Part of my project is presenting a substantive, robust religious alternative to today’s leading positions. I call this alternative ‘paganism’. Here I have in mind the oldest, most widespread religious orientation on the planet; the truly global and default position. It is a view of the world on which it truly is enchanted: full of religious significance, Gods, and what Iamblichus calls the ‘higher kinds’. From its corner, I am able to argue against things like monotheism, creationism, and even resurrection, in favor of things like polytheism, emanationism or the eternality of the world, and reincarnation. I am able to say just as many novel and interesting things about Jesus as I am about the problem of evil.

But I find that my time is mostly spent running into unreasoned condescension, inherited misimpressions, and deliberate obfuscation: paganism is not allowed to be the ancient, formidable alternative that it is, it must be some shallow, primitive, trend.

This in spite of the fact that so much of today’s philosophy is based on the work of pagans. But we cannot acknowledge the paganism of the giants whose shoulders we stand on. Aristotle, for example, must be a proto-monotheist, dismissive of popular religion. Never mind that his unmoved movers were mechanisms in his philosophy of nature. Or he tells us, explicitly, that polytheism is a divinely inspired tradition handed on by the ancients. Or his numerous references to the Gods, even as our friends. Or that he requested in his will that statues be built to the Gods. Plato fared no better in the appropriations of history. His references to Gods in general and to specific ones by names are so frequent, it is mind-melting to hear the common take, so removed from the texts. I just like to ask whom Socrates asked for an offering to be made to on his deathbed (hint, it’s my patron deity)?

But even if we do not take a global perspective, and ignore things like the oldest continuous religious traditions on earth, or Hinduism, and so on and so forth, as the West tends to, things are not well with monotheism.

Imagine a large city on a map with scattered roads all over the place leading to it. You are told that you must drive to this city because it is the only viable, inhabitable city. So, you look at the map and try to plot a trip. But it is not long before you discover that all the major roads are closed until major construction can be done. Suppose you’re still impressed by all the pressure and persist. At what point in continuing to discover road closures do you just find driving inadvisable?

Think of all the logical pathways leading from various propositions to monotheism. Monotheism is like the large city, and these pathways are like the roads that lead to it.

Despite being a major, fundamental part of Christianity — viz. I believe in one God, the Father almighty…– the arguments for monotheism were constructed a long time ago, and received no dialectical maturation. I mean, at least it was felt at the time that arguments were needed. So, for instance, Origen addresses Celsus, and Aquinas and Scotus devote sizeable discussions to the matter. But, is it really any surprise that such arguments could be improved? Arguments are generational projects, how utterly bizarre would it be for these to have landed on the first try!

Interestingly, none of these arguments is a leading reason for why polytheism is dismissed. It would be shocking if any leading apologist, for example, could reconstruct these arguments without study.

So it is unsurprising to find, upon trying to plot one’s course to Monotheicity, that the logical problems of divine plurality are straightforwardly question-begging: they make Gods coordinate with one another, and so not Gods after all. Nor is it earth-shattering to discover that other objections such as from Occam’s razor are easily dispensed with: we should not posit more than the data calls for, and the data does in fact call for many.

There is no yellow brick road to Monotheicity. Not yet, at least. But how long are we supposed to keep trying, when monotheists are not even beginning construction? Maybe the grass isn’t greener on the other side, but where you water it, and things are just…fine here.

That is, maybe we should just stop feeling, for the right reasons, that there is a problem with paganism–especially when the alternative seems to be on life support.

I’ve waffled on long enough, though. Allow me to perhaps pique the reader’s interest by doing three things in the remainder of this post: (i) give an interesting objection to Christianity, (ii) give an interesting objection to Naturalism, and (iii) give an interesting logical pathway to polytheism.

(i) The Problem of Images

If we are all images of God, then none of us is intrinsically valuable: our value is derived from that of which we are images. But, we are intrinsically valuable. At least, I find it difficult to look my daughters in the eyes and say they are not intrinsically valuable. It follows that we are not mere images of what is intrinsically valuable.

(ii) The Problem of Moral Resolution

The idea of Final Injustice is a contradiction in terms. In virtue of being an ‘injustice’, it ought to be righted, but in virtue of being ‘final’ it can no longer be. If there is any injustice, it can be righted, no matter what: even if no one is around anymore. There must be Moral Resolution: it is required of moral realism.

Given that there have been injustices–a key premise, we might think, in the problems of evil–there must be Moral Resolution. But how on earth is this to be accomplished if Naturalism is true? And why would it happen anyway? How unnatural! This is a very uneasy piece of data for Naturalism.

(iii) Logical Pathway to Polytheism

Axiom: There is something it is to be one thing.

The alternative to this is that there are no ‘things’, no ‘thing’, nothing.

Call this ‘Unity’. It’s what all things are ‘made’ of; their one-ness or thing-ness. Everything is suspended in this, whether infinite regressions, causal circuits, or even First Causes and Pure Acts: that’s right, any identifiable ‘thing’–whether univocally or only analogically so.

It is what is greatest and ultimate; the structuring principle of all things. To get poetic, everything, no matter what, kneels to Unity.

There are two relevant features of Unity here.

First, it is appropriate to relate to it in religious ways. We can connect to Unity in a Gaian fashion. We can tap into the Source, and Root of all things, holding us all together across time and space. This experience naturally involves feelings and perceptions of love, appreciation, and peace. It is awe-inspiring to behold. Because things like intellect, mind and personalness are ways of being ‘one’, it is these things by way of excess and perfectiony. Unity is theistic.

Second, there is no single thing it is to be one thing! This is because Unity cannot itself be one: it is the principle of things, not itself another thing.

So, for any given way in which all things are ‘one’, it cannot be the only way.

Unity is polytheistic.

This is all to pique interest, and not to be rigorous or final. But I hope enough has been said to perhaps alarm the uninitiated.

Asclepius’ blessings!