in media today. Monotheism also brought into existence a codex of rules and stipulations by which one had to live in order to garner additional favor from the supreme being. These rules and stipulations were the origin of what we know today as religion. And so Monotheism gave rise to organized religions, with the oldest three from history being Judaism, Hinduism, and Zoroastrianism. These are still debated heavily today as to which was officially the first. Researchers and archaeologists will find new evidence to support one of the three and for a few years that religion reigns as the oldest. Until older evidence is found to support one of the others.

Polytheism also saw a new trend which resembled religion but was not exactly the same. This was the rise of cultism. I will expand further on both religion and cultism in the next post. 

The key takeaway for this post and Monotheism is that monotheistic views are relegated to a single supreme being that is, in some form or fashion, in control of everything. And that if one desires to seek a higher power they need only that one being and any others would be helpers or detractors from the supreme being’s plans or designs. 

Animism-Everything has a life force, lesson, knowledge, and wisdom. Wisdom can be found by communing with plants, rocks, natural forces, animals, etc.

Polytheism-Different deities are created by us to compartmentalize the governing of what happens in nature and life.

Monotheism-A single being is responsible for everything in existence.

I really did try to simplify this as much as possible because Monotheism could honestly be its own series. I hope it wasn’t to my detriment in explaining. At this stage though I felt it best to just mostly give a good baseline comparison to the previous belief styles. As I said earlier, Monotheistic views do still hold a lot of truth. No more or less than Animism or Polytheism though. They each have their lane overall in how they attempt to explain the extremely complex nature of the universe and cosmic forces. Just different roads to reach the same destinations. 

We are getting deeper into the histories now and for some this kind of information may be a little boring. I promise studying the history of spirituality is worth it to deepen your own practices though. When we forget to look back at history we can be swayed more easily by other people’s misguided prejudices. We also open ourselves to falling into what I call trap religions or cults. While science can be cool and “prove” that we aren’t crazy with our practices, history is how we can reinforce our practices and continue to evolve them. 

I hope to see you on the next leg of this journey. Until then be blessed, drink water, and take all the breaks you feel necessary.