MONOTHEISM. -
I. THEOLOGY
M. (from the Greek monos, "one," and theos, "God") is the doctrine that teaches that there is only one God, since, given His nature, He does not admit other gods similar to Himself.The unity of God follows as a logical consequence from the idea of God as taught by Catholic philosophy and theology. Conceived as the most perfect Being, pure Spirit, the simplest Entity, excluding all composition in any substantial or accidental, physical, metaphysical, or logical order (Sum. Theol., 1a, q. 3), as pure Act, as Ipsum Esse Subsistens, in which no real distinction is possible between supposit and nature, He cannot be anything but unique and distinguished in a supereminent manner from every other being. He must rise above all beings, and the relationship of the universe in general, and of each individual thing in particular, to God can only be that of creature to Creator. Moreover, this title of Creator must belong to Him in the broadest sense of the word, as the universal Artificer from nothing, «ex nihilo,» *ex oὖ μή ὄντος*.
There are thus two essential elements in true monotheism: one God, Creator of all. Any other conception that does not respect these two elements necessarily deviates from pure monotheism and slips into ambiguous forms, either toward pantheism or toward latent systems of polytheism.
Although it is within the power of reason to form such an idea of God and to arrive at monotheism, in fact no philosophical system has ever 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 monotheism. It lacked a clear concept of the unity of God because it lacked an exact concept of efficient causality and thus stopped at a dualistic conception (Plato and Aristotle) or, worse, degenerated into pantheism (Xenophanes, Plotinus). Only in the period of the early spread of Christianity did ethnic intellectuals, especially the Neoplatonic philosophers, appreciating the superiority of monotheism over polytheism, attempt to lead their polytheism toward a monotheism "sui generis" with the Hellenic conception of the monarchy of a supreme God and subordinate gods. But it was merely a halfway house between polytheism and monotheism.
From Revelation, however, it is known that man originally had the true idea of God as a supernatural manifestation, and that monotheism was thus anterior to polytheism; indeed, the latter was nothing more than a corruption of the former. (Gen. 1 ff., Wis. 13-16; Rom. 1:18 ff.). Moreover, even from the mere comparative study of religions (deliberately ignoring every revelation), this thesis is scientifically justified and justifiable (see below). But polytheism then submerged monotheism in the world, so that the monotheism of the people of Israel (undisputedly admitted, at least from the time of the prophets onwards, by Catholics as existing from the moment of Abraham’s election as the patriarch of the chosen people) remained an originality in the midst of the Euro-Asiatic world, such that it had no counterpart in the Greco-Roman civilized world until Christ. A phenomenon so singular, unless one wishes to take refuge a priori in a scepticism that denies every possibility of the supernatural, cannot be explained without a true miracle of a moral order (cf. V. Lariod, *De monotheismo populi Israël*, in *Collat. Brugens.*, 45 [1947], pp. 62-77, 148-57).
The knowledge of God was perfected in the New Testament with the clearer revelation of the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity (see), and monotheism remained at the foundation of Christian faith.
This truth was confirmed by the preaching of Christ and the Apostles (cf. Matt. 19:16-17; Mark 10:17-18; Luke 18:18-19; and again: Matt. 4:10; Mark 12:30; Luke 4:8; 10:27: the common source of these latter texts is Deut. 6:5; cf. also 1 Cor. 8:4-6). And subsequently, as A. Harnack rightly observes, the contrast between monotheism
sec. III, the most bitter and significant 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 runs: "We believe in one God." The formula: "et, etc, et, etc, et, et, etc, et, etc, et, et, etc, et, etc, et, et, etc, et, etc, et, et, etc, et, etc, et, et, etc, et, etc, et, et, etc, et, etc, et, et, etc, et, etc, et, et, etc, et, etc, et, et, etc, et, etcI cannot translate this input because it consists solely of the Latin word "et" and the abbreviation "etc," repeated without any meaningful text, context, or structure to translate.It appears that the input provided consists solely of the word "et" and "etc" repeated multiple times without any discernible structure or meaningful content. As such, there is no encyclopedia article or structured text to translate.
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The Pettazzoni, in his study *Monotheismus und Polytheismus* (in *Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart*, IV, Tübingen 1930; Italian ed. 1945), noted how «the prejudice (of Tylor) regarding a possible infiltration of monotheistic ideas (Christianity, Islam) among savages having been overcome, the supreme beings of primitives, however diversely conceived by individual scholars, could be considered (N. Söderblom) as antecedents of the supreme gods of polytheistic and monotheistic religions, and employed in the formulation of a new general theory on the formation and development of monotheism; and this is his particular theory, called by Fr. Pinard de la Boullaye ‘uranism’.»
But the high antiquity of primitive monotheism was demonstrated in the aforementioned work *Der Ursprung der Gottesidee*, where the author, after analyzing in detail the religion of the ethnologically oldest peoples, makes «a final synthesis of the most ancient common religion of humanity.» And there he primarily notes the absence of pseudo- or anti-religious manifestations, such as naturism, animism, manism, and magic, which instead are highly developed in ethnologically more recent civilizations. The reason for the absence of these various kinds of manifestations lies in the relative clarity and vitality of monotheism among these peoples. He emphasizes the unity, figure, name, and abode of the Supreme Being; its characteristics: immensity, omniscience, omnipotence, and infinite clemency; its functions: creative power and ethical relations; and finally their religious attitude toward the Supreme Being, which is manifested especially in prayer and the primal sacrifice. Now, since such monotheism cannot derive from the influence of peoples of more recent civilization, nor can it be explained by independent parallel development, it must necessarily be regarded as a common spiritual heritage, possessed before the separation from the common homeland. Regarding the relationship 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 single, great, and powerful figure of the Supreme Being. Therefore, at the origin there existed a pure and ethical monotheism, as maintained by the ancient thesis referred to at the outset.
2. *The origin of monotheism.* — Some scholars (such as Fr. Schmidt, Fr. Koppers, and others), while admitting a natural origin as possible, find it insufficient and admit a supernatural origin; evolutionists and agnostics, on the other hand, reject any supernatural origin and seek a natural one. Clearly, every explanation of monotheism must account for all its essential and characteristic aspects: belief, worship, and ethics.
The natural causal thought of the earliest men, notes Fr. Schmidt, led to the concept of creation, and final thought to that of the moral ordering of this and the other world, so that the earliest men, through their own thought, were able to attain and initiate from themselves their own religion. But this purely natural research and inquiry could not long endure without giving rise to numerous diversities of conception. Therefore, the causal and final thought of the earliest men cannot explain the unity and consistency of that most ancient religion with all its internal vitality and emotivity, 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. Indeed, thought is originally individual and is affected by the differences among individuals.
R. H. Lowie reaches the same conclusions as Fr. Schmidt, explaining the matter with a “type of philosophical coordination,” by which all the powers of the universe are placed under a single head; but he asks: how is it that the thought of one can be accepted and become the belief of all, as is precisely the case with the religious belief in supreme beings among primitives? Likewise, C. Clemen, while giving a natural explanation for the origin of these supreme beings. A *Urheber* (author, maker), who, he says, at first satisfied only the causal exigency, actually found a place both alongside the forces that were first discovered in things and alongside the spirits that were admitted later, because at first it would not have been venerated at all. The supreme beings of primitives, having had no religious importance at the beginning, according to him, were something apart, having nothing directly to do with other beliefs.
Also J. W. Hauer holds that the origin of religion cannot be explained by causality and finality alone, and proposes its explanation from the complex of religious forces, from which religious polyphony arises. He thinks there was never a time when magic dominated, followed by a subsequent period in which another religious form dominated; rather, in every phase of development all religious forces act together. Hence, in every important phase there is at its center one force, so that there is, for example, a phase of belief in a father-god, while the other forces with their corresponding phases are more or less clearly grouped around this center. When the history of religious development is lacking, one should, according to him, resort to this law of polymorphism, which manifests itself more or less rhythmically. He proposed this sequence of evolutionary stages: faith in *mana* combined with magic, then primitive panpsychism; faith in spirits with consequent polydaemonism; telluric mana (mother-earth); development of telluric polytheism; celestial mana (father-heaven); celestial and astral deities; spiritual and moral mana.
R. R. Marrett, in his brief study on *Pre-animistic Religion*, does not admit a rational origin of religion, but only an emotional one. According to him, a nearly universal feeling of awe, fear, admiration, “the vague but terrifying attributes of power,” would have been the starting points of religion. Religion would then have been directed first toward “something mysterious or supernatural,” which was felt but not known. Soon, however, according to the author, “there arises in the region of human thought a powerful impulse to objectify, indeed to personify that mysterious or supernatural something which is felt.” Besides this, there are other theories of a magical-intellectual, voluntaristic, or sociological bent that seek to explain the origin of religion.
Further explanations of the origin of mana depend on the different concept one has of mana. Pettazzoni, for example, admits—as has been noted—that mana derives from the supreme beings of primitives through polytheism: *Supreme Beings* – Polytheism – Mana. He therefore defines mana as the belief and worship of a single divinity with the explicit denial of all others, so that mana is not 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 such belief, he adds, does not, for various reasons, serve to establish scientifically the primordial nature of mana.
Therefore, since a natural origin is insufficient to explain primitive monotheism, Fr. Schmidt was compelled to seek a supernatural origin. The most ancient common religion of humanity cannot, he observes, be understood in its entirety, fullness, and characteristics unless one admits the existence and work of God, who created this religion, personally instructing the men of that time in beliefs, moral laws, and acts of worship. After noting that the phenomenon cannot be explained by an impersonal being, nor by a personal being created by human thought and imagination, but only by admitting a real personal being who influenced man from without, he concludes: “Who this powerful personality is, there can be no doubt, and moreover, the most ancient peoples themselves tell us: it is the supreme Being truly existing, the real creator of heaven and earth and especially of men, who came among his beloved creatures, men, and manifested himself to them, his own being and his own work, immediately after creation, while dwelling in friendly companionship with men, and revealed himself to their thought, will, and feeling.”
The creation feasts mentioned by Schmidt exist among the North-Central Californians and the Eastern and Western Algonquins of North America. They are ritual feasts that have taken on the character of commemorations and are celebrated almost every year in an act 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 to implore God’s aid and grace now for the family, the tribe, and the whole world, thus in a certain way renewing the work of the creation of the world.
If one admits the unity of origin of the human race, as most anthropologists, linguists, and ethnologists now hold, and if one further admits that God created directly not only the soul but also the body of the first men, one must recognize that the first men, as Fr. Schmidt himself has noted, stood in need, culturally and religiously, of extraordinary aids—helps even more necessary after original sin.
J. W. Hauer does not accept Schmidt’s thesis that God revealed to man the process of creation, but he acknowledges that the roots of religion are even deeper than the activity of consciousness and religious experience, which can be analyzed psychologically and perhaps reproduced through strong empathy (nachschaffen), that is, they are rooted in the same “Ultimate Reality” that moves all things and has not left itself unmanifested in the heart of man, not even in that of the man of primitive peoples, indeed of the most ancient humanity, because, according to him, it is impossible that the fact of being sustained by the Ultimate Reality (God), which is certainly the content of every creed, should not reveal itself to man as he awakens to consciousness. This is an important observation. Indeed, if the existence of God is admitted, and if human reason can demonstrate it, one cannot exclude divine influence in the world, so that any historical science that a priori denied this possibility would renounce the name of historical science. Therefore, the following conclusion drawn from Hauer’s observation does not seem justified: “By tracing religion back to the ultimate sources of all life and creation, we undoubtedly leave the field of science and enter that of religious experience and conviction.” It is well known that mystical facts are studied in order to distinguish them from those that are not of divine origin.
Not infrequently in evolutionary circles, scholars who believe in Revelation are reproached for wanting to derive directly, at all costs, the present mythology of primitives from primordial mythology. But, as Koppers rightly wrote, no one has ever even dreamed of doing this, nor should such a lack of method be supposed. The true position, rather, is the following: the Christian Revelation teaches that the most ancient men, the first ones, had knowledge of God. But in order to demonstrate apologetically, within the sphere of religion itself, the truth of Revelation, it is by no means necessary to discover mythology among primitive peoples. Ethnological method teaches that even a primitive people, over the course of years, can lose its faith in God and other elements of its religion. Indeed, in light of the latest research, it can now be considered plausible that certain groups of peoples in the Pacific, for example in Melanesia and New Guinea, have indeed experienced such obscurations. But on the other hand, it is now established that the relevant scientific data, and primarily the
This sufficiently clear and precise testimony found among the most ancient ethnological peoples speaks in favor of primordial monotheism rather than the well-known evolutionary theories of religion, which, from their point of view and necessarily so, consider the idea of a single supreme God as the ultimate product of evolution. Therefore, the “obligatory path” so readily reproached to scholars who believe in Revelation is by no means characteristic of the latter, but rather of the former.
The above-mentioned thesis of Fr. Schmidt on the supernatural origin of primitive monotheism is evidently connected with that ancient tradition expounded at the outset. However, as he reaffirmed in a recent critical note (In der Wissenschaft in der Wissenschaft [in Anthropos, 1951]) against K. Birket-Smith, he does not present his thesis as “in all respects exhaustive and definitive,” but rather as scientifically justified and justifiable.
If the historical existence of a primordial revelation is proven, it follows that there is a historical demonstration of the existence of God. E. F. Lipowski (op. cit. in bibl.) presents it thus: the deduction that primordial religion is a revelation of God is also of great importance for the historical demonstration of God. This can consequently be numbered among the series of causal proofs. A logical formulation of this proof might be the following: primordial religion is a fully valid religion. Such a religion existed, as confirmed by the religious conceptions of the residual ancient peoples (i.e., those ethnologically most primitive). The man of primordial times was not capable of creating this religion in its unity and completeness, as has been demonstrated in the course of this exposition. Therefore, someone else must have created II. This creator of religion was God Himself, who revealed Himself to men. The fact of primordial religion logically demands the existence of God, because without the existence and direct action of God it cannot be explained in its fullness, in its totality, and in its characteristics.
The historical proof, which sought to demonstrate the existence of God from the universality of belief in God, no longer has full validity, because it had to presuppose the existence of God. It is therefore no longer fully justified, since in the proof the existence of God had already to be presupposed. For this reason, it is no longer accepted in its hitherto customary form. If, however, the new historical-religious facts are connected to it, then a new kind of historical proof of God emerges, “the historical-religious proof of God,” which must be numbered among the causal proofs of God. It does not presuppose the existence of God, but rather logically demands it from the concrete facts of religious ethnology.
introduction to cultural anthropology, Nuova York 1947, pp. 324-327; G. Koppers, Der Urmeusch 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 zur Wissenschaft, in Anthropos, 1951, pp. 611-14; V. anche la bibli. della voce di. III. Dio presso i popoli primitivi). Luigi Vannicelli