What Is Monotheism?

Improved Essays
The goal of this paper is that of discussing the interconnections between some elements of Schelling’s Berlin lectures on mythology and revelation. In particular, I want to focus on Schelling’s reading of monotheism as exposed over the course of the first six lectures of the series concerning mythology. In Schelling’s own words, monotheism is ‹‹the first presupposition of the theogonical process››, and is ‹‹posited together with human essence itself››. Moreover, this concept ‹‹contains the law and, as it were, the keys of the theogonical dynamic›› . By theogonical process, Schelling indicates humanity’s development of increasingly deeper representations of the divine across history. Since the study of this process is the main theme of Schelling’s Berlin lectures, it is possible to claim that the exposition of the concept of monotheism lays the foundation of the whole of Schelling’s late philosophy. Accordingly to this understanding of the concept of monotheism as the heart of Schelling’s Berlin lectures, I will show how exactly this notion is connected to the theogonical process. In this regard, I will analyze how the …show more content…
Accordingly, as I will explain in details below, more refined religious representations do not only mark our increased awareness of God’s nature. Rather, they signal a higher degree of participation of humanity in the divine life. In this respect, I shall argue that Schelling understands interactions between God and human beings as those entertained between living beings, as the mortal and the divine dimension each partakes and is in communion with the life of the other. Accordingly, religious symbols are the products of this living relationship, and the fullness with which they embody the divine gives us a measure of the depth of humanity’s communion with the divine in a particular historical and social

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    In the previous section's conclusion, I briefly presented Schelling's account of the Fall. The direct consequence of this event is the beginning of what the German philosopher calls the theogonical process, namely the progress of the mind toward a renewed state of communion with God. Mythology is a part of this process, as the stage of it in which humanity do not perceive and represent all three of the potencies or in any way understand them as divided to some degree in different entities. Thus, in Schelling's vocabulary mythology is a concept which embraces all those religious phenomena and foremostly representations of God that appear on the way lead to the final re-conciliation of humanity with God.…

    • 228 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Although I mentioned before this part of Schelling’s account of the theogonical process, this time I opted to quote from a passage where this unity is explicitly described as free and spiritual. This is fundamental for my purpose, as for the meaning that spirituality has in this context. As seen in the first chapter, Schelling understands spirituality as the ability to become something else without losing oneself. This means, that at the end of our road to reconciliation with God, the spiritual unity of the three potencies shall equates to the fact that all of their expressions shall be in communion with one another. Nonetheless, that will happen without any of these expressions losing their distinctiveness because of this final condition…

    • 179 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Cs Lewis Research Paper

    • 1330 Words
    • 6 Pages

    C.S. Lewis: The Story Surrounding the Stunning Success Clive Staples Lewis An exceedingly renowned author, C.S. Lewis, has challenged the world of literature, reflecting his Christian values and life within his hundreds of books. “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen; not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” (Lewis 140) Various agnostic scholars agree Lewis’ writing is impeccable and his theology is well-thought and credible.…

    • 1330 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    However, this does not call on him to relinquish his own commitments. On the contrary, only his commitments allow him to see the truth in other religions, as he can compare their teachings using the Christian ones as a criterion of how we should think about God. Hence, even if a similar analysis of religion was built from a non-Christian point of view, it would have to have analogous assumptions in seeing the necessity of understanding themselves in the broader context of human religiosity, and in seeing the non-ultimacy of their own representations just as they expand them in order to increase their explanatory power. Therefore, differing narratives from Schelling’s one might come to see some truth in Christianity, as their proponents would observe the Trinity and the monotheistic dogma as less-than-perfect representations of whatever that tradition holds in God’s place. Hence, different perspectives, each presuming the superiority of a different tradition do not imply necessarily the complete exclusion of or disregard for other traditions.…

    • 689 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    In today’s world, religion is often a subject where one is encouraged to tread lightly, where constructive criticism has seemingly lost its place to passionate claims of heresy. Thus, it is only fitting that a book co-written by a self-proclaimed modernist, in Marcus Borg, and an undeniable traditionalist, in N.T. Wright, takes the form that we see in The Meaning of Jesus Christ: Two Visions. Each section of the book is broken down into two separate chapters; one written through the viewpoint of Marcus Borg and one as seen by N.T. Wright. What results is a seemingly flawless representation of what the discussions about Christianity should look like when taken from the various independent sects of the larger religion. This book showed its readers…

    • 1402 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    a.2.3.1 Conscience The discussion of conscience and synderesis are to be found in his Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, Book II, distinction 39. For Bonaventure, the same is true with Aquinas conscience resides particularly in man’s rational faculty for this establish a relation to man’s performance of his action and that makes it a part of practical reason. This according to Bonaventure is divided into two parts, first, part seems to be a power for discovering the truth of very general practical principles like “obey God,” “honor your parents,” and “do not harm your neighbors” (934a). He talks about this power as a light on a par with the power of the intellect to discover the truth of the first principles of theoretical reason.…

    • 1635 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Why Did Diem Fail

    • 579 Words
    • 3 Pages

    practice outside of the watchful gaze of the United States, Diem assumed absolute power, and relied solely on his family for advice. Subsequently, the inattention that Diem paid to the needs of his people, and the ruthless suppression he had placed on the dissents, provoked a minor rebellion, that would later lead to his downfall as the land-reform program was so poorly conceived that it implemented a strong dislike for Diem in the minds of the South Vietnamese peasant-classes, as it brought little relief to their means of life. To further his mistakes, Diem also eliminated the annual village elections, which was a political-statement that was scorned by the rural classes as the people of the outer-classes were content with autonomy even under the oppressive hands of emperors. It would appear that the henchmen of Diem also hunted down and incarcerated thousands of dissidents, including those, if not more focused on…

    • 579 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Market As G-D Analysis

    • 1824 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Harvey Cox’s work The Market as G-d is an analysis of “The Market” and religion—exploring their shared natures and functions as forces within the lived human experience. Cox (in all but name) dissects the structure of a neoliberal economy to discover that the notion of “Free Market” moves and speaks much like that of religion. As Cox explores the relationship between “The Market” and religion within the paradigm of neoliberalism, one witnesses how a neoliberal economy elevates and enthrones the ethos of radical capitalism within the structure of the global economy. It is in the elevation of radical capitalism that “The Market” takes on the language and ideals of divine worship—absolute deity and complex (evolving) faith structure. This “Market…

    • 1824 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    After reading Geisler’s “Beware of Philosophy: A Warning to Biblical Scholars,” I could find myself being awe in the striking advice as I agree each point he states. First of all, I realize and quickly agree with this writer as he mentions the importance of being aware of current philosophies from the stance of Apostle Paul in Colossians 2:8. For the mix of modern philosophies that post influential threat to Christianity, this awareness of thought is desperately needed as it can be applied to both Christians and non-Christians research field.…

    • 474 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Machelling Vs Christian

    • 238 Words
    • 1 Pages

    I believe that if we look at Schelling through the lenses provided by Schuon, then it is arguable that in principle there can be more than one revealed religion. Hence, religious systems other than Christianity can express the same depthness of intuition in the absolute reality. We can see that if we generalize Schelling’s definition of mythology and revealed religion beyond the historical cases he considers. Thus, mythology comes to mean any system of representations of the divine where the potencies are in a state of struggle one with another. On the contrary, revelation in general is an event occuring between the human and the divine that causes the development of an accomplished representation of the Absolute.…

    • 238 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Throughout history, religion has never been a unanimous belief among all societies. Such a strong disagreement can be evident for various reasons, but personal experiences are an incredibly influential aspect. Through observations or experiences of evil, society often disregards the concept of an “all great” entity because of a lack of intervention. Common points of this include allowing the holocaust to take place, but also point to forms of non-moral evil such as natural tragedies that take place everyday. This “argument from evil” prevails with atheistic beliefs as they firmly believe that if a greater being did exist that was “all powerful”, it would not allow such drastic instances to occur to completely innocent people.…

    • 890 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In today’s cultural climate, pluralism and perspectivalism reign (Kӧstenberger & Kruger, p. 16). The reliance on personal experience has caused traditional thought to be challenged. An overlying paradigm of diversity (p. 18) has compelled “true” orthodoxy to be challenged, and as a result, heresy is seen as the “new orthodoxy” (p. 16,). In The Heresy of Orthodoxy, Kӧstenberger and Kruger (K2) provide a fair examination of the Bauer thesis which lays its foundation on the major urban centers of the first and early second centuries. The Bauer thesis, as popularized by Ehrman, argues that diversity – not unification - was present in early Christianity; “heresy preceded orthodoxy” (p. 17).…

    • 1453 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Anselm of Canterbury, a monk of 11th century, defined the term ‘theology’ as “faith seeking understanding”. It is a process of understanding the nature of God and one’s own faith. In this light, theology classes, for example, in Theology 121, integrate the two main processes of understanding God: faith and reasoning. In Catholic theology, the faith towards God and the reasoning to find the truth are in conjunction with each other. By this kind of analysis, theology does not only encompass on the study of faith on God and on the enlightenment on life, but also on the endeavors of the society.…

    • 1152 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Plurality Of God Analysis

    • 989 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Thus, on one hand, we find that dogmatic monotheism proclaims God to be the one true God among many false deities. On this level “the true, authentic God, teaches the Old Testament, is always just the unique, he who is unique”. Hence, the plurality of false deities stands opposed to the one true God. On the other hand, if we understand philosophically the notion of God, we cannot but conclude that all representations of God are manifestations of the same reality.…

    • 989 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Most of the theological issues that defined by either rational or traditional sects can be seen as problem, because they do not mentioned in the detail in the scripture. Therefor each side of these ideas can lead a believer to heresy. In this case the need of reason and philosophical discourses is unavoidable. In what follows I am going to show the problematic nature of some main theological issues and their significant: 1.…

    • 732 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays