While Christianity (or, at least as far as I know, most Christian sects) do posit the existence of supernatural beings other than God, I don’t know if calling them “assistants” is correct, at least not when it comes to creation.
Angels certainly can act as messengers at times. But they have no particular creative power.
They’re not deities. They are created beings, like you and me, and have free will, but they’re not minor gods.
That’s what my particular brand of Christianity (Catholicism) teaches, anyway.
I note that this discussion has focused on figuring out WHY people will choose monotheism over polytheism. Nothing wrong with that, but the answer may be more psychological than logical or heuristic. A popular theme on the origins of gods describes a steady development from animism through polytheism through henotheism through monotheism to atheism. (I am not claiming that anyone in this thread has proposed that scenario, only noting that it is out there and may have influenced some of the ideas proposed.) However, one aspect of monotheism that I have seen repeated in history is its revolutionary origin. On multiple occasions, a group with more than one god will put forth a single deity at times of social upheaval or immense danger. When Ezra and Nehemiah return from Babylon and (rather harshly) (re-)institute monotheism, Judea it is at the end of the Babylonian captivity in which Judea was destroyed as a kingdom. The Protestant Reformation (in which devotion to the saints was minimized) or at the Second Vatican Council (which, again, reduced the veneration of saints) each occurred as cultural disruptions of their societies. Mohammed arrived at his monotheistic views with no apparent development away from polytheism or henotheism, but simply an inspiration of a single god. His preaching of Islam occurred at a time when various violent struggles had occurred on the Arabian peninsula disrupting society. Further, a number of studies of pre-literate societies seem to have found a monotheistic beliefs.
In no case that I have found has there been a philosophical development from polytheism to monotheism. Monotheism has always appeared to be an abrupt change. I wonder if there is something in the social or psychological makeup of societies that identifies a single god (or god as singular).
I’m trying to imagine what I would believe, if I was convinced the universe needed a creator or creators, ignoring all extant or extinct religions. So that leads to the first question, how many creators? It seems most cultures eventually pare their gods down to one, but to me, that seems the least likely quantity. My problem is there’s no evidence of beings with superhuman or supernatural powers.
But creation requires such power. And any being with such powers is less credible in proportion to its power. For example, if you could somehow convince me that a man from Kansas had superhuman strength, you’d find it much harder to convince me that the same guy could also fly. Add an ability to see through walls, and your story is even less credible.
Now add all the powers required to create a universe. To me, the existence of such a being is ridiculous. Spread that power around to 1000 creators, each with some specialization, and it becomes slightly more palatable for me.
So there’s my thought process, but it must be an odd one, because nearly every theist stops at 1 creator, plus a few superhuman sub-gods.
But taking this reasoning one step further, based on both a priori reasoning and the evidence of real things that we do observe in the universe, if anything possesses god-like powers it’s more likely to be an entire civilization.
It more than opens it up to having more than one god, it insists on it. Remember in Exodus, the Pharaoh’s sorcerer’s were able to transform their rods into serpents. Where did this ability come from if not from the gods of Egypt? The fact that Aaron’s transformed rod was able to consume the serpents produced by the Pharaoh’s magicians shows that Aaron’s god was stronger, but not alone.
Well, if you could somehow convince me that a man from Kansas had superhuman strength, I’d suspect he wasn’t human (at least not a normal, Earth-born human), and that would make me more open to accepting that there were other unusual things about him as well.
Is this Hypothetical You aware of, and accepting of, modern cosmological theories about the origin of the universe (i.e. the Big Bang)?
Do you think that the universe is so complex that it’s far more likely to have been formed by a whole bunch of Little Bangs than one Big one?
If you wanted to accept both a Creator and the Big Bang, would you find it easier to believe that One Supreme Being was ultimately responsible for the Big Bang and the subsequent unfolding of the universe, or that millions of more limited beings were?
I’ve often wondered if the reasoning goes like this: imagine one god who not only has tremendous powers, but who really loves being coy — you know, a god who hides himself and works in mysterious ways and thus and such. So, one entity with (a) incredible might, and (b) that psychological quirk.
You’ve now explained everything that happens, as well as why that god never actually shows up.
Now imagine 1000 entities: each of them has amazing comic-book superpowers, and every single one of them — has a psychological quirk of never actually showing up? Wait, what? They all think like that? We’ve gone from “he’s a weird guy” to — this?
Perhaps what we’re seeing is a historical process rather than a psychological one. The religious beliefs of a people are often heavily influenced by politics. People may have embraced monotheistic religions like Christianity, Islam, Manichaeism, and Zoroastrianism not because it was the “next step” in the religious chain but for the more secular reason that the regimes that controlled where they lived supported those faiths.
To refine this point, I think it’s obviously reasonable to say that a single superpower becomes less credible in proportion to its magnitude. A superhero who can lift a planet is less credible than a superhero who can lift a truck.
But when considering correlations between different superpowers, I think you are correct that if we know:
(a) Alison can lift a planet
(b) Barbara cannot lift a planet
(c) One of these two people can foretell the future
…then (contrary to superhero universes which tend to take an equitable approach to the distribution of superpowers) the person who can foretell the future is more likely to be Alison.
I don’t think credibility or plausibility has ever been an issue in faith. As soon as you accept without evidence that everything is created and controlled by a superbeing/beings you’re beyond using reason to weigh the plausibility of one implausible thing against another. The practical purpose of major religions is to unify people of more than one tribe into larger nations and empires. Having more than one god opens the gates to schisms when believers in the same pantheon start to disagree about which ones deserve the most respect and tribute. When emperors and kings choose a religion for their people (which is usually how it happens) monotheism is the logical choice.
Well, history shows that monotheistic religions are not quite immune to schisms either.
ETA: just thought a little longer about it, and I think that polytheistic religions in fact are less prone to schisms than monotheistic ones. If you worship 12 gods, it doesn’t really matter if your neighbor’s favorite god is Athena and yours is Apollo, because in a way you worship them all. In a monotheistic religion, the rules about that one God naturally must be so rigid that aberrations in thought or cult have much more potential for conflict. I’ve never heard about a Greek, Roman or Norse schism.
No religion is immune to schisms and those schisms are often a follow up to a political schism. Again, these are things initiated by emperors and kings when it is convenient to either unify or divide people. Unification being the more difficult task, a monotheistic model would be the default.
I still dispute that theory. The Roman empire worked well for centuries under a polytheistic religion and showing religious tolerance for conquered territories, but it collapsed 150 years after making Christianity the state religion.
Good point, but I don’t think those religions were often used as political tools; probably because their polytheistic nature made them unsuitable as such.
As I said in the post above, the political tool of the polytheistic empires, states or nations frequently was religious tolerance and syncretism, and it served them well.
Change the word ‘assistant’, which I don’t believe God of biblical fame ever uses in such a context and substitute ‘children’ or ‘sons’ which is biblical, both OT and NT and the reason becomes clearer. They are God’s children and He loves them and includes them.
An alternate view is that the secular aspect of the Roman Empire was failing by that time, and the Christianized element was the only part capable of moving forward. There was also an East/West schism, with the church as well, but I think that was more politically than religiously motivated.