God and gods: The Mutual Truth of Polytheism and Monotheism
A monotheistic God can exist in a polytheistic cosmos. And polytheistic gods don’t undermine the reality of The One God. The One can be expressed as many, and the many are all rooted in The One.
There is The All. Which is the totality of everything. And this All is all there is. And there’s just one of them. And this one is a One. It just is and we have to accept that as Being. Let’s call this being “The One.” The One is often conceptualized by monotheists as God. They believe that there is only one God and he is the creator and upholder of all reality.
Monotheists are often contrasted with polytheists who believe in multiple gods. Although it may seem intuitive that monotheism and polytheism are incompatible and contradict one another, this is not the case. Monotheism and polytheism can exist together. The truth of monotheism and polytheism are compatible and anchored to the same Transcendent reality. The One can exist in a polytheistic cosmos. Or more accurately stated, polytheistic representations of
Polytheists are demonstrating that forces of the cosmos exist and represent them symbolically as gods. These gods exist as symbolic representations of cosmic forces and patterns of reality. These forces are of the cosmos. These forces are the operation of the universe. They are an eternal feature of reality that transcends the material world.
Monotheists often misunderstand the belief in polytheistic gods or deities as undermining the belief in The One God. But this is not the case. The gods of polytheism are all manifestations of the same God of monotheism. Polytheism is articulating the Transcendent as multiple rather than singular.
Consider the monotheistic religion of Christianity. Christians suggest that the life of Jesus seems to illuminate the Transcendent. Christians argue that Jesus is the Transcendent. Which he is, but he’s also the symbolic representation of the Transcendent. So much so that human civilization was rapidly drawn to this message in an archetypical fashion.
And Christians have valuable insight when they demonstrate that Jesus is the same thing as The One. The All.
The All is represented through Jesus. And for this to make sense, Jesus is the human embodiment of The All. Whereas some non-Christians say the All, Christians say The All since the Transcendent is embodied in an individual.
And this is why some people of polytheistic religions such as Hinduism easily accepted Christianity when it spread to the East because Eastern thought initially understood Jesus as an embodiment of the Divine. Some Hindus had no issue believing in Jesus as a god since symbolic representations of the Divine through multiple gods are a common feature of Hinduism. Hinduism has many gods, all of which are an embodiment of the Transcendent. But this conception of the Transcendent as gods — forces of the ultimate reality — does not conflict with the notion of a monotheistic God.
Polytheism is compatible with Monotheism. Polytheistic gods are symbolic representations of the Divinity of The One God. The One manifests itself in many forms, yet the many stem from the same Transcendent core. They are both studying the same Transcendent metaphysical reality.
God and gods.
Gg, we did it.
