Monotheism is the belief or doctrine that there is one—and only one— god or deity. The term is often used as a general label for specific religions such as Judaism that fall into this category. However, it can also be used outside the context of specific religions. For example, a person who does not profess belief in a specific religion but who believes there is one god could be said to adhere to the doctrine of monotheism. A person who believes in only one god can be called a monotheist.
The adjective form, monotheistic , is typically used in terms like monotheistic religions and monotheistic beliefs. Polytheism is the belief or doctrine that there are multiple gods or deities.
Like monotheism , the word polytheism can be used in the context of specific religions such as Hinduism or outside of formal religion. A person who believes in multiple gods can be called a polytheist. The adjective form is polytheistic. Fasting is an important practice in many belief systems. Learn more about the history and usage of the term fasting. There are several related words used in the context of religious beliefs.
The word theism refers to the belief that some god or gods exist. Pantheism typically refers to the belief in an impersonal but all-encompassing god-force. The word henotheism can refer to a belief system that allows for the existence of multiple gods but involves the worship of only one.
Judaism and Islam are both well-known examples of monotheism. Many Christians believe in the three-part deity known as the Trinity , but Christian belief generally interprets this as one God, and Christianity is widely considered a monotheistic religion.
Perhaps the most widely-practiced polytheistic religion is Hinduism, which has many different branches including some considered largely monotheistic.
The religions of many different Indigenous peoples in different places are polytheistic. Ancient Greek and Norse peoples practiced polytheistic religions whose many gods we now know as part of what we call mythology. The word god is often capitalized as God in the context of monotheistic religions but left lowercase in the context of polytheistic religions, but this usage varies and capitalization or noncapitalization may be used to indicate other things such as a belief or a lack of belief in such deities.
Buddhism, for example, is typically not considered a theistic faith. Remember: beliefs about the nature of a deity or deities being worshipped can vary even among followers of the same religion, and some faiths are not easily categorized.
Across cultures, pantheons, or groups of deities specific to a particular religion, were often written about as expressions of the same divine entity, similar to how Christians worship the Holy Trinity — the father, the son and the holy spirit — as different manifestations of God. For example, in the second millennium B. In ancient Rome around the third century B. Increasing connectivity between civilizations may have encouraged the belief in divine unity, Assman wrote.
People drew connections between their own gods and those of other societies. They began to see different gods and pantheons not in opposition to one another, but as expressions of the same concept. Some scholars compare the idea of divine unity to monotheism. Assman calls it "evolutionary monotheism"; Durdin calls it "philosophical monotheism. Put another way, ancient people may have viewed multiple gods from different cultures as all emanating from the same holy source.
It was in this context that religious movements began demanding exclusive worship of one God. In the 14th century B. He closed temples and destroyed images of other gods.
And some scholars believe it was up to a thousand years later that early Israelites began worshipping only one god: Yahweh, said Matthew Chalmers, a theorist of religion at Northwestern University in Illinois. It was a transition that took centuries, and it would be centuries more before the belief that only one God exists became cemented in Judaism, Chalmers said. It's important to note that these people didn't think of themselves as monotheists or polytheists.
These movements didn't deny the existence of other gods. They just demanded that people stop worshipping them. Similarly, early Christians didn't explicitly declare other gods nonexistent; they began referring to them as demons, Chalmers said. Proclamations that there was only one God show up in portions of the Hebrew Bible written around the fifth century B.
However, scholars disagree on the exact timeline, he added. Islam was slightly a different story. The Quran, which was penned within decades of Islam's emergence in the seventh century, explicitly stated that there was only one God from the get-go, said Chad Haines, a historian of religion at Arizona State University.
Related: What is Ramadan? So what was so significant about these periods in history, when religions began out-right declaring that there was only one God? It's impossible to elucidate cause-and-effect.
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