Why monotheism? What did monotheism offer that the previous religions did not? What made the development of monotheism necessary in some places, but completely optional in others?

First, a quick run down on the development of religion as it parallels developments in civilization.

First, always, is animism. To the animist, all that happens is the work of spirits, ghosts, and other entities, and all things have their own spirit, their own animus. This is the base human religion, and a product of the highly develop social intelligence of our species, which relates best to that which has a social presence, in other words, has thoughts, feelings, and a personality. In short, something that is a person, even if it not necessary human at all. And so when humanity lives in small villages and lives very close to nature, and is still primarily a hunter/gatherer, the shortest route to an answer for any question about the world is, basically, “a spirit did it”. A world entirely run by socially present entities is a quite reassuring thing to our social primate minds. We can relate to it, understand it, feel we can negotiate it much like we negotiate the social world of our mundane human lives.

But this only holds true up to a certain level of development. If your tribe of animistic primitives (anywhere in the world, any time in history) comes to the point where they master agriculture and/or things like the buffalo jump and animal husbandry, they will go from being hunters and gatherers to being herdsmen and farmers, and that means a more complex society, with individual property, fences, boundaries, and the beginnings of bureaucracy and specialization.

And so it becomes harder and harder for the people to relate to a world of somewhat vaguely defined spiritual beings, and they start to see the world as still the product of the wills of individual entities, but these entities now become specialists as well, with specific roles and jobs. This one is the god of the moon. This one is the goddess of the hunt. And so forth.

Thus, animism, in time, evolves into pantheonic polytheism. Like the world it reflects, the power structure of the spiritual realm becomes the domain of one big powerful family, who bicker and fight just like your own extended family. They all have their specialties, and they all require appeasement and negotiation… again, just like dealing with your own extended family.

This works quite well between the dawn of farming and herding, and the rise of the city-state. Once the rise of the Bronze Age gives rise to true cities, with all the demands of the social fabric to withstand crowded and complex urban conditions, polytheism begins to be too complex.

Complicating the matter is the tendency of these city-states to align with one god or goddess more than the others. Usually, this is a result of a combination of the intense infighting amongst the various priests of various gods and goddesses, and the luck of the draw. We were celebrating Demeter when we won over those other assholes? DEMETER IS AWESOME!

The real problem occurs when city-states begin conquering one another. If City A that worships God A wins over City B that worships God B, the only possible explanation is that God A just defeated God B, and God B has to go. Usually, this happens via God A simply absorbing the duties and part of the aspect of God B.

This is how you get things like “God A is the god of war, herring fishermen, pottery, and erotic topiary. ”

So in the transition from animism to polytheism, the multitude of spirits become the local gods of cities, and as the city-states are conquered into consolidating, the number of gods shrinks, and their powers and responsibilities grow correspondingly.

From this, it would seem that the road to monotheism is well paved and that cultural momentum alone will take you there. After all, eventually, one city state will conquer all the others, declare that their god is not just victorious but the others are all now dead/unreal/gone poof. What else can happen, right?

But that’s where the question comes in, because monotheism sprang into existence in some places, and in other places, they instead developed an overarching religion which encompassed the previous world of polytheistic gods and animistic spirits and mysticism without the need for one single god to win over all the rest and get all the power, all the glory, and banish all the others to the darkness of being either turned into demons or simply said to have never been real in the first place.

So, why monotheism? Is it simply the result of a more warlike, winner takes all kind of culture? Is it the pressure of tightly packed cities which requires a simplification of the celestial hierarchy to parallel the simplification of the city-states into nations and empires with a single autocratic leader? Is it simply the result of the mingling of different societies over the generation under the steady agitation of trade and commerce until it all becomes one homogeneous cosmopolitan culture?

I’m not sure, but the question fascinates me. It could be nothing but random chance. But I don’t think so. There has to be a reason why all three of the major monotheisms of the world (Islam, Christianity, and Judaism) all come from the same small area of the Middle East. There has to be something about that time in that place which blazed monotheism into existence.

And perhaps even more importantly, there had to be a reason why they held on, and spread. There must be something appealing about them that gave them an edge over polytheism in some places.

In the next article in this series, I will speculate as to these reasons.