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“The disunity of the monotheisms is proof of polytheism.”

Bruner Soderberg

It's a Golden Age of polytheist theology, and I'm very much looking forward to reading Gus diZerega's God Is Dead, Long Live the Gods: A Case for Polytheism. If what I've seen of his work in the past is anything to go by, I'm expecting a crisply-expressed, thought-provoking argument.

But first I've got a question: In order to make a credible intellectual case for polytheism, do we really need to start with a deconstruction of monotheism? In order to prove polytheism coherent, must one first prove monotheism incoherent?

Here's the Table of Contents:

Introduction 1

Polytheistic “Monotheism” 9

How “Monotheism” Dissolved into Polytheism 31

The Incoherence of Monotheism 51

Science, Monotheism, and the Death of the World 75

Polytheistic Experiences 99

Science and the Spirit 123

The Living World: From the Many, One 147

The Living World: Mind and Culture 167

The Case for Polytheism 189

Bibliography 211

If my math is accurate (never a good assumption), to judge from what we see here, nearly half of the book—half!—is devoted to discussing monotheism, and—as I gather from the “See inside” extracts—Abrahamic monotheism in particular. (There are, of course, other kinds.)

OK, well. The sons (I use the term advisedly) of Abraham have been a major force in Western religion for the last 1500+ years or so, and most modern pagans (in the West, anyway) have grown up in an intellectual environment shaped by, in particular, the Christianities.

Still, it would seem to me that if polytheist modalities of thought have any validity, they should surely be able to stand on their own two (or however many) hooves. On current evidence (such as it is), polytheist worldviews would seem to have got along just fine on their own recognizance for oh, say about fifty thousand years or so. Historically speaking—for all their latter-day success—the Abraham religions are an aberration, a blip. Given this fact, do we really need to set about proving polytheism by first disproving monotheism? Why must monotheism be our point of departure? Aren't we tired of talking about monotheism yet? I, for one, sure am tired of hearing about it.

I wrote this blog as a contribution to recent discussions of polytheism vs. monotheism on PaganSquare when I noticed several people asserting that "most pagans" are "polytheists."  I do not call myself a polytheist because while I affirm a multiplicity of images, for me they all point to a single divine presence in the world.  I offer the below musings in a spirit of dialogue.  I am interested to hear from those who call themselves "polytheists" whether they are speaking of a plurality of images and stories pointing to a "unity of being" or whether they are also saying that there are a "plurality of (sometimes) conflicting forces" that they would call "divinities."

In Rebirth of the Goddess I noted that monotheists were the ones who defined the term polytheism and wondered if in fact there really were any polytheists in the history of the world. I posed this question because monotheists assert that polytheists not only worship or honor a "diversity of images," but also insist that polytheists believe that there are a "diversity of conflicting and competing powers" in the world.  Monotheists might even go so far as to say that polytheists deny that there is a "unity of being" underlying all of the diversity and difference in the world.

For me the notion that "the world is the body of Goddess" (or divinity) is more primary than multiply elaborated images, names, and stories about divine beings. I am less moved by myths of Goddesses and Gods than I am by images of the Goddess that incorporate plant and animal as well as human qualities. In one sense I am closer to animism than polytheism.  It is the beauty of the world that moves me to reverence.

In recent years monotheism has been attacked as a “totalizing discourse” that justifies the domination of others in the name of a universal truth. In addition, from the Bible to the present day some have used their own definitions of “exclusive monotheism” to disparage the religions of others. Moreover, feminists have come to recognize that monotheism as we know it has been a “male monotheism” that for the most part excludes female symbols and metaphors for God.  With all of this going against monotheism, who would want to affirm it?