Theism

THEISM. - From Θεός, God, it is in general the religious or philosophical attitude that admits as the first principle of being a superior reality which is called God (v.): the opposite attitude is atheism (v.).

Depending on the more precise conception of God that man envisages, theism takes various forms: it is pantheism

(v.) if God is not conceived as a person (v.) but as the subsistent reality of the whole; it is polytheism (v.) if divinity is attributed to the multiplicity of forces or forms of the real, whether of the human world or of the infra-human one; it is monotheism (v.) if God is conceived as the transcendent First Principle on which depends both the world of nature and that of human history. In a more restricted sense, theism, in opposition to polytheism, pantheism and deism (v.), is the conception of God as the supreme, unique, personal being, the efficient and provident Principle of the world. The first progress of philosophy over mythology was in the affirmation of the unity of the First Principle and in the mistrust directed at polytheism. More arduous was the path from monotheism to the conception of a personal God and provident creator, which was clarified only through Revelation (v. ATEISMO; DEISMO; DIO; TEOLOGIA NATURALE).

Cornelio Fabro