Death – self-consciousness or discursive thinking – and the existence of God seem to be intimately linked. With the thought of death emerges the awareness of self-existence and the necessity or desire for self-preservation. Death provoked the thinking that gave rise to the three fundamental questions of where I come from, where I am going, and what is the meaning of my life. From this musing is born the need to always exist, and thus the desire for God. This desire would not have surfaced in the first place if there was no possibility of meeting it.
Throughout the ages the concept of God has been evolving along with the human person’s increasing awareness of himself and his environment. We can distinguish three stages in this evolution: animism, polytheism and monotheism. These stages, however, do not succeed one another in the sense that the new does not replace the old; that is, animism did not disappear with the introduction of polytheism, nor was it extinguished completely with the rise of monotheism. None of the previous stage has disappeared, but it coexists to a lesser extent with the succeeding one.
Another way of looking at the evolution of the notion of God is from the perspective of the dialectic between the spiritual or supernatural and the material or physical. From the time death dug an emptiness into our physical body (understood as a living matter), the spirit was born to fill this emptiness. From that moment, not only the human being himself but everything else became a spiritual being. The spiritual mastered the material because only the spiritual thinks and knows that it exists since the material is crude, coarse and inanimate.
In the early days of the human civilization, the spiritual factor dominated the material one. With the rise of civilization, the spiritual gradually diminished, notably during the Renaissance, and thus even before the rise of the philosophical atheisms of the nineteenth and twentieth century (Feuerbach, Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche), but especially after these centuries, reaching the very bottom, to the lowest of the low.
With the emergence of the New Age’s religious syncretism, there seems to be a rise in the spiritual factor because people, even though they are averse to any institutionalized form of religion, do declare themselves as being spiritual. This vague, diffused and non-institutionalized spirituality seems to have much in common with the first stage of the religious sentiment, the animism. Are we returning to the beginning, like the myth of the eternal return?
Animism
He sustained him in a desert land, in a howling wilderness waste; he shielded him, cared for him, guarded him as the apple of his eye. Deuteronomy 32:10
When the human race became aware of itself, it also became aware of its misery and disadvantage relative to other living beings, to which Nature seemed to have endowed with everything. Completely helpless, and at the mercy of the forces of nature and other animals, the human person found himself like Moses in the desert, as the verse above states.
Under this circumstance, our ancestors lived with the belief that everything was animated; both the objects such as the animals, plants, rivers, rocks etc., as well as the natural phenomenon like thunder, lightning, wind, rain etc., and even the universe itself possessed a soul, that is, spiritual or supernatural qualities, meanings or power.
A bit like magic, animism is based on the belief that the world, both in its entirety and its parts, has a soul or spirit. Even the air we breathe is populated by spirits that are impersonal forces and can be invoked or summoned and manipulated by shamans, mediums, magicians, sorcerers and witches using spells, rituals and magic words.
Animism believes in the existence of a supreme God, to which one cannot access directly but only by means of these spirits, and since their designs may be contrary to humans’, they need to be appeased permanently. The animist lives continually with the fear of displeasing some spirit, hence he wears amulets or talismans to protect himself.
Unlike the organized and institutionalized religions, animism survives in the minds of people through oral tradition, without any institutional help. Therefore compared to the organized religions, it is a “disorganized” religion, still practiced today by indigenous tribes where they still exist: in North and South America, Asia, Africa, Australia and the Pacific Islands.
Apart from this, in the modern world all forms of superstition and divination such as astrology, fortune telling, witchcraft, and casting of spells are remnants of animism that remain popular and are still widely accepted. Objects that give good luck and rituals to avoid bad luck continue to be part of our daily life such as enter with the right foot, and wearing good luck charms like the rabbit foot, the horseshoes, the four-leaf clover…
The New Age religion which claims to be the synthesis of all religions, contains a lot of neo-paganism or animism. Coming to think of it, even the Franciscan spirituality can be viewed from this perspective, by calling the wolf and sun brothers, and the water and moon sisters, Saint Francis seems to be giving back to these realities the soul that they once possessed.
Monotheism, more than polytheism, fought against all forms of animism. The Catholic Church, as we sadly know, went so far as to create an organization like the Inquisition to cleanse from the belief of any and every animist manifestation.
After the gradual purging of materialism which has been increasing since the Renaissance, today most people do realize that a material object cannot have spiritual power and that only a spiritual being can have spiritual power. However, there are still some who are superstitious, always reminding us of our animism past.
If we compare the evolution of the notion of God with human development and maturity, animism corresponds to childhood – children in fact have the tendency to see everything around them as having a soul, they talk to their dolls and toys, they live in a world animated by fairies, witches and wizards, and they believe in Santa Claus and magic; Walt Disney, in his films for children, knew well how to explore this side of our childhood fantasy.
Polytheism
Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god. Isaiah 44:6
As we have already said, as the human person advances his knowledge and dominion of the environment this latter becomes more and more materialised. All the realities that the human being knows, controls and dominates tend to eventually lose their souls, their grip and power over man, in some way; it passes to the inventive spirit of the human being.
In this way, the material sphere keeps increasing while the spiritual one keeps decreasing. Whatever man dominates will ceases to have power over him as it loses its spiritual power to become a well controlled reality. The human person steals the souls of the things each time he gains knowledge of them, and as the world and everything in it become more and more materialized, the person becomes more and more spiritualized, thus becoming the only spiritual being.
There are however realities that the human person cannot dominate with knowledge. These are each time fewer and fewer in number, and when faced with those that the human being finds himself completely helpless and impotent, and at their mercy, he calls them gods. In this way, animism is succeeded by polytheism, the belief that the principal realities, powers and forces of nature are dominated by gods. In fact there is a god for every reality, being the master of that same reality.
The gods proliferated in such a way that the more important they were to man’s survival, the greater their importance, and the greater the number of their faithful. For example, the gods of fertility, of war, of love etc., saw the formation of great religions around their cult. Hinduism is the first great religion and continues to be still practiced by more than a billion people. The main gods of the Greek and Roman mythologies are the following:
Zeus/Jupiter – The youngest son of Cronus and Rhea (see Titanic Home) is the leader of the gods who live on Mount Olympus. He imposes justice and order by throwing lightning built by the cyclops. Zeus had several wives and love affairs with goddesses, nymphs and humans.
Hera/Juno – The third wife of Zeus and the queen of Olympus. Hera is the goddess of marriage and childbirth. She is vindictive against the lovers of her husband and to the children that Zeus had with them. For the Greeks, Hera and Zeus symbolize the male-female union.
Hades/Pluto – Even though he is the brother of Zeus and Poseidon, he does not live on Mount Olympus. Hades, as the god of the dead, rules his own territory: the world of the dead. Despite his role, he is not like the devil, a god associated with evil.
Poseidon/Neptune – The elder brother of Zeus, he is the god of the sea; with a movement of his trident, he causes storms and earthquakes.
Athena/Minerva – She is the goddess of wisdom and the daughter of Zeus with his first wife, Metis. Her symbol is the wisest of all birds, the owl. Skilled and expert in arts and war, Athena carries a spear and a shield called Aegis.
Hermes/Mercury – Son of Zeus with the goddess Mayan, the messenger of gods is the protector of travellers and merchants. Represented by a man in winged sandals, Hermes has a dark side: at times he would deliver lies and false stories. Already in those days there existed the “fake news” of Trump…
Apollo/Apollo – The god of light (represented by the sun), the arts, medicine and music. He is the son of Zeus with the titan, Leto. In his youth, he used to be vindictive but later he became a calmer god, using his talent to heal, for music and predictions of future.
Artemis/Diana – Twin sister of Apollo, she is the goddess of hunting, represented by a woman with a bow – contradictorily, she is also the protector of animals… Artemis is the chaste goddess (virgin), who becomes furious when threatened.
Hephaestus/Vulcan – Son of Zeus and Hera, Hephaestus was born so weak and ugly that he was thrown into the sea by his mother. Rescued by the nymphs, he became a famous craftsman. Impressed with his talent, the gods brought Hephaestus back to Olympus and named him the god of fire and forge.
Aphrodite/Venus – The name of the goddess of love means “born of the foam” because it is said that she came out of the sea. Aphrodite is the most beautiful of all goddesses. Despite being the wife of Hephaestus, she had several love affairs – with gods such as Ares and Hermes, and also with mortals.
Ares/Mars – The terrible god of war is the other son of Zeus and Hera. On the battlefield he can kill a mortal with only his war cry! Father of several heroes – humans who were protected or sons of gods. Ares was also one of Aphrodite’s lovers.
The way in which a certain lord governs and instructs the reality entrusted to him is explained by a myth. A myth is a sacred tale or legend that is transmitted through oral tradition from one generation to the next; when its human authorship is lost, it is then attributed to a god. The story itself seeks to explain the truth of each thing and how it works within a pre-scientific mindset. Myths allowed human beings to know their environment and gave a plausible explanation of how things are and how they processed. These stories are not historical, but they are true in the sense that they convey the intelligibility of the primitive man concerning each reality.
Take as an example the myth of the god of time called Cronos, the term from which we derive the words chronometer, chronology and chronicles. Cronos, as the painter Goya depicts so well in one of his paintings, was a god who gave birth to children and after giving birth, he ate them. It seems gruesome, but it explains well what time is – each day that we get up and see the light of the sun, we are giving birth to one more day and at dusk, before going back to sleep, we consume this very day. Each day of our life is one more day in the morning and one less day at nightfall.
The Greco-Roman world presents the celestial world in parallel with the terrestrial world – what happens in Heaven also happens on Earth and vice versa. The vices of the gods are similar to the vices of the humans, so that there is no progress, for the gods are not role models that humanity can emulate. As Feuerbach would say, it was not God who created Man in his image and likeness, but rather it was Man who created God in his image and likeness.
Monotheism
Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6:4-9
Yet, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. Isaiah 64:8
The prehistory of monotheism can be traced to when man began to group all these gods and gave them a leader – Zeus in Greek mythology and Jupiter in the Roman. From here to monotheism is a mere step. The first human being to proclaim that there is only one god was the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten, also known as Amenhotep IV, who reigned Egypt in the fourteenth century before Christ, long before the Greek and Roman culture.
When Amenhotep IV ascended the throne, many gods were worshipped in Egypt, Amun being the king of gods. Initially he allowed the worship of the traditional gods of Egypt, but soon he took measures to establish the sun god, Aton, as the supreme god of all Egypt. In the ninth year of his reign, Akhenaton declared that Aton was not merely the Supreme god, but the only god. This was a radical step and the first instance of monotheism in all history.
At his death, the people of Egypt plunged right back into polytheism. But the root, the idea or intuition was launched. Akhenaton realized that a country where its citizens venerated various gods is a country divided socially and morally and thus more difficult to govern. For the pharaoh, monotheism had the goal of uniting the country and its people.
The idea did not spread among the Egyptians of that time, but it was received years later by a people, then slaves in the land of Egypt – the Jewish people. As we have said before, in polytheism the gods were similar to men; the virtues, vices, divisions and conflicts that are seen among the gods were also seen among humans, so that there is no normativity or role model among the gods for humans to follow.
Consequently, the greatest discovery of the Hebrew people is that of a personal God, who is the paragon of all human aspirations, all that is good and perfect. Because the Jews were nomads and moved from place to place, they did not worship the local gods or idols as it would be -- troublesome -- to carry them, hence they searched for a concrete reality that was everywhere – they looked up and found that reality in Heaven.
The sedentary peoples tend to be polytheistic while the nomadic peoples tend to be monotheistic. The Turkana, a nomadic people of northern Kenya, have the same word for designating Heaven and God. The Mongols, the Turks and the Tartars worshipped a common god named Tengri, the god of the blue sky.
From here to the appreciation that God is a spiritual being was a very small step that the Jews took: for them, God is spiritual and is everywhere, inside their minds and above all inside their hearts, at all times and in all places. He is a personal being because he is a God of peoples, of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. They also appreciated that he is a God who created everything and everyone.
When Egerton Young first preached the gospel to the Red Indians in Saskatchewan the idea of the fatherhood of God fascinated men who had hitherto seen God only in the thunder and the lightning and the storm blast.
Upon hearing the missionary addressing God as Father, an old chief said: "When you spoke of the great Spirit just now, did I hear you say, `Our Father'?" "Yes," said Egerton Young. "That is very new and sweet to me," said the chief. "We never thought of the great Spirit as Father. We heard him in the thunder; we saw him in the lightning, the tempest and the blizzard, and we were afraid.
So, when you tell us that the great Spirit is our Father, that is very beautiful to us." The old man paused, and then he went on, as a glimpse of glory suddenly shone on him. "Missionary, did you say that the great Spirit is your Father?" "Yes," said the missionary. "And," said the chief, "did you say that he is the Indians' Father?" "I did," said the missionary. "Then," said the old chief, like a man on whom a dawn of joy had burst, "you and I are brothers!"
Barclay commentary of the New Testament
The evolution and progress of monotheism in relation to polytheism is the union between humans under the same God whom they can call Father. The French Revolution, however secular it may seem, would not have been possible in a country with polytheistic worldview such as India, where the existence of several gods justifies the existence of castes and that men are not created equal. Human equality and dignity cannot coexist in polytheism, they are the conquests of monotheism.
Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC
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