English Zoroastrian Library : Three types of Monotheism

Three types of Monotheism

There are three distinct types of Monotheism.

1. Imperial Monotheism

There is only one God - just as there is only one Emperor. The Emperor discerns
the will of God - so the will of the Emperor and the will of God are the same.
You must obey the one God and the one Emperor. There can be no other God - no
other authority than the Emperor's authority.

2. Tribal Monotheism

We all worship one god - one authority - because we are all in the same tribal
federation. Our god is the god of our tribe. Other tribes have their own gods of
course but we all worship our god. He is the one god we are loyal to. Because we
are unified under one god - one leader - we are more powerful than those who are
not so unified.

3. Philosophical Monotheism

There is only one god because god is defined in such a way that there can only
be one of him. There is only one Universe because the word Universe is defined
to encompass everything. There is only one Source of Everything because it
wouldn't be the source of everything if there was more than one of it.

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Imperial Monotheism was apparently developed in Babylonia but perfected in Egypt
(Atonism) by a foreign Aryan-Hebrew ruling class in the time of the Pharaoh
Akhenaton. Later they founded the Temple on Mount Zion in Jerusalem (at a
crucial intersection of trade routes and opportunities for taxation) - the word
Aton becoming Adonai in Hebrew.

Tribal Monotheism has cropped up repeatedly - for instance Yahweh as the god of
a hebrew supertribe - the Israelite federation. Allah to some extent is the god
of an arabic super-tribe.

Philosophical Monotheism seems to be an Indo-Iranian creation - with gods such
as Brahman and Ahura Mazda.

June 4012