Monotheism vs. polytheistic predecessors
By Thoreau
In a comment thread over at Jennifer’s place, a commenter argued that even though Muslims and Christians and Jews are all monotheists, revere many of the same prophets and teachers, and believe in a single creator deity, the Muslims are not part of the Abrahamic tradition because their deity is (allegedly) derived from a pagan moon deity while the God of Christians and Jews has different pagan roots. The thread gets into a lot of history and linguistics, and I don’t know enough to weigh in on those issues, but it strikes me that some of this hinges on how one defines a monotheistic religion when it evolves from a polytheistic past.
If you think about it, there are several different ways to worship just one god. You could believe that there are many deities but you only deem one worthy of worship. You could believe that out of a pantheon of specialized deities (moon deity, storm deity, earth deity, sun deity, various animal deities, etc.) only one is real. Or you could believe in a single deity that transcends the specialties of a pantheon. And no doubt there are other ways of framing a single deity that I’m not thinking of.
So, let’s say that a community of believers goes from embracing a specialized deity as one of many, to believing that there is really just one deity and this deity is universal, ruling over all aspects of the universe rather than just (say) the moon, or the sun, or storms, or whatever. Suppose further than another community of believers starts off with a different specialized deity but in time comes to a more universal notion of the divine. Finally, suppose that this other community of believers concludes that the teachers of the first community were on to something, and reveres that community’s teachers for having some insights into a universal deity.
Those who wish to argue that the second community doesn’t worship the same deity as the first because they had different pagan roots are basically granting weight to the pagan past. If the first community is right to believe in a universal deity (rather than a specialized deity) then it follows that their pagan predecessors who believed in a specialized deity in a pantheon were just as wrong as the second community’s pagan predecessors.
Those who aren’t religious, or those who have a different view of religion, may of course find this silly. Even I, as a Christian, find the invocation of pagan precursors to be a silly way to judge a faith in the present. But that’s sort of the point: Taken on its own terms, they are giving too much weight to a (rejected) pagan past when they argue that two faiths must be forever disconnected based on pagan roots, even when both now reject their pagan roots, both believe in a universal deity, and both claim to revere the same preachers. Sure, one might say “Aren’t all religions disconnected from each other?” Well, yes and no. All religions are certainly different from each other, but most Christian denominations acknowledge obvious links and kinship with each other as well as with Jews.
So the argument really collapses on its own terms. And I like arguing most things on their own terms when possible, because it’s always satisfying to defeat opponents on their own ground. I’m fighting them on their ground so we don’t have to fight them on our ground! (Sorry, had a 2004 flashback.)
Comment by Will —
August 12, 2010 @ 2:39 pm
From what little I’ve read it looks like
Islam borrowed heavily from eastern Christianity (not Catholic)and from them whatever elements of Judiasim that they borrowed. Plus indigenous religious traditions.
Comment by Picador —
August 12, 2010 @ 2:57 pm
Catholics in Mexico worship a goddess derived from an Aztec deity, with some imported Visigoth flavouring.
Catholics in the Caribbean worship saints derived from Yoruban deities.
Calvinists in Scandinavia worship a god derived from a Norse deity.
Followers of Jesus worship a god derived from a mix of Jewish, Roman and Greek prophets, demigods and deities.
I guess Christians can never get along with each other.
Comment by Evan Harper —
August 12, 2010 @ 3:09 pm
My understanding is that Islam was very heavily influenced by Judaism and Christianity. Muhammad was a merchant prior to his career as a prophet, travelled widely and would have bought and sold from Jews and Christians. It is possible that Muhammad co-opted or adapted some local Meccan religious customs (in the same way that Christian missionaries to Europe co-opted pagan feast days, etc) but Islam staunchly rejects paganism and polytheism, and always saw itself as devoted to the same one God to which Jews and Christians pray.
Comment by Evan Harper —
August 12, 2010 @ 3:11 pm
Okay I should qualify that — when I say “always,” we are heavily dependent for the early history of Islam on later Muslim sources, writing after the theology had “gelled,” and doing their best to smooth over any contradictions or embarrassments. (Same problem we have with Christianity and Islam.) I suppose it’s possible that Islam might owe more to paganism, but if so it’s just not found in any of our sources, and we will almost certainly never get any more or better sources.
Comment by William Burns —
August 12, 2010 @ 4:52 pm
Surely the odd man out of the three Judaism-Christianity-Islam is Christianity, with its Trinity and its incarnate God as opposed to the strict monotheism of the other two.
Comment by KCinDC —
August 12, 2010 @ 8:52 pm
Thoreau, I think you’re misinterpreting the Cap’n a bit. He doesn’t acknowledge that Christianity was built on anything pagan. He’s only saying that Catholics—as opposed to True (Protestant) Christians—contaminated their Christianity with pagan stuff. You also seem too willing to accept historical “facts” he puts forth in his anti-Islam argument as real.
Comment by Glaivester —
August 12, 2010 @ 10:24 pm
There’s also the question of whether or not believing in an omnipotent, omniscient, single God necessarily means that you believe in the same God, or whether you believe in different Gods (of which at most one can be the True God).
And as KCinDC points out, not everyone agrees that Judaism or Christianity (or Isalm, for that matter) was built on pagan precursors (as opposed to being revealed directly from God to man).
Comment by bad Jim —
August 12, 2010 @ 11:30 pm
The loon over there claims that “Allah” is the name of the moon god, when in fact the word means “The (one) god” and is also used by Arab Christians.
I’ve always supposed that this “moon god” business was derived from the use of the crescent, which was a political symbol of the Ottoman empire, probably derived from the pagan traditions of Byzantium, and is no more a religious symbol than the star of David.
Comment by Thoreau —
August 12, 2010 @ 11:41 pm
KC,
The Cap’n says:
If Abraham’s YHVH had its roots in a storm god, that is only more proof that Mohammad’s religion with it’s moon god origins is not an Abrahamic religion.
And I’m not granting that he’s right on his historical premises. I’m saying that his arguments do not fit together on their own terms.
Comment by Thoreau —
August 12, 2010 @ 11:44 pm
Derek,
I see the argument that two people might believe in a universal deity witout believing in the same deity, but if Prophet #2 says “Yeah, my deity is the one that spoke to Prophet #1″ then the only argument is over whether Prophet #2 has an understanding of the deity that is consistent with the understanding of Prophet #1. We’re talking about differences that are similar in kind (if not in degree) to the differences between Christians and Jews.
Comment by bad Jim —
August 13, 2010 @ 3:28 am
Perhaps it’s because I’m an atheist, and a Unitarian-Universalist on Sundays, but I’ve never understood how those who claim that there is only one god can think that others who agree could be worshiping a different god, which both insist does not exist.
It would be clearer if none of them believed in other supernatural beings like the devil, demons and angels; it’s barely credible that members of different faiths, when addressing the one god, might be mistakenly importuning one of the lesser, or less savory, members of the pantheon. The doctrine of the trinity gives Christians the advantage of specificity – Donne’s “Batter my heart, three-person’d God” – at the cost of comprehensibility.
“You’re a Muslim, so you don’t believe in my God” seems like nothing more than a childish taunt, like “You can’t be my friend anymore.”
Comment by Doug M. —
August 13, 2010 @ 8:35 am
Noted in passing: Arab Christians refer to God as “Allah”, and always have.
Doug M.
Comment by matthew h —
August 15, 2010 @ 3:51 pm
The Arabic Bible issued by American Bible Society (or whatever it’s called now) has Allah as creating the heavens and the earth and the rest of the story.
The moon goddess thing has to do with the fact that there was an Arabic Goddess called The Goddess (Allat) around the time of Mohammad in fundamentalist Christian thinking every false belief has to be reduced to idol-worship (including atheism)because the Bible doesn’t have a sustained vocabulary of condemnation for atheists or alternate-versions-of-God. Just idolaters.
Comment by matthew h —
August 15, 2010 @ 3:52 pm
should say “time of Mohammad AND in fundamentalist Christian . . . “
Comment by fyodor —
August 16, 2010 @ 2:09 pm
This all makes more (potential) sense from an atheist’s POV than from a believer’s. I.e., if one does not see monotheism as the result of revelation but rather as the result of (and/or a marker of) culture or cultural philosophy.
That said, the factors that could be described as being more relevant to making cultural/philosophical comparisons versus distinctions between (or within) monotheistic religions than the type of pagan god used as a model for Mr. One and Only are likely too numerous to count and thus the modelling issue by itself is rather irrelevant.
IOW, Abrahamic, shmabrahamic!!
Comment by Will —
August 16, 2010 @ 10:16 pm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-10969499
Lebanese Christians angered by TV show about Christ
Christians have complained that it is based on an apocryphal gospel, rejected by the Church.
The Gospel of Barnabas
Pingback by The Celestial Switchboard | The League of Ordinary Gentlemen —
August 17, 2010 @ 6:28 am
[...] Unqualified Offerings’ Thoreau reminds me of a bit I wrote way back in 2004. The Wayback Machine didn’t have it for some reason, but I did. It still seems appropriate today. [...]