Monotheism

Monotheism is the belief that one God is the only, or at least the dominant deity. A distinction may be made between exclusive monotheism, in which the one God is a singular existence, and both inclusive and pluriform monotheism, in which multiple gods or godly forms are recognized, but each are postulated as extensions of the same God.
Monotheism is distinguished from henotheism, a religious system in which the believer worships one god without denying that others may worship different gods with equal validity, and monolatrism, the recognition of the existence of many gods but with the consistent worship of only one deity.
Monotheism characterizes the traditions of Abrahamic religions such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and the early derivatives of these faiths, including Samaritanism and Druzism.
Other early monotheistic traditions include Atenism of ancient Egypt, Platonic and Neoplatonic belief in the Monad, Mandaeism, Manichaeism, Waaqeffanna, and Zoroastrianism.
Monotheistic traditions from post-antiquity and the early modern period comprise Deism, Yazidism, and Sikhism, with varying degrees of influence from Abrahamic monotheism. Many new religious movements are monotheistic such as Bábism, the Baháʼí Faith, Seicho-No-Ie, and Tenrikyo.
Narrow monotheism and wide monotheism exist on a spectrum of belief. Narrow monotheism holds that only one exclusive deity exists, disallowing others, while wide monotheism acknowledges one supreme deity and permits lesser deities. Elements of wide monotheistic thought are found in early religions such as
ancient Chinese religion, Tengrism, and Yahwism.

Etymology, origin, and usage

The word monotheism is a combination of the Greek μόνος meaning "single" and θεός meaning "god".
'Monotheism' was coined by Henry More in 1660; it was not a term used in the Greco-Roman period. More's usage of the concept was not particularly rigorous by later standards, with it more serving as a marker of "good" religion against bad. For example, More condemned Islam as having "hypocritical" monotheism with Muslims "still truly Pagans", and thought that pantheists did not count as monotheists either, because "to make the World God is to make no God at all". Other writers in the 17th and 18th centuries were similarly lax; Ralph Cudworth wrote that Greek Platonism was monotheistic, seemingly out of admiration for Platonism.
Monotheism is a complex and nuanced concept. The biblical authors had various ways of understanding God and the divine, shaped by their historical and cultural contexts. The notion of monotheism that is used today was developed much later, influenced by the Enlightenment and Christian views. Many definitions of monotheism are inherently modern and Christian-centered, and do not map easily to the diversity and complexity of the ancient sources.
The term "monotheism" is often contrasted with "polytheism", but many scholars prefer other terms such as monolatry, henotheism, or one-god discourse.

History

Quasi-monotheistic claims of the existence of a universal deity date to the Late Bronze Age, with Akhenaten's Great Hymn to the Aten from the 14th century BCE.
In the Iron-Age South Asian Vedic period, a possible inclination towards monotheism emerged. The Rigveda exhibits notions of monism of the Brahman, particularly in the comparatively late tenth book, which is dated to the early Iron Age, in the Nasadiya Sukta. Later, ancient Hindu texts appear to be monist, but were not strictly monotheistic in worship, because it still maintained the existence of many gods, who were envisioned as aspects of one supreme God, Brahman.
In China, the orthodox faith system held by most dynasties since at least the Shang dynasty until the modern period centered on the worship of Shangdi or Heaven as an omnipotent force. However, this faith system was not truly monotheistic since other lesser gods and spirits, which varied with locality, were also worshipped along with Shangdi. Still, later variants such as Mohism and/or Confucianism proposed that nature can be explained by reference to a single unitary principle that pervades everything. Numerous ancient Greek philosophers, including Xenophanes of Colophon and Antisthenes, believed in a similar polytheistic monism that bore some similarities to monotheism. The first known reference to a unitary God is Plato's Demiurge, followed by Aristotle's unmoved mover, both of which would profoundly influence Jewish and Christian theology.
According to contemporary Jewish, Christian and Islamic tradition, monotheism was the original religion of humanity; this original religion is sometimes referred to as "the Adamic religion", or, in the terms of Andrew Lang, the "Urreligion". Scholars of religion largely abandoned that view in the 19th and 20th centuries in favour of an evolutionary progression from animism via polytheism to monotheism. More recently, Karen Armstrong and other authors have returned to the idea of an evolutionary progression beginning with animism, which developed into polytheism, which developed into henotheism, which developed into monolatry, which developed into true monotheism. This order was reversed by Austrian anthropologist Wilhelm Schmidt, who had postulated an Urmonotheismus, "original" or "primitive monotheism" in the 1910s. The evolution of monotheism is bound with universal monarchies.

Narrow and wide monotheism

"Narrow monotheism" is a religion that believes in only one deity, disallowing the possibility of there being other deities. "Wide monotheism" is a religion that believes in only one supreme deity, allowing the possibility of there being other lesser deities. A narrow monotheistic religion will often regard other monotheistic religions as worshipping its own specific deity under a different name or form. A wide monotheistic religion will often regard other monotheistic religions as worshipping deities lesser than its own specific deity. Examples of narrow monotheist religions includes: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, and Baháʼí Faith. Examples of wide monotheism include: Atenism, Native American worship of the Great Spirit, Hinduism, Chinese religions, Tengrism, Mandaeism, Rastafari, Yazidism, Zoroastrianism, Proto-Indo-European religion, Hellenistic religion, and Andaman Islands religion.

Regions

Africa

Eastern Africa

According to Robin Dunbar, an evolutionary psychologist, the emergence of doctrinal religions is closely linked to environmental and social factors. He argues that large, densely populated societies—often arising in agriculturally productive regions—required more formalized religious structures to maintain social cohesion. In particular, the shift from small, kin-based communities to larger settlements increased the need for moralizing gods and centralized rituals. Additionally, the climatic stability of the Northern Subtropical Zone during the Neolithic facilitated surplus food production, enabling religious specialists to emerge and institutionalize belief systems.
Dunbar identifies two early monotheistic traditions in sub-Saharan Africa. The Cushitic-speaking populations of the central Nile Valley circa 5th millennium BCE worshipped Waaq, a singular sky deity whose veneration persists among some Cushitic groups. Later, Nilotic-speaking societies migrating southward developed or adopted similar beliefs, with singular deities such as Engai of the Maasai, though often combined with ancestral reverence and spirit veneration. Many Southern Nilotic peoples such as the Samburu and Datooga have substantial Cushitic ancestry from the Savanna Pastoral Neolithic communities believed to be of Cushitic origin.
Waaq is the name of a singular God in the traditional religion of many Cushitic people in the Horn of Africa, denoting an early monotheistic religion. However, this religion was mostly replaced with the Abrahamic religions, such as Islam in the case of the Somali. The term barwaaqo in the Somali language means prosperity still includes the name of Waaq. The Somali rendition of the Ethiopian prosperity party is Xisbiga Barwaaqo. The Somali city of Abudwak means 'worship Waaq' in Somali. Some Oromo still follow the traditional monotheistic religion called Waaqeffanna in the Oromo language.
Irreechaa is an annual thanksgiving festival celebrated by the Oromo people, primarily in Ethiopia, marking the end of the rainy season and the beginning of the harvest. It is a spiritual occasion dedicated to Waaq, the supreme God in traditional Oromo belief, symbolizing gratitude for nature's abundance. The festival is observed in various regions, with its largest celebration taking place in Addis Ababa, where tens of thousands of people gather near bodies of water to offer prayers, songs, and traditional rituals. Irreechaa not only reflects deep-rooted cultural practices but also promotes unity and peace among the Oromo community and beyond.

Ancient Egypt

Atenism

initially introduced Atenism in Year 5 of his reign during the 18th dynasty of the New Kingdom. He raised Aten, once a relatively obscure Egyptian solar deity representing the disk of the sun, to the status of Supreme God in the Egyptian pantheon. To emphasise the change, Aten's name was written in the cartouche form normally reserved for Pharaohs, an innovation of Atenism. This religious reformation appears to coincide with the proclamation of a Sed festival, a sort of royal jubilee intended to reinforce the Pharaoh's divine powers of kingship. Traditionally held in the thirtieth year of the Pharaoh's reign, this possibly was a festival in honour of Amenhotep III, who some Egyptologists think had a coregency with his son Amenhotep IV of two to twelve years.
Year 5 is believed to mark the beginning of Amenhotep IV's construction of a new capital, Akhetaten, at the site known today as Amarna. Evidence of this appears on three of the boundary stelae used to mark the boundaries of this new capital. At this time, Amenhotep IV officially changed his name to Akhenaten as evidence of his new worship. The date given for the event has been estimated to fall around January 2 of that year. In Year 7 of his reign, the capital was moved from Thebes to Akhetaten, though construction of the city seems to have continued for two more years. In shifting his court from the traditional ceremonial centres Akhenaten was signalling a dramatic transformation in the focus of religious and political power.
The move separated the Pharaoh and his court from the influence of the priesthood and from the traditional centres of worship, but his decree had deeper religious significance too—taken in conjunction with his name change, it is possible that the move to Amarna was also meant as a signal of Akhenaten's symbolic death and rebirth. It may also have coincided with the death of his father and the end of the coregency. In addition to constructing a new capital in honor of Aten, Akhenaten also oversaw the construction of some of the most massive temple complexes in ancient Egypt, including one at Karnak and one at Thebes, close to the old temple of Amun.
In Year 9, Akhenaten declared a more radical version of his new religion, declaring Aten not merely the supreme god of the Egyptian pantheon, but the only God of Egypt, with himself as the sole intermediary between the Aten and the Egyptian people. Key features of Atenism included a ban on idols and other images of the Aten, with the exception of a rayed solar disc, in which the rays appear to represent the unseen spirit of Aten. Akhenaten made it however clear that the image of the Aten only represented the god, but that the god transcended creation and so could not be fully understood or represented. Aten was addressed by Akhenaten in prayers, such as the Great Hymn to the Aten: "O Sole God beside whom there is none".
The details of Atenist theology are still unclear. The exclusion of all but one god and the prohibition of idols was a radical departure from Egyptian tradition, but scholars see Akhenaten as a practitioner of monolatry rather than monotheism, as he did not actively deny the existence of other gods; he simply refrained from worshiping any but Aten. Akhenaten associated Aten with Ra and put forward the eminence of Aten as the renewal of the kingship of Ra.
Under Akhenaten's successors, Egypt reverted to its traditional religion, and Akhenaten himself came to be reviled as a heretic.