Pluralism, Particularity, and the Truth

A brief comparison of Abrahamic & Indic Approaches

Earlier this summer, I wrote on the distinction between “exclusive” and “inclusive” monotheism. John Peter Kenney described this distinction primarily on metaphysical terms: exclusive monotheism envisages the one true god as a deity more or less like the proposed deities of polytheism, unique only in being the sole true example of that class of beings. Meanwhile, inclusive monotheism instead understands God as the unifying reality which undergirds all existence: not a being among beings, not even a supreme being, but the very condition of possibility of their being any being at all—the whence of being-itself.

Monotheism vs. Monotheism

Though Kenney understood this distinction primarily in metaphysical terms, I have been thinking about the link between this metaphysics and social (and ecclesial) realities as well. Does a (metaphysically) inclusive monotheism allow for a more inclusive social community and religious vision? Does a (metaphysically) exclusive monotheism tend to lead us to a more exclusive understanding of social groups and religious identity? I think there is good reason to answer these questions in the affirmative, at least provisionally. And I think there is reason to do so both deductively and inductively. Below, I will briefly lay out why.

The deductive move here is, I think, obvious. If one thinks that there is a class of things called gods, but there is only one member of this class, then one will perceive a competition between differing religious groups: if my god then yours must be fake, since there is only one. And if this is true, then your religion is bad, even fraudulent, and you need to join my religion. Whether it is Yhwh, Aten, or any other named divinity, the metaphysics of exclusive monotheism neatly line up to social, ecclesial, and even political acts of exclusion too: only the true god should be venerated, so only those who are part of the religion that does so are legitimate members of society, proper leaders of government, etc.

Now we already know that polytheistic systems allow, at least in principle, for a more flexible religious society. The Roman Empire was famously and violently intolerant of any kind of dissent, but it was perfectly happy to fold new deities, cults, and entire religions into its religious framework. You didn’t have to worship Jupiter or Mars, so long as you worshipped in some traditional way and your religious community was willing to recognize the authority of the Roman state. Indeed, eastern religious—such as the worship of Isis, Mithra, and a variety of so-called “Mystery religions”—was all the rage in Roman culture (even if some Roman conservatives saw it as rather degenerate). Even Judaism—which, as I will argue below, at least often trends towards the metaphysically exclusive interpretation of monotheism—was accepted by the Roman state as a legitimate religion of no inherent danger to the empire (this opinion would change no later than 70 CE, of course).

OK, so: metaphysically exclusive monotheism might engender exclusivist social, ecclesial, and even political relations, while polytheism seems to leave the door open for greater tolerance, at least socially. What about metaphysically inclusive monotheism?

Well, since a genuinely inclusive monotheist understands the word “God” to refer to the ultimate reality beyond being which is the source and sustainer of all existence, they are not likely to exclusively identify God with any particular named deity whatsoever. Obviously, the reality is more complicated, and even some religious expressions which are sympathetic to inclusive monotheism (versions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, for example) often give in to their more exclusivist tendencies. But, at least in principle, an inclusive monotheist could readily regard all the deities of the various faiths as, on the one hand, not actually complete expressions of the true God beyond being, but also, on the other hand and at the same time, perfectly acceptable mediations of the true God. In other words, on the metaphysically inclusive monotheistic view, no named deity actually is God alone, but most, or at least many, named deities are acceptable objects of worship because they allow the human to interface with a reality which is otherwise ineffable.

This would seem to leave room for an even more inclusive picture than polytheism does, since it simultaneously implies both a unity to all (genuine) human religious expression—all human life comes from the same source beyond being—while simultaneously allowing for all the diversity we actually find in that religious behavior, since all the differing paths can be respected as legitimate, none (necessarily) truer than any other.

Now, again, the reality is more complicated. For one thing, I do not think that someone committed to inclusive monotheism (as I am) is required to believe that all religions are actually true, full stop. Some religions, I think, are actually highly deceptive and harmful (such as Mormonism¹ and Prosperity Gospel Evangelicalism, for example). And, even among those faiths which I think do actually turn human attention to God, some may be truer or less true (I tend to find Christianity and Hinduism to be the best vehicles myself, even as I have great respect for Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Sikhism, and other traditions too). And, it seems perfectly likely that the “best” religion for one will not necessarily be the best for everyone—part of the beauty of inclusive monotheism is that it makes space for the idea that different cultures and personalities will respond better to different religious expressions. I say tom-ai-to, you say tom-ah-to, and in the end we both achieve union with God. One mountaintop, many paths up the mountain, etc. etc.

So, that’s the theory, in very summary form. Is there any evidence to suggest that it’s correct?

Answering that question academically would be a huge endeavor, one which I am not even properly equipped to begin, much less try to complete here. But I want to offer two quick reflections on two different religious texts that might at least suggest the form of an answer.

Judaism is no doubt an extremely diverse religious community. As ever, it is probably better to talk about Judaisms rather than one single Judaism. This is a tradition that housed the Sadducees and Pharisees, the Hasidim and the Reformed. At certain points in its history, it has been deeply invested in the coming Messiah; at other times, it’s been invested in deeply “otherworldly” mystical practice and even convinced of the truth of reincarnation.

And so it seems likely to me that Judaism has both metaphysically exclusive and inclusive expressions. That said, I think that in the Torah (“the Law”, the first five books of the Hebrew, and therefore also the Christian, Bible) and indeed much of the broader Tanakh, or Hebew Bible, it is a metaphysically exclusive version of monotheism that is on offer. Consider, for example, the very first of the Ten Commandments:

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.²

This commandment assumes a relation of competition between the deity who is speaking and any other named deity; to worship another god would be to fail to worship the true God. The following prohibition on idolatry only drives this viewpoint home:

You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.³

This deity is “jealous”, and the worship of any kind of statue or image would be to worship something other than God Godself.

This concern with idolatry would continue to be a central concern through the Hebrew Bible, and indeed, when bad times came for Israel, the prophetic interpretation was often (though not always) that Israel was being punished for its idolatrous activity. Consider, for example, the opening of the book of the prophet Hosea:

When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, ‘Go, take for yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.’⁴

Here, the worship of deities other than Yhwh⁵ is compared analogously to adulterous behavior by a wife: she should have stayed monogamous. Likewise, Israel should have worshipped only Yhwh, but chose to worship other deities as well. It’s worth noting that there is no evidence that worship of Yhwh ceased here—it’s not that the people stopped sacrificing or praying to Yhwh altogether—but simply that this worship was not exclusive.

This analogy comes to a head when Hosea pronounces Yhwh’s dream for the future:

On that day, says the Lord, you will call me, ‘My husband’, and no longer will you call me, ‘My Baal’. For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be mentioned by name no more.⁶

The prophet’s job is to convince the people of Israel to return to their exclusive religious relationship with Yhwh, to cease also worshipping all the “Baal”s they had begun worshipping alongside their own deity. Now, the word Baal is Syro-Phoenician/Canaanite for “Lord”, and a variety of deities could be addressed this way, though there was one “major” Baal who was one of the principle deities of some of the Canaanite peoples who, according to the book of Joshua, Israel displaced upon entering the land after the Exodus. In other words, the people were worshipping some of the local deities of the people they had conquered/displaced/lived alongside. Now, as mentioned above in our brief discussion of Roman culture, this kind of religious syncretism is common, but the prophet Hosea was dead-set against it.

Again, assuming that he held the metaphysically exclusive monotheist position outlined in the two commandments from Exodus quoted above, this makes sense. From his perspective, Yhwh is the only true deity, and so these various other Canaanite deities are deceptions which are leading people from genuine spirituality.

And indeed, the Hebrew Bible is full of examples of idols being mocked, desecrated, and smashed. And according to the logic of exclusive monotheism, this makes perfect sense: an idol is, at best, a confusion, and at worst, an act of intentional deception (of either human or demonic origin). On this view, only the worship of Yhwh is genuine worship of an existing god, and so only this worship is proper.

Now, I’ve already mentioned that many polytheists could take a very different view, and were happy to integrate the worship of other cultures’ deities into their own pantheon. Indeed, even when a society was highly militarized and aggressive, it was often happy to add the deities of the nations it conquered to its own religious cultus. For example, when the Ark of the Covenant (the closest thing the Israelites had to an image of Yhwh) was captured by the Philistines, the Philistines didn’t destroy it, but placed it in the temple of their own deity.⁷ The implication was that Yhwh did exist, but was subservient to the leading deities of the Philistines (especially their main deity, Dagon) in the spiritual realm—just as they hoped the Israelites would be subservient to the Philistines themselves in the material world. (Obviously, then, though polytheism might open some possibilities for greater tolerance religious tolerance, it does not by any means require broader social, economic, or political tolerance...)

Alright, so what about metaphysically inclusive monotheism? Is there evidence of this resulting in greater social or religious tolerance? Well, the difficulty here is that inclusive monotheism is best and most clearly represented in philosophical, rather than overtly religious, activity. When Kenney spoke of inclusive monotheism in the west, for example, he primarily pointed to thinkers like Plotinus, the progenitor of Neoplatonism.⁸

But I do think we have one major religious tradition which really does have metaphysically inclusive monotheism at its core: Hinduism. Now, that claim might surprise some people; most westerners tend to think of Hinduism as a polytheistic religion—after all, there are numerous major divinities, and at least a few thousand minor divinities, in the Hindu pantheon. This is true, but it brings us to the unique and powerful perspective of inclusive monotheism. While its true that Hindus venerate any number of divinities in worship—Vishnu, Shiva, and Shakti being the most common—the scriptural (and near-scriptural) tradition of Hinduism is clear that these are all expressions of the one true divinity, known in Sanskrit as Brahman.⁹ Generally speaking, when a Hindu speaks in English of “God”, with a capital-G, they are translating “Brahman” from Sanskrit, which means the unitive ultimate reality which is the source, sustainer, and end of all things—the Real which is before and beyond being-itself.

In other words, Hinduism is most certainly a mode of inclusive monotheism. Brahman is the source of everything and is one, but is not any kind of being whatsoever. Indeed, Vedanta philosophy even stipulates a potential distinction between nirguna Brahman and saguna Brahman—“Brahman without qualities” and “Brahman with qualities”. The former is understand to undergird the latter, and yet there is recognition that the human mind cannot fathom anything without quality, therefore it is permissible to focus on Brahman imagined with qualities, so that one can do one’s philosophical and spiritual work.

The various deities of the Hindu pantheon, then, are essentially taken as more concrete extensions of saguna Brahman (though I am massively oversimplifying here!): Vishnu is understood as Brahman in its role as supporting and sustaining existence; Shiva and/or Shakti are taken as Brahman in its role as that which destroys—and thereby renews—existence. But both are really just expressions of the same unified ultimate reality. The diverse forms really do exist, but they are ultimately unified.

This combination of a diversity of forms all pointing to a singular reality beyond form comes to have an astounding number of levels. For example, most westerners have heard of the Hindu deity Krishna (most famous here due to the evangelism of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, a.k.a. the “Hare Krishnas”). But Krishna is understood to be a human incarnation of Vishnu—not a separate divinity at all. And, of course, Vishnu is himself just a concrete form of the formless Brahman, a mode that God takes so that we humans can comprehend that which is beyond comprehension. We see the way that the incarnate deity points humanity to Brahman from a famous passage of the Bhagavad Gita:

O Supreme Lord, You are precisely what You declare yourself to be. Now I desire to see Your divine cosmic form, O Greatest of persons.

O Lord of all mystic powers, if You think I am strong enough to behold It, then kindly reveal that imperishable cosmic form to me.

The Supreme Lord said: Behold, O Parth, My hundreds and thousands of wonderful forms of various shapes, sizes, and colors.¹⁰

Here, Krishna, who is Vishnu incarnate, points his human interlocutor to the truth that Brahman itself is expressed in “hundreds and thousands of wonderful forms”. The true God is known by many names, of which Krishna—and Vishnu—is only one. (And indeed, it is common for Hindu religious teachers to stress that they believe many other religious also express the fundamental truth. Hinduism is a naturally—though not always consistently, as modern Hindutva ideology shows—ecumenical faith.)

So, right off the bat, we see how this mode of metaphysically inclusive monotheism differs from the metaphysically exclusive monotheism we saw in Exodus and Hosea: Vishnu is not seen as a threat to Shiva, nor Shiva to Shakti—and indeed, these differing deities are all seen as pointing to the one true God of all things. The analogy to the Hebrew Bible would be if the various “Baals” of the Canaanites were seen really just as expressions of Yhwh—or, better yet, if both Baal and Yhwh were seen as concrete expression of the one true God beyond being or name (“Baal”, again, is just Syro-Phoenician for “Lord”—semantically equivalent to the “Adonai” used in Hebrew to refer to Yhwh).¹¹

And this inclusiveness does seem to extend beyond the metaphysical realm—at least to a degree. One of the interesting facets of Hinduism is that the deities which are most popular in Hindu worship today are, as far as I am aware, completely absent from the primary scriptures. The Vedas, which we think originated from a people who migrated into India from what is today Afghanistan, mention deities like Agni and Indra (loosely speaking, the gods of fire and storm, respectively)—but not Vishnu or Shiva. Agni and Indra are rarely invoked by practicing Hindus today in most forms of worship (excluding traditional puja—but this is not something Hindus are likely doing on a weekly basis).

I think there is reason to believe that Vishnu and Shiva are deities drawn from the indigenous religions of India¹²—the religions already present when Vedic civilization entered from the north. Although the details of this indigenous culture (and it was probably actually a set of cultures rather than one monolithic thing) are murky today, this indigenous tradition is often referred to as Dravidian. So we have the Vedic and the Dravidian religious cultures meeting, sometimes in peace, often in fighting, but over the centuries, there is a kind of merger. And even though the Vedas would come to be the primary scriptural texts, we see the Dravidian deities (probably?) actually survive on as the principal focuses of actual worship and spirituality—and get much more attention in the post-scriptural texts such as the Gita.

It certainly looks like we have a basically monotheistic religious culture that is able to fold new traditions into its identity precisely because it understands God as ultimately beyond any form—Agni and Indra can mediate God, but so can Vishnu and Shiva, so let’s employ them all. On this interpretation, then, we get a syncretistic religious culture precisely because of metaphysically inclusive monotheistic doctrine.

Now, the theory I am presenting here could be criticized from many angles. For one thing, I am at best showing correlation, and definitely not proving causation: I certainly cannot be sure that it was inclusive monotheism that caused this openness to syncretism rather than something else. (Indeed, one could argue that I have things backward: perhaps religious pluralism led to inclusive monotheism, rather than the reverse.) And also, very importantly, this tolerance for outside religious doctrine and practice did not extend to a tolerant attitude in general: the most obvious example here is that Hinduism would come to have a viciously rigid caste system, and there is good reason to believe that those at the top of the caste hierarchy, in general, were from the ethnic group of the Vedic peoples, while those who tend to be at the bottom were from the the ethnic groups of the Dravidian peoples. So this is not a happy story of some kind of philosophically monotheistic utopia.

Even so, I find the evidence intriguing, even if not conclusive, that good philosophical theology set the stage for a more pluralistic religious culture, which in term helped to popularize and preserve that good philosophical theology.

1. While I am aware that this group prefers to refer to itself as “the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints” and therefore its individual members as “Latter Day Saints” I regard their teachings as so removed from Jesus’s own that this name, though the one they use, is inherently misleading. Obviously, I imagine they disagree with me. Even so, I tend to use the more colloquial “Mormon” when referring to this group and its members. (I hasten to add that I 100% defend their right to practice this religion—disagreement need not lead to intolerance.)

2. Exodus 20:2-3, NRSV translation

3. Exodus 20:4-6, NRSV

4. Hosea 1:2-3, NRSV

5. “the Lord” here translates Adonai, the word which should be uttered when pronouncing the passage aloud since the name of God is not to be uttered, but what is written in the text is Yhwh

6. Hosea 2:16-17

7. 1 Samuel 4 & 5

8. I think that at its best, Christianity took on a degree of this metaphysically inclusive monotheism, though it’s obviously not the case that traditional Christianity ever understood this to mean that other religions’ deities are genuine expressions of the God known in Christian theology. Indeed, many Christians even claim that Judaism doesn’t recognize the same God as Christianity—despite the fact that Jesus is Jewish! It seems clear to me that an opportunity for a both more philosophically and spiritually rewarding path was missed. (As the rather frustrating comment thread linked below shows.)

9. Not to be confused with the “creator god” Brahma or the priestly caste of the Brahmins

10. Bhagavad Gita, 11:3-5. I don’t know precisely who provided this English translation, but I accessed it here: https://www.holy-bhagavad-gita.org/chapter/11/

11. Fun trivia: “Hannibal”, the name of the great Carthaginian general, means “beloved of Baal”

12. Though someone who knows more about Indian history might correct me here!