Many people talk of monotheism as if it were a given that it is a good thing, worth presuming as true and somehow pursuing.
But is that at all true?
I don't think so, and here is why.
First of all, I don't think monotheism - the mainstream versions of its Abrahamic variety, at least - can be both true, accurate and important all at once. There is a serious logical contradiction in the attempt to give it all three atributes.
Why? Because in order to quantify an entity we have to delimit it by some form of parameters. And yet those same doctrines that insist that there is just One True God also emphasize its supreme transcendence, the classic example being the claim that everything that exists needs a creator, the sole exception being their creator God himself.
So, how is it even conceivable that such an entity, presumably above any and all attempts of human classification and delimitation, somehow can only be correctly perceived as being one (as opposed to any other number, including none)? How can the claim be even attempted without presuming some form of human authority to decide what is proper divine form and what is not? And if we do accept that such human authority exists, what is then left of the transcendental nature of that deity?
It seems to me that there is a core mistake in attempting to have a rigid, well-defined conception of deity and then building a doctrine that relies on the accuracy of that conception.
For one thing, that is not very useful. Human beings are simply not likely to hold very similar conceptions of deity - or as I personally prefer to call it, of the sacred - and insisting that we nevertheless should act as if we did will only lead to pointless anxiety, fear, even moral dishonesty or at least the temptation to fall into it.
And that leads to a far greater problem than simple inaccuracy of doctrine. Insistence on the claim of universal truth and significance of such a minor and deeply personal matter as conceptions of deity compromises the very worth of any doctrine. All too quickly it becomes too busy in defending itself from the fragility of its own premises and the unavoidable consequences, and the validity of the teachings of even its most skilled, best meaning adherents is put to waste.
We all should be at peace with the simple contemplation that it is not for humans to act as wardens of specific, rigid, limited understandings of the sacred. Such an effort is both arrogant and demeaning, regardless of whatever some speculative truth about the nature of the sacred might be.
Surely, if even reasonably average human beings can easily be skilled enough to have various aspects according to the people that they interact with and the situations that they find themselves in, then there should be no doubt that a true deity (if such exists) can hardly be limited in its manifestations in ways that would be unreasonable even to humans?
