Wikipedia: Monotheism/Talk

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Are these personal definitions, or do theology and philosophy texts use these terms? I have not seen these words used this way before. RK

: Well, they are used by Encyclopedia Britannica, for one thing. -- SJK

Question: Christianity (and Islam?) believe in the existence a force that is opposed to God ("the Devil"). Doesn't this mean that these religions believe in "inclusive monotheism"?

: I think the belief in two roughly equal but opposing forces is called dualism; this is clearly not what Jews, Christians and Muslims believe, as they generally agree that the Devil is a finite being created by God, not an equal or even near-equal "arch-enemy". But I think that that dualism at least comes close to describing Zoroastrianism?. --Wesley

: Many Jews, Unitarians and Muslims look at Christians as dualists. Christians believe in a supernatural being called God and in a similarly powerful supernatural being called Satan. True, one is the father of the other, and one is weaker, but nonetheless they both exist. They have nearly the same relationsip to each other as the two gods of Zoroastrianism (which everyone agrees is dualism). Despite the belief in both of these deities, and despite the belief that one of these deities is also a trinity with three distinct persons in it, its adherenets nonetheless claim to be monotheists. Many Jews, Unitarians, and Muslims find this claim of monotheism to be incomprehensible. In fact, that is one of the main reason that people left Christianity to create Unitarian-Universalism.

I have never met a Jew, Christian or Muslim with such a belief, nor have I ever read a book written that proposes such beliefs. The number of Jews, Chrisitians or Muslims who have such beliefs is likley very small. The only group I know of that had a widespread adoption of what the writer terms "inclusive monotheism" are Hindus. RK

: A lot of (mostly Christian, though some may be Jewish) liberal theologians and philosphers of religion, especially those who study issues of religious pluralism and interreligious dialogue, support some kind of view similar to inclusive monotheism. It also occurs in some branches of Sufism, I believe. -- SJK

: I doubt even half of one percent of Christian laity have such beliefs. I have never met a Chrisitian, Jew or Muslim in my life with such views. What you reder to is the province of academic ivory tower theoology, which is fine, but is not representative of real-world Christianity in any statistically meaningful sense. RK

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Are you sure you really mean "God" and not "god"? In this article it doesn't refer to the god known as "God" by many people. It refers to any god.

I have a question about this sentence:

: The Christian belief in the Trinity is traditionally considered a form of monotheism, although many Muslims and non-Trinitarian Christians (and a few Jews also) would question this classification.

I understand that Muslims and Jews may look at the doctrine of the trinity and see three separate gods, and therefor claim that Christianity is polytheistic. But wouldn't non-Trinitarian Christians deny the Trinity but continue to claim to be monotheistic and deny the Trinity, just like Jews and Muslims? Any specific examples of a Christian group that doesn't claim to be monotheistic? Maybe the Latter-Day Saints???? --Wesley

Both Jehovah's witnesses and Mormons explicitly deny trinitarianism. Jehovah's witnesses believe in one God, and believe that Jesus was a human being that was the son of God. Jesus, for them, was not part of God Himself. Mormons believe in millions of Gods, literally. (Their religion teaches that when a Mormon dies, he or she literally becomes a god of another planet in our galaxy.) However, Mormons only pray to one god, and thus they consider themselves monotheists. They draw a distinction between belief in millions of Gods, and their loyalty and service to one god. Many Jews and Muslims see Mormons as polytheists. The rule of thumb is this: Chrisitians always claim to be monotheists, no matter how many godlike heavenly supernatural deities they believe in. Jews and Muslims believe that any recognition of more than one godlike heavenly supernatural being is, by their definition, polytheism. RK

: Your last sentence is fair enough. :-) Your description of Mormonism sounds a lot like henotheism: lots of gods, but one is better than all the others and therefore is the only one worshipped. How would Jews classify Hinduism, and I wonder how Hindus would classify themselves? In practice, you can observe that they seem to pray to lots of different gods, but I think they would say they're all part of one god, and further that all that exists is ultimately part of Brahman. From one angle it looks polytheistic, from another it might look vaguely monotheistic, and from another more pantheistic. Terminology is tricky. :-) --Wesley

I think Hindus (or at least most Hindus) are simultaneously polytheists, inclusive monotheists, and pantheists (or more accurately monists). A big problem with Hinduism though is that, historically at least, there are lots of different groups with lots of different views, especially on the relationship between God and the universe... (lookup a list of the main schools of Hindu philosophy and you will see what I mean.) -- SJK

I believe that there is a difference between saying "there is one god" and "there is one God", because in theory a single lower-case "god" could just be a finite immortal being with great powers, whereas a monotheistic "God" is frequently lly seen as (depending on the variant of monotheism you subscribe to, of course) an infinite source or ground of the universe. To me there is a fundamental qualitative difference between a lot of conceptions of a monotheistic God and polytheistics gods, rather than just a quantitative difference in the number of gods you believe in. So, to avoid the controversy in the opening sentence, I rewrote it slightly, avoiding the use of either god or God (and instead using "deity"), and trying to emphasize the qualitative aspects of the way monotheism frequently differs from polytheism.

Suggest the following concluding passage to replace the final two paragraphs.

: The three main Western religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, are monotheistic. The Christian doctrine of the Trinity is understood by Christians to represent a monotheistic view. Some others see the trinity as representing a polytheistic (three gods).

Ed Poor