One God Less (continued)
Part of an ongoing conversation:
The “One God Less” argument says that Christians, by not worshipping the 4,000 other gods worshipped by pagans of East and West, are atheists toward all gods but one. Atheists merely worship one fewer god out of all the unworshipped gods than Christians.
A wry reply would be to say all men are theists, and that monotheists merely worship one god more than an atheist.
A sharper argument would be to note the false equivalence being assumed.
The reasons for worshipping or not worshipping one of more of the these pagan gods is not necessarily the same the reason to worship or not worship the God of Abraham, whose prophets and apologists make a unique claim.
None of those 4,000 gods nor their prophets, priests, nor their visionaries who speak for them, have ever claimed any such god to be the eternal transcendental creator, or made any claim even remotely like that. No other God calls himself I Am Who Am.
There are religions based on Christian and Jewish thought, various spin-off groups or heresies who copied this idea later, but no none aside from the God of Abraham makes such a claim.
The god of Zoroaster comes close, but he is only one of two gods, twin to an evil God of equal dignity to himself.
Brahma did not make the Hindu universe, for the Hindu universe is an eternal wheel always existing.
The Chinese gods did not make the universe. The Japanese gods made the Japanese Islands but not the universe. The Greek gods came from the Titans who came from Earth and Heaven who came from chaos. The Norse gods came from a primordial man who was licked out of a salt lick by a Divine cow. And so on.
Please note the odd parallel between this and arguments about Christ as opposed to Buddha, Mohammed, Zoroaster, Confucius, Abraham, Vyasa, Homer. Buddha did not claim to be Brahma, nor Mohammed to be Allah, nor Confucius to be the Jade Emperor of Heaven, nor Abraham to be Jehovah, nor Vyasa to be Indra, nor Homer to be Apollo. Jesus Christ, by claiming to be divine, makes an outrageously different claim, different in kind and not in degree, from any prophet or sage or poet speaking of the gods or on behalf of the gods.
Likewise again, the Roman Catholic Church makes a claim that is rare, if not unique, among all denominations: that she is one, true, universal, and apostolic. Lutheranism, Calvinism, Wesleyans, and other Protestant denominations, or Christian Science, or Mormonism, can name their founder and list the date of their founding, usually in the Sixteenth or Eighteenth Century.
(However, note the Eastern Orthodox Churches can make a similar claim to the Roman Church, and have an apostolic succession as ancient; but also note this is more a schism than a heresy. Agreement on major points of doctrine is overwhelming; disagreement is only over form of government. In this one sense, it is the same Church.)
This does not detract from the main point, which is, when dealing with the claims of the Christian religion among pagan polytheisms or Eastern mysticism, we are dealing with a unique claim; likewise when comparing Jesus of Nazareth with prophets and sages; likewise when comparing the Roman and Byzantine Church to the various denominations breaking away from them.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
