Ethical monotheism is a form of exclusive monotheism in which God is believed to be the only god as well as the source for one's standards of morality, guiding humanity through ethical principles. [1]
Ethical monotheism originated within Judaism. [1] [2] [3] [4] It is present in various other monotheistic religions, such as Zoroastrianism, Christianity, the Baháʼí Faith, Sikhism, and Islam. All of these monotheistic religions include the belief in one Supreme Being as the ultimate authority and creator of the universe. [5] In Christianity, God is worshipped as the Trinity or according to Nontrinitarian conceptions of God. [6] In monotheistic religions, other deities are variously considered to be false or demonic, and it is believed that any other gods cannot be compared to the one that they respectively regard as the only true God. [7] [8] [9] [10]
Henotheism is the worship of a single, supreme god that does not deny the existence or possible existence of other deities that may also be worshipped. Friedrich Schelling (1775–1854) coined the word, and Friedrich Welcker (1784–1868) used it to depict primitive monotheism among ancient Greeks.
Monotheism is the belief that there is only one deity, an all-supreme being that is universally referred to as God. A distinction may be made between exclusive monotheism, in which the one God is a singular existence, and both inclusive and pluriform monotheism, in which multiple gods or godly forms are recognized, but each are postulated as extensions of the same God.
Theism is broadly defined as the belief in the existence of at least one deity. In common parlance, or when contrasted with deism, the term often describes the classical conception of God that is found in monotheism — or gods found in polytheistic religions — a belief in God or in gods without the rejection of revelation as is characteristic of deism.
Comparative religion is the branch of the study of religions with the systematic comparison of the doctrines and practices, themes and impacts of the world's religions. In general the comparative study of religion yields a deeper understanding of the fundamental philosophical concerns of religion such as ethics, metaphysics and the nature and forms of salvation. It also considers and compares the origins and similarities shared between the various religions of the world. Studying such material facilitates a broadened and more sophisticated understanding of human beliefs and practices regarding the sacred, numinous, spiritual and divine.
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Idolatry is the worship of a cult image or "idol" as though it were a deity. In Abrahamic religions idolatry connotes the worship of something or someone other than the Abrahamic God as if it were God. In these monotheistic religions, idolatry has been considered as the "worship of false gods" and is forbidden by texts such as the Ten Commandments. Other monotheistic religions may apply similar rules.
Divine command theory is a meta-ethical theory which proposes that an action's status as morally good is equivalent to whether it is commanded by God. The theory asserts that what is moral is determined by God's commands and that for a person to be moral he is to follow God's commands. Followers of both monotheistic and polytheistic religions in ancient and modern times have often accepted the importance of God's commands in establishing morality.
Christianity and other religions documents Christianity's relationship with other world religions, and the differences and similarities.
Māturīdism or Māturīdī theology is one of the main Sunnī schools of Islamic theology, developed and codified by the Persian Muslim scholar, Ḥanafī jurist, reformer (mujaddid), and scholastic theologian Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī in the 9th–10th century.
Iranian religions, also known as Persian religions, are, in the context of comparative religion, a grouping of religious movements that originated in the Iranian (Persian) plateau.
In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to control some part of the universe or life and often worshipped for doing so, or something that represents this spirit or being". Belief in the existence of at least one god is called theism.
God is monotheistic in the Abrahamic religions. The three major monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, alongside the Baháʼí Faith, Samaritanism, Druze, and Rastafari, are all regarded as Abrahamic religions due to their shared worship of the God that these traditions claim revealed himself to Abraham. Abrahamic religions share the same distinguishing features:
Conceptions of God in monotheist, pantheist, and panentheist religions – or of the supreme deity in henotheistic religions – can extend to various levels of abstraction:
In Judaism, God has been conceived in a variety of ways. Traditionally, Judaism holds that Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the national God of the Israelites, delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, and gave them the Law of Moses at Mount Sinai as described in the Torah. Jews traditionally believe in a monotheistic conception of God, which is both transcendent and immanent.
The Abrahamic religions are a group of religions, most notably Judaism, Christianity and Islam, centered around the worship of the God of Abraham. Abraham, a Hebrew patriarch, is extensively mentioned in the religious scriptures of the Hebrew and Christian Bibles, and the Quran.
This is a glossary of terms used in Christianity.
The phrase false god is a derogatory term used in Abrahamic religions to indicate cult images or deities of non-Abrahamic Pagan religions, as well as other competing entities or objects to which particular importance is attributed. Conversely, followers of animistic and polytheistic religions may regard the gods of various monotheistic religions as "false gods", because they do not believe that any real deity possesses the properties ascribed by monotheists to their sole deity. Atheists, who do not believe in any deities, do not usually use the term false god even though that would encompass all deities from the atheist viewpoint. Usage of this term is generally limited to theists, who choose to worship some deity or deities, but not others.
The following outline is provided as an overview of, and topical guide to, theology.
Middle Eastern philosophy includes the various philosophies of the Middle East regions, including the Fertile Crescent and Iran. Traditions include Ancient Egyptian philosophy, Babylonian philosophy, Christian philosophy, Jewish philosophy, Iranian/Persian philosophy, and Islamic philosophy.
God's Zeal: The Battle of the Three Monotheisms is a book by the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk, published in 2007. It traces the origins of Judaism, Christianity and Islam and criticises monotheism for leading to zealotry.
Post-Enlightenment Jewish thinkers presented modified conceptions of God that attempted to reconcile modern philosophical trends with Jewish tradition. These figures tended to stress human liberty and the ethical aspects of God. Solomon Formstecher (1808-1889) conceived of God as the spirit of the world, a concept derived from Hegel. God is completely free, and as freedom is a precondition for moral activity, God is the perfect ethical being. Leo Baeck (1873-1956) presented Judaism as, essentially, ethical monotheism, suggesting that the belief in one God–Judaism's fundamental innovation–is equivalent to the belief in a single source of moral law.
Hermann Cohen (1842-1918) was also, originally, concerned with the ethical implications of God. In his early rationalistic thought, he presented God as the "idea" that guarantees morality. Cohen's later work, however, was more traditional from a Jewish point of view, and he became more concerned with the reality of God and less concerned with the "idea" of God. Cohen's students, Franz Rosenzweig (1886-1919) and Martin Buber (1878-1965), eschewed Cohen's reliance on reason and rooted their philosophies in the experiential.
Unitarian theology, which developed in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, included a critique of the traditional Christian theology of the Trinity, which regarded God as three distinct but unified beings – transcendent Creator God, human Savior God (i.e., Jesus Christ), and immanent Spiritual God (i.e., the Holy Spirit). Unitarians viewed this understanding of God as a later theological corruption, and they embraced a view of God as a singular, unified entity; in most Unitarian theological interpretations, Jesus Christ retains highest respect as a spiritual and moral teacher of unparalleled insight and sensitivity, but he is not regarded as divine, or at least his divine nature is not on the same level as the singular and unique Creator God.