(Greek: monos, single; theos, God) The religious system that admits belief in one and only one supreme God. First and foremost in this system comes Christian Monotheism which began with the establishment of Christianity by Jesus Christ. Its principal articles of faith are to be found in the early creeds of the Christian Church, such as the Apostles' Creed, the Athanasian, the Nicene. The principal present day forms of non-Christian Monotheism are: Jewish Monotheism which among the orthodox Jews of today is the same as the monotheism of tne Jews in the pre-Christian era Mohammedan Monotheism in which Allah, the one and only God, is practically the same as Jehovah of the Jews

MONOTHEISM.—At whatever period in their early history the people of Israel may be supposed to have passed through the obscure and uncertain stages of belief that precede a clear and reasoned theism, that period had been left behind long before the days of Christ and the NT writers. The bitter experiences of exile and suffering on the one hand, and on the other the lofty teachings of prophets and men of God, had eradicated all tendencies to polytheism, and had fixed immovably in the conscience and conviction of the entire nation the faith that Jehovah was the one God of the whole earth. If Israel’s early beliefs, as some contend, were henotheistic, and conceded a place and right to other national gods, as Chemosh, Molech, or Rimmon, as equal and paramount lords of their own peoples, such recognition of external divinities had long since ceased to be permissible. There were not really gods many and lords many; there is one God the Father, and one Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 8:6). This monotheistic belief, however, is assumed rather than formulated or defined in the Gospels. The doctrine that God is one, universally supreme and without rival, does not need to be explained or defended, for it runs no risk of being assailed. Like the belief in the existence of God, it is an article of faith accepted on all sides, by Jesus and by His opponents, and is rather implicit in the thought than explicit in the teaching of Christ and of His disciples. While, however, this is true, and all the more so because His controversy with the Jews turned largely upon the question of His claim to equality with God, and the blasphemy which this claim appeared to them to imply, epithets and phrases may readily be quoted from the Gospels which have no meaning except as presupposing an absolute and pure monotheism. Such phrases, as would naturally be anticipated, are more generally employed by St. John than by the Synoptists. Thus the Prologue of the Fourth Gospel, tracing all things back to God with whom the Word is one (John 1:1), asserts nothing less than the uniqueness as well as the eternity and sovereignty of Him from whom they proceed; and the true Light entering into the world enlighteneth not this or that nation only, but every man (John 1:9). To the same effect and with the same background of accepted and common belief are the repeated declarations of His oneness with the Father (John 10:30; John 10:38; John 14:10; cf. John 17:21; cf. John 17:23). The area and claims of the Divine Kingdom, the Kingdom of God, are explicitly enlarged beyond any mere national limits, and made to embrace the whole world (Luke 16:16, John 4:21 ff.), and so the disciples are taught to pray that it may come upon earth, as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10). It is indeed not bodily or material (Luke 17:21), but transcends the world (John 18:36). In the Last Judgment, again, all nations are gathered before the throne, and all receive sentence. ‘The field’ in which the seed is sown is ‘the world’ (Matthew 13:38); and the final injunction to Christ’s followers is that they are to go into all the world to make disciples of all the nations (Matthew 28:19). The same teaching is conveyed with more or less directness in the assertion of the subordination and judgment of the prince of this world (John 16:11); in the stress laid upon the unique obligation and importance of love to God as constituting the first and greatest commandment (Matthew 22:37 || Mark 12:30, Luke 10:27); in the appeal made by Christ Himself to a similar unique obligation of worship and service to the one only God (Matthew 4:10 || Luke 4:8); in the emphatic affirmation of a common Fatherhood and Godhead (John 20:17; cf. John 8:41); and in the solemn declaration of the permanence and inviolability of the words of the Son (Matthew 24:35 || Mark 13:31, Luke 21:33), while elsewhere there is ascribed to Him that omniscience which is an attribute of God Himself (John 16:30). There are also passages in which the epithet ‘one’ or ‘only’ is directly applied to the Divine Ruler, thus claiming for Him with more or less emphasis the sole dominion and the exclusive right to homage. ‘The Lord our God is one Lord’ (Mark 12:29 from Deuteronomy 6:4, cf. Mark 12:32). The God who forgives sins is εἶς (Mark 2:7), or μόνος (Luke 5:21); He is unique in goodness (Matthew 19:17 || Mark 10:18, Luke 18:19); the sole Father (Matthew 23:9); and the only God (John 5:44). Some of these expressions might, it is true, be satisfied by a wide conception, such as the ancient prophets had formed, of a God of Israel to whom the sons of Israel were a first interest and charge, or even of a Sovereign the limits of whose sway left room for other sovereigns beside Him. Not all of them, evidently, if read apart and by themselves, will bear the weight of a full monotheistic inference. Taken together, however, and in their context, their joint and several significance is unmistakable. They assume on the part of speaker and hearer alike a belief in the sole supremacy of one God. Nor is this inference as to their meaning seriously contested. Moreover, in one passage (John 17:3) there is found a perfectly distinct and unequivocal assertion of monotheistic doctrine; eternal life is to gain a knowledge of the only true God (τὸν μόνον ἁληθινὸν θεόν). Other phrases, in themselves less definite or comprehensive, must clearly be received and interpreted in the light of this, if an adequate conception of Christ’s teaching concerning the Father is to be reached. The principle is applicable to other elements of His instruction than that under consideration. The whole is to be construed and expounded by means of the loftiest and most comprehensive statements of doctrine, not to be attenuated to those which may be more particular or obscure. The conclusion, therefore, is that a monotheistic belief is everywhere assumed in the Gospels; and if it is rarely formulated, the reason is to be sought in the universal assent with which it was received. Christ did not need to teach with definiteness and reiteration, as though it were a new truth, that there is one only Lord of heaven and of earth; for this belief was common to Himself and to His hearers, and formed the solid and accepted foundation of their religious faith. Literature.—Treatises on the Theology of the NT discuss the conception of God, and the general doctrine is treated in works on Theism; cf. Ed. Caird, Evolution of Religion2 ^[1] , 2 vols., Glasgow, 1894; Orr, Christian View of God and the World1 ^[1] , pp. 91–96. A. S. Geden.

/POLYTHEISM The competing systems of religious belief that only one god exists or that many gods exist. Bible students often argue on the basis of biblical evidence that Israel in the first centuries of her life as a people did not have a monotheistic system of belief: indeed, that Moses' tradition does not appear in that kind of category. To support the accuracy of this statement, they examine the central text in the Old Testament for defining Israel's belief about God: the Ten Commandments. The first commandment stipulates a fundamental tenet in Israel's belief system: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3 ). That requirement for participation in Israel's community of faith does not assert that serving other gods before one serves the Lord would be foolish since no other gods exist. It assumes quite to the contrary that other gods do exist. It asserts that, even though the other gods exist, the people who follow the Mosaic Commandments shall not embrace any of those other gods as gods who compete for the loyalty of the people. The Lord who brought Israel out of the land of Egypt will allow no compromise in the loyalty of the people. That assertion assumes the existence of other false gods who could call for loyalty and commitment from the Lord's people. That kind of belief system is commonly called henotheism. In contrast to the call for strict commitment to the Lord alone, to a kind of divine jealousy that would tolerate no commitments from the people to gods other than the Lord, even though other gods might tempt the Lord's people with offers of power, the people among whom Israel lived in the early years of occupation in Canaan believed in numerous gods whose activities influenced their lives. Principal among the gods of the Canaanite pantheon were the great father figure, El; the younger hero, Baal; the adversary against order in the created land, Yam; the consort for Baal, Anat; and the ruler of Sheol, the place of the dead, Mot. In the Canaanite story about the various events involving these gods, Baal and his consort were primarily responsible for the success or failure of the agriculture in the social structure of Canaan. The fertility of the land depended on the fertility of Baal and his consort. The cult for the Canaanite farmers sought to stimulate the fertility of the divine couple, and thus the fertility of the land, by participating in fertility rituals at central sanctuaries called high places. The sexual activities of these rituals would stimulate Baal and his consort to similar activities and thus secure the fertility of the land. One particular phase of that cult developed its drama from a belief that in the fall of the year, the time when vegetation on the earth dies, Baal died and descended into Sheol. On hearing the news of this tragedy, Anat began a long search for Baal. She found him in Sheol and effected his resurrection from the dead by coaxing him back to activity in the world of the living. This scene of resurrection occurred in the spring when the world springs back to life. Such mythology undergirds a belief system that depended on the activities, indeed, the interrelationship, of many gods. That system can be called polytheism. A move away from henotheism and polytheism appears first in the Old Testament among the prophets. The prophetic movement appears as early as the prophet Elijah. Competition between the people of Israel and the people of Phoenicia was highlighted by a competition for loyalty of the people between the Lord and Baal. That competition came to its sharpest focus in the story about the contest between Elijah, the prophet for the Lord, and the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18:1 ). The issue for the contests is still competition for the loyalty of the people. That issue focused on the question of genuine claim to status as God. “If the Lord be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him” (1 Kings 18:21 ). The issue of claim to genuine status as God is then focused on power. “The God that answereth by fire, let him be God” (1 Kings 18:24 ). The pressure of the Exile challenged Yahweh's claim as the only God. If the Lord is really God and if that claim can be substantiated by acts of power, then how could the people of the Lord lose their independence and their land to a foreign people? Would the success of the Babylonians against Judah not undergird the claim that Marduk, the god of the Babylonians, is really God? Would it not suggest that the Lord, the God of the Judeans, had been defeated by Marduk, the god of the Babylonians? The prophets' response to this crisis was: the tragedy of the Exile was not the result of the power of Marduk against the power of the Lord, a result that would establish Marduk as God. To the contrary, the tragedy of the Exile was the result of Israel's own God using the Babylonians as an instrument of punishment against the Lord's own people since they had violated the terms of the covenant that bound them together. That theological justification for the Exile (see Amos 2:4-8 ) opened the door for a theological, philosophical position that asserted the existence of only one God who is Lord not only of Israel but also of all the rest of the world. That position can be called monotheism. The beautiful poetry of Isaiah 40-66 represents the height of Israel's monotheism. For the first time in the Old Testament literature, a prophet explicitly argued that no other gods exist. The Lord alone is God. “I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me: That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me, I am the Lord, and there is none else ( Isaiah 45:5-7 ).” With that poetry, Israel reached a fully developed monotheism. Moreover, such monotheism asserts that the only God is Creator of the world: “I am the Lord that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone” (Isaiah 44:24 ) and its Savior and Redeemer: “I, even I, am the Lord, and beside me there is no savior.” (Isaiah 43:11 ). George W. Coats

The belief that there is only one God in all places at all times. There were none before God and there will be none after Him. Monotheism is the teaching of the Bible (Isa 45:21-22; Isa 44:6; Isa 44:8; Isa 45:5; Isa 45:14; Isa 45:18; Isaiah 43:10; Isa 46:9; Isa 47:8Isaiah 43:10; Isa 44:6; Isa 44:8; Isa 45:5; Isa 45:14; Isa 45:18; Isa 45:21-22; Isa 46:9; Isa 47:8Isaiah 43:10; Isa 44:6; Isa 44:8; Isa 45:5; Isa 45:14; Isa 45:18; Isa 45:21-22; Isa 46:9; Isa 47:8Isaiah 43:10; Isa 44:6; Isa 44:8; Isa 45:5; Isa 45:14; Isa 45:18; Isa 45:21-22; Isa 46:9; Isa 47:8; John 17:3; 1 Corinthians 8:5-6; Galatians 4:89).

(n.) The doctrine or belief that there is but one God.