Monotheistic religion as a type of religious worldview appeared long before the beginning of our era and represented both the personification of God and the representation and endowment of all the forces of nature with a single conscious egregore. Some world religions will endow God with a personality and its qualities; others merely elevate the central deity above the rest. For example, Orthodox Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the image of the trinity of God.
To shed light on such a confusing system of religious beliefs, it is necessary to consider the term itself from several aspects. It should be remembered here that all the world's monotheistic religions belong to three types. These are the Abrahamic, East Asian, and American religions. Strictly speaking, a monotheistic religion is not one that is based on the functioning of several cults, but has a central god that rises above the others.
Notions of the uniqueness of God
Monotheistic religions have two theoretical forms - inclusive and exclusive. According to the first - inclusive - theory, God can have several divine personifications whencondition of their unity in the whole central egregore. The exclusive theory endows the image of God with transcendent personal qualities.
This structure implies a deep heterogeneity. For example, deism suggests leaving the affairs of the Divine Creator immediately after the creation of the world and supports the concept of non-interference of supernatural forces in the course of the development of the Universe; pantheism implies the holiness of the universe itself and rejects the anthropomorphic appearance and essence of God; theism, on the contrary, contains the general idea of the existence of the Creator and his active participation in world processes.
Teachings of the Ancient World
Egyptian ancient monotheistic religion, on the one hand, was a kind of monotheism; on the other hand, it also consisted of a large number of local combined cults. An attempt to unite all these cults under the auspices of a single god who patronized the pharaoh and Egypt was made by Akhenaten in the 6th century BC. After his death, religious beliefs returned to their former course of polytheism.
Attempts to systematize the divine pantheon and bring it to a single personal image were made by the Greek thinkers Xephan and Hesiod. In the "State" Plato aims to search for the Absolute Truth, power over all things in the world. Later, on the basis of his treatises, representatives of Hellenistic Judaism attempted to synthesize Platonism and Jewish ideas about God. The flowering of the idea of the monotheistic nature of the divine essence refers toperiod of antiquity.
Monotheism in Judaism
From the Jewish traditional point of view, the primacy of monotheism was destroyed in the process of human development by its disintegration into multiple cults. Modern Judaism as a monotheistic religion strictly denies the existence of any supernatural third-party forces, including gods, beyond the control of the Creator.
But in its history, Judaism has not always had such a theological basis. And the early stages of its development passed under the status of monolatry - a polytheistic belief in the ex altation of the main god over the secondary ones.
The world's monotheistic religions, such as Christianity and Islam, have their origins in Judaism.
Definition of the concept in Christianity
Christianity is dominated by the Old Testament Abrahamic theory of monotheism and God as the only universal creator. However, Christianity is a monotheistic religion, the main directions of which introduce into it the idea of the trinity of God in three manifestations - hypostases - the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This doctrine of the Trinity imposes a polytheistic or tritheistic character on the interpretation of Christianity by Islam and Judaism. According to Christianity itself, "monotheistic religion" as a concept is fully reflected in its basic concept, but the very idea of tritheism was repeatedly put forward by theologians until it was rejected by the First Council of Nicaea. However, there is an opinion among historians that in Russia there were followers of Orthodox movements that denied the trinityA god patronized by Ivan the Third himself.
Thus, the request to "explain the concept of a monotheistic religion" can be satisfied by defining monotheism as a belief in one God, who can have several hypostases in this world.
Islamic monotheistic beliefs
Islam is strictly monotheistic. The principle of monotheism is proclaimed in the First Pillar of Faith: "There is no deity but Allah, and Muhammad is His prophet." Thus, the axiom of the uniqueness and integrity of God - Tawheed - is contained in his fundamental theory, and all rites, rituals and religious actions are designed to show the Oneness and Integrity of God (Allah).
The greatest sin in Islam is shirk - equating other deities and personalities with Allah - this sin is unforgivable.
According to Islam, all the great prophets professed monotheism.
Special features of Bahá'ís
This religion originates in Shiite Islam, now many researchers regard it as an independent trend, but in Islam itself it is considered an apostate religion, and its followers in the Muslim republics were previously persecuted.
The name "Bahá'í" comes from the name of the founder of the religion of Bahá'u'lláh ("Glory of God") - Mirza Hussein Ali, who was born in 1812 in a family of descendants of the royal Persian dynasty.
Bahaism is strictly monotheistic. He claims,that all attempts to know God will be futile and useless. The only connection between people and God is the "Epiphany" - the prophets.
A feature of the Baha'is as a religious teaching is the open recognition of all religions as true, and God is one in all forms.
Hindu and Sikh monotheism
Not all world monotheistic religions have similar features. This is due to their different territorial, mental and even political origins. For example, it is impossible to draw a parallel between the monotheism of Christianity and Hinduism. Hinduism is a huge system of various rituals, beliefs, local national traditions, philosophies and theories based on monotheism, pantheism, polytheism and closely related to linguistic dialects and writing. Such a broad religious structure was strongly influenced by the caste stratification of Indian society. The monotheistic ideas of Hinduism are extremely complex - all the deities are united into one host and created by the One Creator.
Sikhism, as a variety of Hinduism, also affirms the principle of monotheism in its postulate "One God for all", in which God is revealed by the aspects of the Absolute and the individual particle of God that lives in each person. The physical world is illusory, God is in time.
Chinese system of theological worldviews
Starting from 1766 BC, the traditional worldview of the Chinese imperial dynasties is the veneration of Shang-Di - the "supreme ancestor", "God" - or the skyas the most powerful force (Tan). Thus, the Chinese ancient system of worldviews is a kind of the first monotheistic religion of mankind, which existed before Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. God was personified here, but did not acquire a bodily form, which equates Shan-Di with Moism. However, this religion is not monotheistic in the full sense - each locality had its own pantheon of small earthly deities that determined the features of the material world.
Thus, to the request "explain the concept of" monotheistic religion ", we can say that such a religion is characterized by monism - the outer world of the Maya is just an illusion, and God fills the entire flow of time.
One God in Zoroastrianism
Zoroastrianism has never claimed the idea of clear monotheism, balancing between dualism and monotheism. According to his teaching, which spread throughout Iran in the first millennium BC, the supreme single deity is Ahura Mazda. In contrast to him, Angra Mainyu, the god of death and darkness, exists and acts. Each person must kindle the fire of Ahura Mazda and destroy Angra Mainyu.
Zoroastrianism had a significant impact on the development of the ideas of the Abrahamic religions.
America. Inca Monotheism
There is a trend of monotheinization of the religious beliefs of the peoples of the Andes, where there is a process of unification of all deities into the image of the god Vikarocha, for example, the rapprochement of Vikarocha himself, the creator of the world, with Pacha-Camak, the creator of people.
Sowhen compiling a rough explanation in response to the request "explain the concept of a monotheistic religion", it should be mentioned that in some religious systems, gods with similar functions eventually merge into one image.
