Monotheistic Pagans

[Vouthon]

I am curious to know if there are any self-identified "monotheistic pagans" on the forum and if so I would be most pleased if you could speak to me a bit about your faith.

There is a common conception that "paganism" refers to polytheism but this is not actually true so far as the 'term' is concerned historically. As most folks know, "pagan" was originally a pejorative term applied by Christians to those who were deemed not to be worshippers of the Abrahamic conception of God. Muslims were not classed as 'pagans' but as 'Saracens,' for instance.

The most important distinction for Christians in assigning someone a "pagan" was not whether they believed in a pantheon of deities or constituted an ancient 'indigenous' religion. Referring to paganism as "pre-Christian indigenous religions" is equally untenable, since not all historical pagan traditions were pre-Christian or indigenous to their places of worship.

Neoplatonism is a key example.

The Neoplatonists were monotheistic - worshipping a single, transcendent deity called The Monad (The One) who had two emanations in the form of the Nous (Divine Mind) and the World-Sou but was still crucially One God i.e.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoplatonism

Plotinus taught that there is a supreme, totally transcendent "One", containing no division, multiplicity, nor distinction; likewise, it is beyond all categories of being and non-being. ​

Neoplatonism was founded in the third century AD, after Christianity. It wasn't "indigenous" to anywhere.

Thirdly, Neoplatonism was not an 'unsystematized', fluid creed but a religion with a sacred scripture - The Enneads of Plotinus - and a codified set of official doctrines.

Yet despite all of this, Neoplatonism was viewed as "pagan" by Christians.

So given the inherent diversity of traditions and theologies bracketed under paganism, I am curious if there are any self-identified monotheistic pagans on the forum?

 

[vaguelyhumanoid]

I'm not a monotheist myself but I generally see Tengriism referred to as monotheistic. To the best of my knowledge, it posits many spirits but Tengri as the one great God. You also have Atenism, the monotheistic Kemetic religion founded by Akhenaten which was imposed pretty coercively and not really well-liked. More in the vein of Tengriism, some African and American indigenous religions posit a single Creator who is more powerful than other spirits, but it's not necessarily "monotheism" because spirits like orishas or totems are sometimes labeled as gods.

 

[Quintessence]

The term "paganism" without proper case is a pejorative used to designate an outsider group (much like the term atheist). In that sense, and only in that sense, can there be such a thing as "monotheistic paganism." As soon as we switch to proper case Paganism, designating religious groups... well... let's just say that I strongly feel that if we dilute the meaning of Paganism to the point we include monotheism, the term becomes utterly useless and non-descriptive of anything and might as well be chucked in a trash bin.

 

[Vouthon]

I'm not a monotheist myself but I generally see Tengriism referred to as monotheistic. To the best of my knowledge, it posits many spirits but Tengri as the one great God. You also have Atenism, the monotheistic Kemetic religion founded by Akhenaten which was imposed pretty coercively and not really well-liked. More in the vein of Tengriism, some African and American indigenous religions posit a single Creator who is more powerful than other spirits, but it's not necessarily "monotheism" because spirits like orishas or totems are sometimes labeled as gods.

Good post.

Reference to subordinate deities or spirits as "gods" need not negate an intrinsic acceptance of monotheism, so long as these entities are viewed as dependants, emanations or aspects of a higher, overriding Supreme Being.

I mean my faith, Catholicism, is emphatically monotheistic but it recognises a host of intermediate beings acting as intercessors between the Most Blessed Trinity (who alone is worshipped) and the believer (albeit one ultimate mediator in Jesus).

These entities - whether in the form of angels like the seraphim and cherubim, the Holy Mother of God or the Communion of Saints - are prayed too, venerated, have churches and shrines named after them, statues made of them, devotions said to them, hymns sung to them, are associated with specific qualities or patronages and so on.

The Angelic Hosts and the Saints are vehicles through whom divine grace, miracles and charisms are distributed to the faithful via intercession.

This pantheon of lesser beings fulfils, to an extent one say, a similar raison d'etre of elements of polytheistic spirituality but within a monotheistic framework.

Indeed we even call these divinized beings, on account of their sharing in the very divinity and life of God through unmediated access to Him in the Beatific Vision, - "gods after God".

St. Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 130–202) wrote:

"...God became what we are in order to make us what he is himself. If the Word became a man, It was so men may become gods.

Do we cast blame on him [God] because we were not made gods from the beginning, but were at first created merely as men, and then later as gods? Although God has adopted this course out of his pure benevolence, that no one may charge him with discrimination or stinginess, he declares, "I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are sons of the Most High." ... For it was necessary at first that nature be exhibited, then after that what was mortal would be conquered and swallowed up in immortality..."
​

Jesus himself called them such when quoting the Psalms: "Ye are gods, sons of the Most High".

So it's permitted, so to speak - to have lower case "gods" under a Supreme upper case "God".

It does seem to me that so-called "pagan" creeds like Tengriism, Egyptian Atenism and Neoplatonism operate within a similar 'monotheistic' framework.

 

[Vouthon]

The term "paganism" without proper case is a pejorative used to designate an outsider group (much like the term atheist). In that sense, and only in that sense, can there be such a thing as "monotheistic paganism." As soon as we switch to proper case Paganism, designating religious groups... well... let's just say that I strongly feel that if we dilute the meaning of Paganism to the point we include monotheism, the term becomes utterly useless and non-descriptive of anything and might as well be chucked in a trash bin.

Hmm...you may be right but historically people were branded pagan and adhered to monotheistic conceptions of God. If these systems of belief were "revived" - as with Neo-Paganism and Heathenry - would they be, in your eyes, therefore ineligible for acceptance within the Pagan family even though they are modern restorations of a creed deemed pagan by Christians just like Greco-Roman polytheism, Norse Polytheism and all the rest?

I mean, what was it that actually bound all these diverse faiths together? Was there perhaps something else other than mere Christian branding? Hmm...

If we take Neoplatonism...

Say we have a self-professed Neo-neoplatonist.

She believes in the Monad and worships this deity as the sole Supreme Being. Yet as a good Neoplatonist, she also incorporates the Greco-Roman gods into her belief system as lesser, dependent deities:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoplatonism

Celestial hierarchy

The religious philosophy of Plotinus for himself personally sufficed, without the aid of the popular religion or worship. Nevertheless, he sought for points of support in these. God is certainly in the truest sense nothing but the primaeval Being who is revealed in a variety of emanations and manifestations. Plotinus taught the existence of an ineffable and transcendent One, the All, from which emanated the rest of the universe as a sequence of lesser beings. Later Neoplatonic philosophers, especially Iamblichus, added hundreds of intermediate beings such as gods, angels, demons, and other beings as mediators between the One and humanity. The Neoplatonist gods are omni-perfect beings and do not display the usual amoral behaviour associated with their representations in the myths.

The One

God, The Good. Transcendent and ineffable.

The Hypercosmic Gods

Those that make Essence, Life, and Soul

The Demiurge

The Creator

The Cosmic Gods

Those who make Being, Nature, and Matter—including the gods known to us from classical religion.
​

Could she not claim to be pagan today?

The neoplatonist Proclus was devoted to the worship of Athena:


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proclus

Proclus Lycaeus (/ˈprɒkləs ˌlaɪˈsiːəs/; 8 February 412 – 17 April 485 AD), called the Successor (Greek Πρόκλος ὁ Διάδοχος, Próklos ho Diádokhos), was a Greek Neoplatonist philosopher, one of the last major Classical philosophers (see Damascius)...

The particular characteristic of Proclus's system is his elaboration of a level of individual ones, called henads, between the One which is before being and intelligible divinity. The henads exist "superabundantly", also beyond being, but they stand at the head of chains of causation (seirai) and in some manner give to these chains their particular character. He identifies them with the Greek Gods, so one henad might be Apollo and be the cause of all things apollonian, while another might be Helios and be the cause of all sunny things. Each henad participates in every other henad, according to its character. What appears to be multiplicity is not multiplicity at all, because any henad may rightly be considered the center of the polycentric system.

He had a great devotion to the Goddess Athena, who he believed guided him at key moments in his life. Marinus reports that when Christians removed the statue of the Goddess from the Parthenon, a beautiful woman appeared to Proclus in a dream and announced that the "Athenian Lady" wished to stay at his home.​

He even wrote a hymn to her:

http://www.goddess-athena.org/Encyclopedia/Rituals/Hymns/Proclus.htm

P r o c l u s ' H y m n t o A t h e n a


TO MINERVA

Daughter of aegis-bearing Jove, divine,
Propitious to thy vot'ries prayer incline;
From thy great father's fount supremely bright,
Like fire resounding, leaping into light.
Shield-bearing goddess, hear, to whom belong
A manly mind, and power to tame the strong!
Oh, sprung from matchless might, with joyful mind
Accept this hymn; benevolent and kind!
The holy gates of wisdom by thy hand
Are wide unfolded; and the daring band

[It continues......]

And Athens, O Athena, is thy own!
Great goddess, hear! and on my dark'ned mind
Pour thy pure light in measure unconfin'd;
- That sacred light, O all-protecting queen,
Which beams eternal from thy face serene:
My soul, while wand'ring on the earth, inspire
With thy own blessed and impulsive fire;
And from thy fables, mystic and divine,
Give all her powers with holy light to shine.
Give love, give wisdom, and a power to love,
Incessant tending to the realms above;
Such as, unconscious of base earth's control,
Gently attracts the vice-subduing soul;
From night's dark region aids her to retire,
And once more gain the palace of her sire:
And if on me some just misfortune press,
Remove th'affliction, and thy suppliant bless.
All-Saving goddess, to my prayer incline!
Nor let those horrid punishments be mine
Which guilty souls in Tartarus confine,
With fetters fast'ned to its brazen floors,
And lock'd by hell's tremendous iron doors.
Hear me, and save (for power is all thy own)
A soul desirous to be thine alone.

​

What makes Proclus all that different from a modern Neo-Hellenic pagan devotee to Athena other than his belief in the Monad and the goddess Athena as an "omni-perfect", cosmic being under It in the celestial hierarchy? Need his monotheism be an absolute deal-breaker given that he still worships the Greco-Roman gods?

If a modern day Proclus came along, would he not be accepted as a pagan by contemporary standards?

 

[The Emperor of Mankind]

What makes Proclus all that different from a modern Neo-Hellenic pagan devotee to Athena other than his belief in the Monad and the goddess Athena as an "omni-perfect", cosmic being under It in the celestial hierarchy? Need his monotheism be an absolute deal-breaker given that he still worships the Greco-Roman gods?

Sorry to snip out the rest - I'm only doing it because I just want to address the above bit and not because I consider the remainder insignificant.

I'd just like to point out that monotheism means to worship one god, and to view only one god as worthy of worship. You cannot be a monotheist and worship gods.

 

[Vouthon]

Sorry to snip out the rest - I'm only doing it because I just want to address the above bit and not because I consider the remainder insignificant.

I'd just like to point out that monotheism means to worship one god, and to view only one god as worthy of worship. You cannot be a monotheist and worship gods.

That is true but you can, technically, worship One Supreme Deity who emanates as a series of subordinate "gods," like a chain of being. Neoplatonism falls into this category - for some Neoplatonists you had the One Supreme Beyond-Being Divinity but It Manifested as the "gods" of the Greco-Roman pantheon, such as Apollo and Athena, in the material world. So these beings were still "worshipped" but as emanations of the One God rather than wholly separate polytheistic gods.

Likewise, you can have One Supreme Deity but a host of lesser, dependant divinities who are the objects of prayers, hymns, devotions, sacred rites and so forth.

Monotheism is not simply reducible to the pure, unconpromising concept one will find in, say, Islam.

The Christian Trinity makes that abundantly clear.

So what I'm thinking of is a worshipper of the Norse or Greco-Roman gods who believes them either to be (1) lower emanations of a Supreme, Tracsendent "One God" or (2) lower intercessory beings who are venerated with sacred rites and through whom graces are believed to be distributed from the One, Trascendent God.

The former would actually worship "the gods" just as Christians worship the Three Persons of the Trinity, whereas the latter would probably see them in a similar way to how Catholics view the Blessed Virgin Mary, the glorified Saints and Angels

i.e St. Macmillan Kolbe said: "As Mother of Jesus our savior, Mary was the Co-redemptrix of the human race; as the spouse of the Holy Spirit, she shares in the distribution of all graces...So, while their union is not of the same order as the hypostatic union linking the human and divine natures in Christ, it remains true to say that Mary's action is the very action of the Holy Spirit. For Mary as the spouse of the Holy Spirit is raised to such a height of perfection above all other creatures that she accomplishes in everything the will of the Holy Spirit who dwelt in her from the first instant of her conception."

So I am thinking in terms of these two alternatives vis-a-vis "pagan" gods or at least a kindred approach.

 

[syo]

the term pagan is used to describe non abrahamics religions. everyone is pagan except the followers of Jesus etc. they also believe that non abrahamic religions are fake.

 

[Quintessence]

I mean, what was it that actually bound all these diverse faiths together? Was there perhaps something else other than mere Christian branding? Hmm...

Technically, nothing did. "Pagan" was a term placed on these diverse cultural groups by outsiders. The term "polytheist" was invented by monotheists as well, IIRC. There have been scholars who have aimed to find connections amongst these groups in spite of the terms originating through outsider labeling - Michael York's book "Pagan Theology" is the most notable attempt that comes to mind. Although I like his work, I still have to admit that it's an exercise of a third party putting things into boxes that the original parties might not particularly agree with. Things York identified were things like being local/indigenous in character (as opposed to attempting to be some sort of global/universal religion), and I think non-monotheism was on his list too. Been a while since I've read his book, though, so my memory is not what it was about it.

What makes Proclus all that different from a modern Neo-Hellenic pagan devotee to Athena other than his belief in the Monad and the goddess Athena as an "omni-perfect", cosmic being under It in the celestial hierarchy? Need his monotheism be an absolute deal-breaker given that he still worships the Greco-Roman gods?

I'm going to have to echo what @A Greased Scotsman said in that a "monotheist" who worships anything other than a singular deity is not a monotheist. Henotheist would be the more appropriate term, and as far as I'm aware, the example of Neoplatonism you are giving is generally recognized as henotheism, not monotheism.

If a modern day Proclus came along, would he not be accepted as a pagan by contemporary standards?

An oddly complicated question. Some would, some wouldn't. The thing about the contemporary Pagan community is that it is not organized, very fragmented, and agrees with itself about... well... pretty much nothing. But if there's one thing that can be said about the contemporary community that ties it together, that's fierce independence. This translates into an intolerance for exclusivism, an attitude common within monotheism with its proclamation that there is only one god and there are no other gods, period. Basically, a hard monotheist would be quite unwelcome in the community, though a soft monotheist (what is better termed henotheism) is not only acceptable but found within certain Wiccan traditions.

 

[Vouthon]

the term pagan is used to describe non abrahamics religions. everyone is pagan except the followers of Jesus etc. they also believe that non abrahamic religions are fake.

Not everything these religions teach has always been considered "fake", no.

The Church Fathers discerned "seeds of truth" in the various religions deemed pagan. For one, Neoplatonism exerted enormous influence upon both Christian and Islamic thought during the Middle Ages, especially its mysticism.

The overriding 'mantra' when approaching these faiths and philosophies was the one formulated first by St. Justin Martyr:

"...All truth, wherever it is found, belongs to us as Christians and is Christian truth..."

- Saint Justin Martyr (AD 100–165), Early Catholic Church Father


"...All that is true, by whomsoever it has been said, has its origin in the Spirit..."

- Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), Catholic theologian, mystic and Doctor of the Church

​

Or phrased in a more contemporary fashion:

"...Every quest of the human spirit for truth and goodness, and in the last analysis for God, is inspired by the Holy Spirit. The various religions arose precisely from this primordial human openness to God. At their origins we often find founders who, with the help of God's Spirit, achieved a deeper religious experience. Handed on to others, this experience took form in the doctrines, rites and precepts of the various religions.

In every authentic religious experience, the most characteristic expression is prayer. Because of the human spirit's constitutive openness to God's action of urging it to self-transcendence, we can hold that "every authentic prayer is called forth by the Holy Spirit, who is mysteriously present in the heart of every person". We experienced an eloquent manifestation of this truth at the World Day of Prayer for Peace on 27 October 1986 in Assisi, and on other similar occasions of great spiritual intensity.

3. The Holy Spirit is not only present in other religions through authentic expressions of prayer. "The Spirit's presence and activity", as I wrote in the Encyclical Letter Redemptoris missio, "affect not only individuals but also society and history, peoples, cultures and religions" (n. 28)..."

- Pope St. John Paul II, General Audience Address, September 16, 1998, Vatican

​

So much so in fact that Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman could envisage a "dispensation of paganism" ordained by God:

"...We must confess, on the authority of the Bible itself, that all knowledge of religion is from God, and not only that which the Bible has transmitted to us. There never was a time when God had not spoken to man, and told him to a certain extent his duty. His injunctions to Noah, the common father of all mankind, is the first recorded fact of the sacred history after the deluge. Accordingly,we are expressly told in the New Testament, that at no time He left Himself without witness in the world, and that in every nation He accepts those who fear and obey Him. It would seem, then, that there is something true and divinely revealed, in every religion all over the earth...

The word and the Sacraments are the characteristic of the elect people of God; but all men have had more or less the guidance of Tradition, in addition to those internal notions of right and wrong which the Spirit has put into the heart of each individual.

This vague and uncertain family of religious truths, originally from God, but sojourning without the sanction of miracle, or a definite home, as pilgrims up and down the world, and discernible...may be called the Dispensation of Paganism, after the example of the learned Father [St. Clement of Alexandria] already quoted. And further, Scripture gives us reason to believe that the traditions, thus originally delivered to mankind at large, have been secretly reanimated and enforced by new communications from the unseen world...

Accordingly, there is nothing unreasonable in the notion, that there may have been heathen poets and sages, or sibyls again, in a certain extent divinely illuminated, and organs through whom religious and moral truth was conveyed to their countrymen...

These were based on the mystical or sacramental principle, and spoke of the various Economies or Dispensations of the Eternal. I understood these passages to mean that the exterior world, physical and historical, was but the manifestation to our senses of realities greater than itself...The Greek poets and sages were in a certain sense prophets; for "thoughts beyond their thought to those high bards were given." There had been a directly divine dispensation granted to the Jews; but there had been in some sense a dispensation carried on in favour of the Gentiles...

The process of change had been slow; it had been done not rashly, but by rule and measure, at sundry times and in divers manners...As far as we know, there never was a time when...revelation was not a revelation continuous and systematic, with distinct representatives and an orderly succession..."

- Blessed John Henry Newman (circa. 1845-65), cardinal & theologian of the Catholic Church​

 

[Vouthon]

I'm going to have to echo what @A Greased Scotsman said in that a "monotheist" who worships anything other than a singular deity is not a monotheist. Henotheist would be the more appropriate term, and as far as I'm aware, the example of Neoplatonism you are giving is generally recognized as henotheism, not monotheism.

I am not sure.

Henotheism seems to imply a belief in separate deities but unique worship of One Divinity alone.

Neoplatonism, by contrast, appears to posit belief in One God who also assumes the forms of the Greco-Roman pantheon through a process of emanation, these also being worshipped:


https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=jJFmcaczHSoC&pg=PA36&dq=monotheism+neoplatonism+plotinus&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjQr4uP-5DNAhXrDcAKHdSBBQYQ6AEIHTAA#v=onepage&q=monotheism neoplatonism plotinus&f=false

"...The mystical monotheism of Plotinus represents the coalescence of many, disparate theistic elements in Graeco-Roman religious thought. The One might therefore be said to have been the culmination of Hellenic Theism, the philosophical articulation of an increasingly significant strand in ancient theology. The ineffable first principle of Plotinus remained, as Kenney, the only real deity throughout Neoplatonic theology, despite of any 'polytheism' admitted at the level of religious observance:​

And because it remained rooted in Platonic, degree of reality theology, the modalistic aspects of theology could never develop into monism, where only the One was real and all other beings were but its illusionist epiphenomena. The theology of Plotinus should thus be understood not as monistic, or pantheistic but as a special and distinctive sort of monotheism..."​

Perhaps a "special and distinctive sort of monotheism" is the best way of describing this?

I agree we are not talking Abrahamic or even Zoroastrian-style monotheism here (hence the "Pagan" appellation imposed from without) but I am unsure if it qualifies as merely henotheism either.

 

[syo]

what i understood by what you wrote is that only the abrahamic religion holds the whole truth and other religions only have fragments of truth only if they agree with the abrahamic faith :-/

 

[Vouthon]

what i understood by what you wrote is that only the abrahamic religion holds the whole truth and other religions only have fragments of truth only if they agree with the abrahamic faith :-/

Abrahamics (well at least Christians and Muslims) tend to hold that their religions or churches possess the "fullness of revealed truth" but certainly not the "whole truth".

I would say, for instance, and based upon my understanding of Catholic theology, that the Church does not have the fullness of truth about God since God is in Himself Unknowable and has not revealed everything regarding Himself to humanity.

As a corporate body of believers, united within the Church, we know even less as a family of individuals - even regarding revealed truth which is like a bottomless abyss of knowledge that we grow to understand more and more as time passes and we further penetrate its depths, age after age, yet without exhausting it. This is the "development of doctrine" doctrine.

Therefore we as believers are no different to believers of other faiths as far as our comprehension of God goes, over and above the greater revealed truth of the deposit of faith itself, which is nevertheless when compared to the essence of God nothing but a drop in the ocean.

As the mystic Blessed Jan Van Ruysbroeck explained:

"...And we learn this truth from His sight: That all we taste, in comparison with that which remains out of our reach, Is no more than a single drop of water compared with the whole sea.... We hunger for God’s Infinity, which we cannot devour, And we aspire to His Eternity, which we cannot attain.... In this storm of love, our activity is above reason and is unconditioned. Love desires that which is impossible to her; And reason teaches that love is within her rights, but can neither counsel nor persuade her..."

- Blessed Jan Van Ruysbroeck (1293 – 1381), Flemish mystic & Catholic priest (in the "Sparkling Stone")​

This applies to all human beings no matter what religion they practise in our view.

None of us have comprehended, individually or as a corporate religious body/family of believers, nor ever could comprehend, the truth fully. And therefore we are all united in our awesome unknowing before the majesty of the inexpressibility of the divine and can recognise elements of truth or revelation in all religions. In itself, pure supreme truth is the unique patrimony of no person or sole group because God is in essence above all distinctions and affirmations.

This is what the 15th century mystic Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa (1401 –1464) believed:

"Mystic, theologian and cardinal, Nicholas found that the insane war between Christians and Muslim was caused by prejudices and misconceptions about each other and the tendencies to assert one’s own religion as the absolute norm for all others. He took the risk of journeying to Constantinople in order to meet Muslims and get first-hand information about their religion with an open mind. He procured a copy of the Holy Quran, studied it carefully and wrote a treatise on it: Cribratio Al Corani (Shifting the Quran) in 1461 in order to help Christians understand the concerns of the Quran. For Nicholas, the Divine is “absolute mystery, incomprehensibly intelligible and named without names.” Hence, no religion is absolute in the sense that it could claim to have comprehended the Divine fully; every religion contains elements of revelation and hence each religion has to be understood in relation with the others. Each is in everything. As finite beings we have access to the Divine not through “proud pursuit of the reason” but in humility and intuitive perception in which a “learned ignorance (docta ignorantia) enlightens our mind. “One is more learned the more one has become aware that one is ignorant.” Then we realise that we cannot comprehend God in our logical categories, but we can only become aware of God’s all pervasive presence through a mystical insight into the deep “harmony of all things”: the entire creation is the “mirror of God” (speculum Dei). Diversity in creation and cultures is the language of God. (explicatio Dei). God is therefore “the radical unity of the opposites” (coincidentia oppositorum). “In God, absolute unity is absolute multiplicity, absolute identity is absolute diversity; absolute actuality is absolute potentiality” (Docta Ignorantia, 1932, pp. 1,5,21,50,74). With this mystical vision Nicholas wanted to open the perspectives of Christian theology to the universality of God’s plan of salvation and help the Christians be more tolerant of the believers of other religions. He prayed: “It is you, O God, who is being sought in various religions in various ways, and named with various names. For you remain as you are, to all incomprehensible and inexpressible. When you will graciously grant it, then sword, jealous hatred and evil will cease and all will come to know that there is but one religion in the variety of religious rites.” (De Pace, 1956, p. 15)

​

So other religions are recognised as possessing divinely inspired truth, such that we can learn from them, as Pope Francis explains in Evangelii Gaudium:


http://w2.vatican.va/content/france...vangelii-gaudium.html#Interreligious_dialogue

254. Non-Christians, by God’s gracious initiative, when they are faithful to their own consciences, can live “justified by the grace of God”,[199] and thus be “associated to the paschal mystery of Jesus Christ”.[200] But due to the sacramental dimension of sanctifying grace, God’s working in them tends to produce signs and rites, sacred expressions which in turn bring others to a communitarian experience of journeying towards God.[201] While these lack the meaning and efficacy of the sacraments instituted by Christ, they can be channels which the Holy Spirit raises up in order to liberate non-Christians from atheistic immanentism or from purely individual religious experiences. The same Spirit everywhere brings forth various forms of practical wisdom which help people to bear suffering and to live in greater peace and harmony. As Christians, we can also benefit from these treasures built up over many centuries, which can help us better to live our own beliefs.​

 

[syo]

i like what you wrote but most abrahamics dont know that and downgrade other religions. why?

 

[Vouthon]

i like what you wrote but most abrahamics dont know that and downgrade other religions. why?

There are many reasons why this might be the case...

Religious fundamentalism, ignorance, lack of understanding of or interests in theological subtleties...

Regardless, that is what my theology teaches and I believe it.

 

[syo]

There are many reasons why this might be the case...

Religious fundamentalism, ignorance, lack of understanding of or interests in theological subtleties...

Regardless, that is what my theology teaches and I believe it.

i was angry with the abrahamics because of this but i like what you wrote it gives a new better perspective thank you

 

[Quintessence]

Perhaps a "special and distinctive sort of monotheism" is the best way of describing this?

Within the contemporary Pagan community, it variously gets described as "soft monotheism" or "soft polytheism" (as opposed to hard/true monotheism or polytheism respectively). I question the usefulness of these terms, however. What I find more useful is to ask what is actually worshiped - how theology translates into actual practice - particularly given it is orthopraxy, not orthodoxy, that is key within Pagan religions. If only one god is worshiped, but others are acknowledged as real/authentic/legitimate, I would call that henotheism. If only one god is worshiped, and others are rejected as real/authentic/legitimate, I would call that monotheism. If only one god is worshiped at at a time, but multiple gods are worshiped overall, I believe the term for that is kakenotheism. And if multiple gods are worshipped, that's polytheism.

As part of this process, it's important to not gloss over the practices of other religions with tinted glasses. When monotheists reconcile polytheism by claiming "your many gods are really just expressions of our god or inspired by our god," that's an example of that. It's a negation of the other theological perspective by overwriting their cultural narratives with monotheist ones. There have been numerous attempts to try to paint over the non-monotheism of our ancestors by writers and scholars with monotheist agendas, for better or for worse. It's one of many ways that the monotheist victors commit erasure of the past to reinforce cultural hegemony. I tend to be suspicious of such narratives for that reason, and while academia has gotten much better about that over the past few decades, such ethnocentrism still seems to be the default in mainstream Western culture.

 

[The Emperor of Mankind]

Within the contemporary Pagan community, it variously gets described as "soft monotheism" or "soft polytheism" (as opposed to hard/true monotheism or polytheism respectively). I question the usefulness of these terms, however. What I find more useful is to ask what is actually worshiped - how theology translates into actual practice - particularly given it is orthopraxy, not orthodoxy, that is key within Pagan religions.

Thank you! I was trying to think of a way to explain it using Pagan examples and terms but couldn't think of any off the top of my head and this basically does it for me.

@Vouthon we already have Pagans today who worship deity in the way you describe - if I had my head on straight I'd have remembered that right away. Generally they worship the God & the Goddess or either one or the other. They tend to view other male deities as aspects of the former and all female deities as aspects of the latter. We refer to that typically as 'soft polytheism' or 'soft mono/duotheism' (obviously depending if the Pagan in question worships both God & Goddess or only one of the two).

So, really, I suppose a Neo-Platonist c/would be considered Pagan by today's standards.

 

[NadiaMoon]

I myself could be considered a "Pagan Monotheist" in the sense that i believe the Supreme Being is The Goddess, thought i see different goddesses as being different forms of her.

 

[Rival]

Bit late to the party.



I am.