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Theism is broadly defined as thebelief in the existence of at least onedeity.[1][2] In common parlance, or when contrasted withdeism, the term often describes the philosophical conception ofGod that is found inclassical theism—or the conception found inmonotheism—orgods found inpolytheistic religions—or a belief in God or gods without the rejection ofrevelation, as is characteristic of deism.[3][4]
Non-theism andatheism is commonly understood as non-acceptance or outright rejection of theism in the broadest sense of the term (i.e., non-acceptance or rejection of belief in God or gods).[5][6] Related (but separate) is the claim that the existence of any deity is unknown or unknowable; a stance known asagnosticism.[7][8]Agnostic theism is a personal belief in one or more deities along with acceptance that the existence or non-existence of the deity or deities is fundamentally unknowable.
A 2020Philpapers survey of professional philosophers found that 66.72% accepted or leaned towards atheism, 18.64% accepted or leaned towards theism, and 14.64% leaned towards another opinion.[9]
The termtheism derives from the Greekθεός[10] (theós) ortheoi meaning 'god' or 'gods'. The termtheism was first used byRalph Cudworth (1617–1688).[11] In Cudworth's definition, they are "strictly and properly called Theists, who affirm that a perfectly conscious understanding being, or mind, existing of itself from eternity, was the cause of all other things".[12]
Notable polytheistic religions practiced today includeTaoism,Shenism orChinese folk religion, JapaneseShinto,Santería, mosttraditional African religions,[16] and variousneopagan faiths such asWicca,Druidry,Romuva, andHellenism.Hinduism, while popularly held as polytheistic, cannot be exclusively categorised as such as some Hindus consider themselves to bepantheists and others consider themselves to be monotheists. Both are compatible with Hindu texts since there exists no consensus of standardisation in the faith. Advaita Vedanta, a philosophy in Hinduism, offers a combination of monotheism and polytheism, holding thatBrahman is the soleultimate reality of the universe, yet unity with it can be reached by worshipping multiple Devas and Devies.
A major division in modern polytheistic practices is between so-calledsoft polytheism andhard polytheism.[17][18] "Soft" polytheism is the belief that different gods may bepsychological archetypes, personifications of natural forces, or fundamentally one deity in different cultural contexts (e.g.,Odin,Zeus, andIndra all being the same god as interpreted by Germanic, Greek, and Indic peoples, respectively)—known asomnitheism.[19] In this way, gods may be interchangeable for one another across cultures.[18] "Hard" polytheism is the belief that gods are distinct, separate, real divine beings rather than psychological archetypes or personifications of natural forces. Hard polytheists reject the idea that "all gods are one essential god" and may alsoreject the existence of gods outside their own pantheon altogether.[18]
Polytheism is further divided according to how the individual deities are regarded:
Henotheism is the belief that there may be more than one deity but only one of them is to be worshiped.Zoroastrianism is sometimes considered an example.
Kathenotheism is the belief that there is more than one deity, but only one deity is worshiped at a time (or ever) and another may be worthy of worship in another time or place. If they are worshiped one at a time, then each is supreme in turn.
Monolatrism is the belief that there may be more than one deity but only one is worthy of being worshiped. Most of the modernmonotheistic religions may have begun as monolatrous ones, but this is disputed.[citation needed]
The philosophy of Baruch Spinoza is often regarded as pantheist.[20][21]
Pantheism is the belief thatreality, theuniverse and thecosmos are identical todivinity and asupreme being or entity. Pointing to the universe as being animmanentcreator deity in and of itself, the deity is understood as still expanding, creating, and eternal,[22] or thatall things compose an all-encompassing, immanent god or goddess that is manifested as the universe.[23][24] As such, evenastronomical objects are viewed as part of the sole deity. The worship of all gods of every religion has been conceived as a form of pantheism, but such a system is more akin toOmnism.[25]Pantheistbelief does not recognize a distinctpersonal god,[26]anthropomorphic or otherwise, but instead characterizes a broad range of doctrines differing in forms of relationships between reality and divinity.[27] Pantheistic concepts date back thousands of years, and pantheistic elements have been identified in various religious traditions. The termpantheism was coined by mathematicianJoseph Raphson in 1697,[28][29] and since then has been used to describe the beliefs of a variety of individuals and organizations. Pantheism was popularized inWestern culture as atheology and philosophy based on the work of the 17th-century philosopherBaruch Spinoza—in particular, his bookEthics.[30] A pantheistic stance was also expressed by the 16th-century by philosopher andcosmologistGiordano Bruno.[31]
Classical deism is the belief that oneGod exists and created the world, but that the Creator does not alter the original plan for the universe. Instead, the deity presides over it in the form ofProvidence; some classical deists, however, did believe in divine intervention.[32]
Deism typically rejects supernatural events (such as prophecies, miracles, and divine revelations) prominent in organized religion. Instead, deism holds that religious beliefs must be founded on human reason and observed features of the natural world, and that these sources reveal the existence of a supreme being as creator.[33]
Autotheism is the belief thatdivinity exists within oneself and that individuals can achieve a godlike state. It is found in various philosophical and religious traditions emphasizing personal divinity or spiritual progression.
InAdvaita Vedanta, a Hindu philosophical school, the phraseaham Brahmāsmi ("I am Brahman") expresses the unity of the individual self (atman) with the ultimate reality (Brahman).[34]
InMormonism, the doctrine ofexaltation suggests that faithful individuals can attain godhood in the afterlife.[35][36]
Autotheistic ideas also appear inGnosticism, which emphasizes self-knowledge (gnosis) as the path to recognizing one’s divine nature,[37] and in Friedrich Nietzsche’s concept of theÜbermensch, which advocates transcending human limitations to create one’s own values.
Atheism is defined by most people as the belief in the non-existence of gods, goddesses, andmessiahs. Some atheists express anactive disbelief or rejection of the existence of such entities.
Agnosticism is the belief that it is not known or not knowable whether a god or gods or the supernatural are part of reality regardless of how popular theistic beliefs may be.Agnostics withhold judgement on the existence and non-existence of a god on the basis that there is not enough evidence to come to a definitive conclusion that there is a god or that there is no god'.
Alterity theism is a belief that the supreme being is radicallytranscendent to the point that it cannot be recognized as having any genuinebeing at all.
^Nielsen, Kai (2010)."Atheism".Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved26 January 2011.Atheism, in general, the critique and denial of metaphysical beliefs in God or spiritual beings.... Instead of saying that an atheist is someone who believes that it is false or probably false that there is a God, a more adequate characterization of atheism consists in the more complex claim that to be an atheist is to be someone who rejects belief in God for the following reasons (which reason is stressed depends on how God is being conceived)...
^Edwards, Paul (2005) [1967]. "Atheism". In Donald M. Borchert (ed.).The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Vol. 1 (2nd ed.). MacMillan Reference USA (Gale). p. 359.ISBN9780028657806.On our definition, an 'atheist' is a person who rejects belief in God, regardless of whether or not his reason for the rejection is the claim that 'God exists' expresses a false proposition. People frequently adopt an attitude of rejection toward a position for reasons other than that it is a false proposition. It is common among contemporary philosophers, and indeed it was not uncommon in earlier centuries, to reject positions on the ground that they are meaningless. Sometimes, too, a theory is rejected on such grounds as that it is sterile or redundant or capricious, and there are many other considerations which in certain contexts are generally agreed to constitute good grounds for rejecting an assertion.(page 175 in 1967 edition)
^Hepburn, Ronald W. (2005) [1967]. "Agnosticism". In Donald M. Borchert (ed.).The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Vol. 1 (2nd ed.). MacMillan Reference USA (Gale). p. 92.ISBN9780028657806.In the most general use of the term, agnosticism is the view that we do not know whether there is a God or not.(page 56 in 1967 edition)
^Rowe, William L. (1998)."Agnosticism". In Edward Craig (ed.).Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Taylor & Francis.ISBN978-0-415-07310-3.In the popular sense, an agnostic is someone who neither believes nor disbelieves in God, whereas an atheist disbelieves in God. In the strict sense, however, agnosticism is the view that human reason is incapable of providing sufficient rational grounds to justify either the belief that God exists or the belief that God does not exist. In so far as one holds that our beliefs are rational only if they are sufficiently supported by human reason, the person who accepts the philosophical position of agnosticism will hold that neither the belief that God exists nor the belief that God does not exist is purely rational.
^Halsey, William; Robert H. Blackburn; Sir Frank Francis (1969).Louis Shores (ed.).Collier's Encyclopedia. Vol. 22 (20 ed.). Crowell-Collier Educational Corporation. pp. 266–7.
^Cudworth, Ralph (1678).The True Intellectual System of the Universe, Vol. I. New York: Gould & Newman, 1837, p. 267.
^Feser, Edward (2017).Five Proofs of the Existence of God. San Francisco: IGNATIUS PRESS.ISBN978-1-62164-133-9.
^Hart, David Bentley (24 September 2013).The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss.Yale University Press.
^"Monotheism", in Britannica, 15th ed. (1986), 8:266.
^Charles Taliaferro; Paul Draper; Philip L. Quinn (eds.).A Companion to Philosophy of Religion. p. 340.They deny that God is "totally other" than the world or ontologically distinct from it.
^Levine, Michael (1994),Pantheism: A Non-Theistic Concept of Deity, Psychology Press, pp. 44,274–275,ISBN9780415070645:
"The idea that Unity that is rooted in nature is what types of nature mysticism (e.g. Wordsworth, Robinson Jeffers, Gary Snyder) have in common with more philosophically robust versions of pantheism. It is why nature mysticism and philosophical pantheism are often conflated and confused for one another."
"[Wood's] pantheism is distant from Spinoza's identification of God with nature, and much closer to nature mysticism. In fact it is nature mysticism."
"Nature mysticism, however, is as compatible with theism as it is with pantheism."
^Ann Thomson; Bodies of Thought: Science, Religion, and the Soul in the Early Enlightenment, 2008, page 54.
^Lloyd, Genevieve (2 October 1996).Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Spinoza and The Ethics. Routledge Philosophy Guidebooks (1st ed.).Routledge. p. 24.ISBN978-0-415-10782-2.
^Birx, Jams H. (11 November 1997)."Giordano Bruno".Mobile, AL: The Harbinger. Archived fromthe original on 27 July 2017. Retrieved5 February 2019.Bruno was burned to death at the stake for his pantheistic stance and cosmic perspective.
^Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language. G.&C. Merriam. 1924. defines deism as
'belief in the existence of a personal god, with disbelief in Christian teaching, or with a purely rationalistic interpretation of Scripture'.
Although Webster's listsdeism as a type oftheism, deism is completely different from theism. If anything, theism would be an off-shoot of deism since it takes beliefs a step further to include miracles and divine revelation, with deism being the 'base' belief in (a) God.
