Monotheism

MONOTHEISM. —

I. THEOLOGY

The unity of God flows as a logical consequence from the idea of God as taught by Catholic philosophy and theology. Conceived as the most perfect being, pure spirit, an utterly simple entity, such as to exclude every composition, in whatever substantial or accidental, physical, metaphysical, or logical order (Sum. Theol., 1ª, q. 3), as pure act, as being itself subsistent, in whom no real distinction is possible between suppositum and nature, he can only be unique and distinguished in a supereminent manner from every entity. He must rise above all beings, and the relation of the universe in general, and of every individual thing in particular, to God can only be that of creature to creator. And this title of creator must belong to him in the broadest sense of the word, as the universal artificer from nothing « ex nihilo », ἐκ τοῦ μὴ ὄντος.

There are thus two essential elements of a true m.: one God, creator of all things. Any other conception that does not respect these two elements necessarily departs from pure m. and slips into ambiguous forms, either toward pantheism or toward disguised systems of polytheism.

Although reason is capable of forming such an idea of God and arriving at m., in fact no philosophical system has attained a clear conception of the unity of God. Greek philosophy, even in its highest conception and in its greatest representatives, remained far from true m. It lacked a clear concept of the unity of God because it lacked the exact concept of efficient causality, and therefore stopped at a dualistic conception (Plato and Aristotle) or, worse, degenerated into pantheism (Xenophanes, Plotinus). Only during the period of the first Christian propagation did pagan intellectuals, especially the Neoplatonic philosophers, appreciating the superiority of m. over polytheism, seek to lead their polytheism toward a m. « sui generis » through the Hellenic conception of the monarchy of a supreme God and subordinate gods. But this was scarcely more than a middle way between polytheism and m.

From Revelation, however, it is known that humanity had originally received the true idea of God through supernatural manifestation and that m. thus preceded polytheism: indeed, the latter was nothing but a corruption of the former. (Gen. 1 ff., Wis. 13-16; Rom. 1, 18 ff.). Moreover, this is a scientifically justified and justifiable thesis even from the sole comparative study of religions (deliberately disregarding every revelation) (v. below). But polytheism subsequently submerged m. throughout the world, so that the m. of the people of Israel (unquestionably admitted, at least from the prophets onward; for Catholics it existed from the moment of Abraham’s election as ancestor of the chosen people) remained an originality amid the Euro-Asian world, without parallel in the civilized Greco-Roman world until Christ. Such a singular phenomenon, unless one wishes to take refuge a priori in a skepticism denying every possibility of the supernatural, cannot be explained without a true miracle of the moral order (cf. V. Laridon, De monotheismo populi Israèl, in Collat. Brugens., 45 [1947], pp. 62-77, 148-57).

With the knowledge of God perfected in the New Testament through the clearer revelation of the Holy Trinity (v.), m. remained at the foundation of Christian faith.

This truth was confirmed by the preaching of Christ and the Apostles (cf. Mt. 19, 16-17; Mk. 10, 17-18; Lk. 18, 18-19; and again: Mt. 4, 10; Mk. 12, 30; Lk. 4, 8; 10, 27: the common source of these latter texts is Deut. 6, 5; cf. also I Cor. 8, 4-6). Subsequently, as A. Harnack rightly observes, the contrast between m. and polytheism was truly, down to the third century, the most acute and important point in the relations between Christianity and paganism (Missione e propagazione del cristianesimo nei primi tre secoli, Turin 1906, p. 16). In the Creed the first article reads: we believe in one God. The formula: εἰς ἕνα θεόν begins to appear only when sufficiently developed symbolic formulas begin to be found: in the East at the end of the second century, throughout the third century and until the beginning of the fourth, when this expression officially became a characteristic element of the Eastern Symbol (Formula of Nicaea, 325; Denz-U, n. 54). In the West, at Rome, where the history of the Symbol is better known, literary tradition traces it back to the end of the first century (Hermas, Mond., I, 1; F. Funk, Patres Apostolici, I, 2nd ed., Tübingen 1901, p. 468), although it disappeared between the end of the second century and the beginning of the third, for fear of lending itself to a Monarchian interpretation.

In the earliest Christian writers, in the attempt to reconcile faith in one God with the Trinitarian dogma—an attempt merely adumbrated in rudimentary efforts at interpretation among the first apologists—traces of subordinationism (Justin) or modalism (Athenagoras) may be found, but it is too evident that these fleeting suggestions, even if they can be taken in a bad sense, are unintended.

From the end of the second century and the beginning of the third, the Christian controversialists brought to life the conflict between the unitarian and Trinitarian schools: the former exaggerated the monarchy at the expense of the Trinity, while the latter, relying too heavily on the distinction of the Persons, drew upon itself the accusation of ditheism. But after long and profound examination, the two extreme theses were rejected and an accord was established, insofar as the human mind could discern it, between the two apparently contradictory notions: the unity of God and the Trinity of Persons.

Thus the formula of the first Roman Symbol would still be the formula of the Nicene Symbol and of the Constantinopolitan Symbol (πεντεύομεν εἰς ἕνα θεόν: Denz-U, 54, 86), the formula of the Athanasian Symbol (“The Catholic faith is this, that we venerate one God in the Trinity and the Trinity in unity, neither confusing the Persons nor separating the substance... the divinity is one” [Denz-U, 29]), the faith of the Church in God “one in essence, three in persons” (Decretum pro Jacobitis: ibid., 703).

As Fr. Pinard de la Boullaye observed, the first to oppose this thesis, reversing it, was D. Hume in the Natural History of Religion (1757), asserting that the first and most ancient religion of humanity was, and necessarily had to be, polytheism and idolatry, the religion of all the savage peoples of the world. This theory was followed by J. J. Rousseau in the Émile (1762), and by A. Comte in his Course of Positive Philosophy (1830–42), who added and placed before polytheism fetishism, another religious form, now shown not to have existed, of which De Brosses had spoken in his work Du culte des dieux fétiches (1757). Tylor also followed the same theory in Primitive Culture (1871), which posited animism as the first foundation of humanity’s religious evolution. Thus, according to this theory, which was defined as the “classical” theory of evolutionism, m. would have been reached through two stages: animism and polytheism. All evolutionists are linked to this theory, which conceives m. as the final stage in humanity’s religious evolution; they believe it impossible that human beings could initially have possessed ideas as elevated as monotheistic ones, as do also those scholars who, while admitting belief in supreme Beings among the ethnologically most ancient peoples, do not regard it as m., or else speak of an original religious polymorphism.

The exploration of individual primitive peoples also prompted a reaction against evolutionary theories of religion (v. Dio, III). The first to react was the Scotsman A. Lang (The Making of Religion, London 1898), observing that primitive peoples neither deny nor affirm the spiritual character of God: they have not yet concerned themselves with this “metaphysical” question; they see in God simply a Being, specifically a Being who truly exists, and for them that is sufficient. It is excluded that the idea of a spirit, generated by the phenomena of death, played any part in this conception, since it is almost always dominated by the explicit conviction that this Being has existed from eternity, that he existed at least before death, and that he can never die. Lang also demonstrated that this m. could not have derived from manism or religious animism, since among primitive peoples in particular, such as the south-eastern Australians, the southern Andamanese, the Semang, and the Negritos of the Philippines, ancestor-worship does not exist, or at least does not exist in religious form, associated with cultic practices; nor does any form of veneration of the spirits of nature exist. Against Tylor’s animist theory, which denied any connection between morality and religion, Lang observed that if manism and animism were not the sources of the m. found among the most primitive peoples, no theoretical basis remained for denying the ethical character of their religion. In fact, it is known that these primitive peoples have moral laws; indeed, according to their beliefs, these laws proceed from the will of the supreme Being, who, with his omniscience, watches over their observance, with his justice rewards their fulfilment, and punishes their transgression in this life and often also in the next. A more intimate connection between religion and morality is not found even in the highest types of religion, apart from the conception, held by these religions, that God himself is good and holy by nature. The content of these peoples’ social laws is also substantially consistent with our own. Lang rightly points out that these laws invariably require acts of altruism and self-denial.

E. Sydney Hartland, one of Lang’s most authoritative opponents, likewise acknowledged that the facts presented by Lang had until then received little consideration in ethnology; Tylor himself, against whose theory they were directed, attributed them to Christian and Muslim influences. Nevertheless, Lang’s theory did not immediately receive the recognition it deserved: to admit among primitive peoples any form of m. meant, for evolutionary ethnologists, abandoning all their doctrines of evolution by stages, which they could not do. Recognition came gradually, however, and its most authoritative confirmation is the monumental work of Fr. W. Schmidt, Der Ursprung der Gottesidee (Münster in V.; not yet complete: the first six volumes [1912–35] concern the peoples known as gatherers, and the other three [1940–49] the pastoral peoples [V. Dio, III, 1]).

In his study Monotheismus und Polytheismus (in Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, IV, Tübingen 1930; Italian ed. 1945), Pettazzoni observed that, “once Tylor’s prejudice against a possible infiltration of monotheistic ideas (Christianity, Islam) among savages had been overcome, the supreme beings of primitive peoples, however differently conceived by individual scholars, could be regarded (N. Söderblom) as antecedents of the individual supreme gods of polytheistic and monotheistic religions, and employed in the formation of a new general theory concerning the formation and development of m.” This is his particular theory, called “uranism” by Fr. Pinard de la Boulaye.

But the great antiquity of primitive m. has been demonstrated in the work cited, Der Ursprung der Gottesidee, where the author, after analysing in detail the religion of the ethnologically most ancient peoples, offers “a final synthesis of the most ancient common religion of humanity.” He first notes the absence of pseudo-religious or anti-religious manifestations such as naturism, animism, manism, and magic, which were instead highly developed in the ethnologically more recent civilizations. The reason for the absence of these various kinds of manifestations lies in the relative clarity and vitality of the m. of these peoples. He emphasizes the unity, form, name, and dwelling-place of the supreme Being; his characteristics—immensity, omniscience, omnipotence, and infinite clemency; his functions—the creative power and his relations with ethics; and finally their religious attitude toward the supreme Being, manifested especially through prayer and the first-fruit sacrifice. Now, since such an m. cannot have arisen through the influence of peoples belonging to more recent civilizations, nor can it be explained by parallel independent development, it must necessarily be regarded as a common spiritual inheritance, possessed before their separation from the common homeland. Concerning the relation between this common religion and the original one, the author concludes that, in the common religion of the most ancient humanity, belief, obedience, and religious worship were certainly directed toward the one great and powerful figure of the supreme Being. Thus, at the origin there existed a pure and ethical m., as the ancient thesis mentioned at the beginning held.

2. The Origin of m. — Some scholars (such as Fr. Schmidt, Fr. Koppers, and others), while considering a natural origin possible, find it insufficient and admit a supernatural origin; evolutionists and agnostics, on the other hand, reject every supernatural origin and seek a natural one. Evidently, any explanation of m. must clarify all its essential and characteristic aspects: belief, worship, and ethics.

The natural causal thought of the most ancient men, notes Fr. Schmidt, led to the concept of creation, and final thought to that of the moral ordering of this world and the next, so that the most ancient men, through their own thought, could attain their religion and initiate it by themselves. But this purely natural search and inquiry could not continue for long without giving rise to numerous differences of conception. Thus, the causal and final thought of the most ancient men cannot explain the unity and compactness of that most ancient religion, with all its inner vitality and emotional power, and with the clarity and stability of its beliefs and forms of worship. Confirmation is found in the history of philosophy, which shows a great variety of philosophical systems. In fact, thought is originally individual and is affected by the differences among individuals.

R. H. Lowie likewise reaches the same conclusions as Fr. Schmidt, explaining m. by a « type of philosophical coordination », whereby all the powers of the universe

are placed under a single head; but he asks: how can one person’s thought be accepted and become the belief of all, as is precisely the religious belief concerning the supreme beings of primitive peoples? The same applies to C. Clemen, although he gives a natural explanation of the origin of these supreme beings. An Urheber (originator, maker), which, he said, at first satisfied only the causal requirement, effectively found a place both beside the forces that had first been discovered in things and beside the spirits that were admitted later, because initially it will not have been worshipped at all. The supreme beings of primitive peoples, since they had not had religious importance at the beginning, were, according to him, something standing apart, which had no direct connection with the other beliefs.

J. W. Hauer likewise holds that the origin of religion cannot be explained by the thought of causality and finality alone, and proposes an explanation based on the totality of religious forces, from which religious polymorphism arises. He maintains that there was not a time when magic prevailed, followed by another period in which a different religious form prevailed; rather, at every stage of development all the religious forces act together. Nevertheless, at each important stage one force occupies the centre, so that there is a phase—for example, that of belief in a father God—while the other forces, with their corresponding phases, group themselves more or less clearly at the root, all around the centre. When the history of religious development is lacking, one should, according to him, have recourse to this law of polymorphism, which manifests itself more or less rhythmically. He proposed the following sequence of evolutionary stages: belief in mana combined with magic, followed by primitive panpsychism; belief in spirits, with the consequent polydaemonism; telluric m. (mother earth); development of telluric polytheism; celestial m. (father sky); celestial and astral divinities; spiritual and moral m. In his brief study La religione preanimista, R. R. Marett does not admit a rational origin of religion, but only an emotional one. According to him, an almost universal feeling of respect, fear, and admiration, « the vague but terrifying attributes of power », would have been the starting points of religion. It would then have been directed primarily toward « something mysterious or supernatural », which was felt but not known. Very soon, however, according to the author, « a powerful impulse arises in the realm of human thought to objectify, indeed to personify, that something mysterious or supernatural which is felt ». Besides this, there are other theories of a magical-intellectual, voluntaristic, and sociological orientation that seek to explain the origin of religion. Further explanations of the origin of m. depend on the different concept one has of m. Pettazzoni, for example, admits, as has been mentioned, that m. derives from the supreme beings of primitive peoples through polytheism: Supreme Beings — Polytheism — M. He therefore defines m. as belief in and worship of a single divinity, with the explicit denial of all others; hence m. does not stand at the beginning but at the end of religious history. At the beginning, according to him, there is a variety of elementary religious forms (perhaps corresponding to a variety of fundamental types of religious experience), one of which is belief in a supreme being. But this belief, he adds, adducing various reasons, is not sufficient to establish scientifically primordial m.

Since, then, a natural origin is insufficient to explain primitive m., Fr. Schmidt was compelled to seek a supernatural origin. The most ancient common religion of humanity cannot be understood, he observes, in its totality, fullness, and characteristics, unless one admits the existence and action of God, who created this religion by personally teaching the men of that time the beliefs, moral laws, and acts of worship. And after pointing out that an explanation of the phenomenon through an impersonal being is inadmissible, as is also one through a personal being created by human thought

and imagination, but that one must instead admit a real personal being who influenced man from without, he concludes: « Who this powerful personality is, there can be no doubt; moreover, the most ancient peoples themselves tell us: it is the truly existing Supreme Being, the real creator of heaven and earth and especially of men, who came among his beloved creatures, men, and revealed to them himself, his own being and his work, immediately after creation, while he dwelt in friendly companionship with men and disclosed himself to their thought, will, and feeling ».

The creation festivals mentioned by Schmidt exist among the North-Central Californians and the Eastern and Western Algonquins of North America. They are ritual festivals that have assumed the character of commemorations and are celebrated almost every year as acts of gratitude, repeating in sacramental form, for four, nine, or twelve days, the scenes of the creation of the world and of man, in order also to implore God’s help and grace at the present time for the family, the tribe, and the whole world, thus renewing in a certain manner the work of the creation of the world.

If one admits the unity of origin of the human race, as the majority of anthropologists, linguists, and ethnologists now hold, and if one further admits that God directly created not only the soul but also the body of the first men, one must recognize that the first men, as Fr. Schmidt himself pointed out, had culturally and religiously need of extraordinary assistance—assistance made even more necessary after original sin.

J. W. Hauer non accetta la tesi dello Schmidt, che Dio abbia rivelato all'uomo il processo della creazione, ma riconosce che le radici della religione sono ancora più profonde dell'attività della coscienza e dell'esperienza religiose, che si analizzano psicologicamente e che forse con una forte immedesimazione è possibile riprodurre (nachschaffen), cioè sono insite nella stessa « Ultima Realtà » che tutto muove e che non si è lasciata immanifesta al cuore dell'uomo, non eccettuato quello dell'uomo dei popoli primitivi, anzi, della più antica umanità, perché, secondo lui, è impossibile che il fatto di essere sostenuti dall'Ultima Realtà (Dio), che è certamente il contenuto di ogni credo, non si riveli all'uomo che si sveglia alla coscienza. Osservazione importante, questa Difatti, ammessa l'esistenza di Dio, come può dimostrarla la ragione umana, non si può escludere l'influsso divino nel mondo, sicché ogni scienza storica che negasse a priori questa possibilità, rinunzierebbe al nome di scienza storica. Perciò non sembra giusta la seguente conclusione della suddetta osservazione dello Hauer: « Riconducendo la religione alle ultime fonti di ogni vita e creazione, usciamo indubbiamente dal campo della scienza ed entriamo in quello dell'esperienza e della persuasione religiosa ». È noto che i fatti mistici sono oggetto di studio per distinguerli da quelli che non sono di origine divina.

Non raramente negli ambienti evoluzionistici si rimproverano gli studiosi credenti nella Rivelazione di volere derivare direttamente a tutti i costi il m. attuale dei primitivi dal m. primordiale. Ma giustamente, come ha scritto il Koppers, non ci si è mai neppure sognati di far questo e non si dovrebbe nemmeno supporre una tale mancanza di metodo. La vera posizione invece è la seguente: la Rivelazione della religione cristiana insegna che gli uomini più antichi, i primi, ebbero la conoscenza di Dio. Ma per dimostrare apologeticamente nell'ambito stesso della religione la verità della Rivelazione, non è affatto necessario che si scopra il m. presso i popoli primitivi. Il metodo etnologico insegna che anche un popolo primitivo con l'andar degli anni può perdere la sua fede in Dio e altri elementi della sua religione. Difatti alla luce delle ultime ricerche si può ritenere oggi verosimile che determinati gruppi di popoli del Pacifico, ad es., della Melanesia e Nuova Guinea, abbiano veramente avuto di tali oscuramenti. Ma d'altra parte è ormai accertato che i relativi dati scientifici, e primieramente il

teismo abbastanza chiaro e preciso riscontrato presso i popoli etnologicamente più antichi, parlano a favore del m. primordiale, più che delle note teorie evoluzionistiche della religione, le quali considerano, e dal loro punto di vista vi sono costrette, l'idea di un solo, supremo Iddio come il prodotto ultimo dell'evoluzione. Perciò la « via obbligata », che viene rimproverata tanto volentieri agli studiosi credenti nella Rivelazione non è affatto propria di questi ultimi, ma piuttosto degli altri.

La surriferita tesi del p. Schmidt sull'origine soprannaturale del m. primitivo si ricongiunge, evidentemente, con quell'antica tradizionale, esposta al principio. Tuttavia egli, come ha riaffermato in una recente nota critica (In der Wissenschaft nur Wissenschaft [in Anthropos, 1931]) contro K. Birket-Smith, non presenta la sua tesi come « in tutto esauriente e definitiva », ma come scientificamente giustificata e giustificabile.

Provata storicamente l'esistenza di una rivelazione primordiale, ne viene di conseguenza una dimostrazione storica dell'esistenza di Dio. E. F. Lipowski (op. cit. in bibl.) la presenta così: la deduzione, che la religione primordiale è rivelazione di Dio, ha una grande importanza anche per la dimostrazione storica di Dio. Questa, infatti, può venire annoverata conseguentemente nella serie delle dimostrazioni causali. Una formulazione logica di questa dimostrazione può essere, ad es., la seguente: la religione primordiale è una religione pienamente valida. Tale religione è esistita, come confermano le concezioni religiose dei popoli antichi residuali (cioè etnologicamente più primitivi). L'uomo dei tempi primordiali non era in grado di creare questa religione nella sua unità e compiutezza, come è stato dimostrato nel corso dell'esposizione. Quindi deve averla creata qualcun altro. Questo creatore della religione fu Dio stesso, che si rivelò agli uomini. Il fatto della religione primordiale esige logicamente l'esistenza di Dio, perché senza l'esistenza e l'azione diretta di Dio non può appunto essere spiegata nella sua pienezza, nella sua totalità e nelle sue caratteristiche.

La dimostrazione storica, che voleva provare l'esistenza di Dio dall'universalità della credenza in Dio, non ha più piena validità, perché doveva presupporre l'esistenza di Dio. Essa, quindi, non è più pienamente giustificata, perché nella prova si doveva già presupporre l'esistenza di Dio. Perciò non viene più accettata nella sua forma finora usuale. Se però ad essa si ricollegano i nuovi fatti storico-religiosi, allora si ha una nuova specie della prova storica di Dio, « la prova di Dio storico-religiosa », che dev'essere annoverata tra le dimostrazioni causali di Dio. Essa non presuppone l'esistenza di Dio, ma la esige solo logicamente dai fatti concreti dell'etnologia religiosa.

introduction to cultural anthropology, Nuova York 1947, pp. 324-327; G. Koppers, Der Urmensch und sein Weltbild, Vienna 1949, pp. 35, 218, 235, 231 sq.; W. Schmidt-W. Koppers, Manuale di metodologia etnologica, trad. it., Milano 1949, pp. 239-41; W. Schmidt, Geist und Ethos des Menschen der Urkultur, in Wissenschaft und Weltbild, V. 7. s. für alle Gebiete der Forschung, Vienna 1949, pp. 11-20; id., In der Wissenschaft nur Wissenschaft, in Anthropos, 1951, pp. 611-14; V. BIBLICA. della voce pro, III. Dio presso i popoli primitivi). Luigi Vannicelli