The violation of equal representation in the various systems of proportional representation can be measured with the Loosemore–Hanby index, the Gallagher index, or the amount of wasted vote. A Gallagher index above 5 (%) is seen by many experts as violating the One man, one vote principle. In case of plurality voting, the wasted vote can be measured. Additionally, the percentage of spoilt vote and percentage of disfranchisement can be measured to detect violations of the equal representation principle.
History
The phrase surged in English-language usage around 1880, thanks in part to British trade unionistGeorge Howell who used the phrase "one man, one vote" in political pamphlets. During the mid-to-late 20th-century period of decolonisation and the struggles for national sovereignty, this phrase became widely used in developing countries where majority populations sought to gain political power in proportion to their numbers. The slogan was notably used by the anti-apartheid movement during the 1980s, which sought to end white minority rule in South Africa.
In the United States, the "one person, one vote" principle was invoked in a series of cases by the Warren Court in the 1960s during the height of related civil rights activities. Applying the Equal Protection Clause of the constitution, the U.S. Supreme Court majority opinion (5–4) led by Chief JusticeEarl Warren in Reynolds v. Sims (1964) ruled that state legislatures, unlike the U.S. Congress,
needed to have representation in both houses that was based on
districts containing roughly equal populations, with redistricting as
needed after censuses.
Some had an upper house based on an equal number of representatives to
be elected from each county, which gave undue political power to rural
counties. Many states had neglected to redistrict for decades during the
20th century, even as population increased in urban, industrialized
areas. In the 1964 Wesberry v. Sanders
decision, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that equality of voting—one
person, one vote—means that "the weight and worth of the citizens' votes
as nearly as is practicable must be the same", and ruled that states must also draw federal congressional districts containing roughly equal represented populations.
United Kingdom
Historical background
This phrase was traditionally used in the context of demands for suffrage reform. Historically the emphasis within the House of Commons was on representing areas: counties, boroughs and, later on, universities. The entitlement to vote for the Members of Parliament
representing the constituencies varied widely, with different
qualifications over time, such as owning property of a certain value,
holding an apprenticeship, qualifying for paying the local-government
rates, or holding a degree from the university in question. Those who
qualified for the vote in more than one constituency were entitled to
vote in each constituency, while many adults did not qualify for the
vote at all. Plural voting was also present in local government, whereby the owners of business property qualified for votes in the relevant wards.
Reformers argued that Members of Parliament and other elected
officials should represent citizens equally, and that each voter should
be entitled to exercise the vote once in an election. Successive Reform Acts by 1950 had both extended the franchise eventually to almost all adult citizens (barring convicts, lunatics and members of the House of Lords),
and also reduced and finally eliminated plural voting for Westminster
elections. Plural voting for local-government elections outside the City
of London was not abolished until the Representation of the People Act 1969.
But, there were two significant exceptions:
City of London
The City of London
had never expanded its boundaries. Following the replacement of many
residential dwellings by businesses, and the destruction of The Blitz, after the Second World War, the financial district had barely five thousand residents. The system of plural voting was retained for electing the City of London Corporation, with some modifications.
Northern Ireland
When Northern Ireland
was established in 1921, it adopted the same political system then in
place for the Westminster Parliament and British local government. But
the Parliament of Northern Ireland did not follow Westminster in changes to the franchise from 1945.
As a result, into the 1960s, plural voting was still allowed not only
for local government (as it was for local government in Great Britain),
but also for the Parliament of Northern Ireland. This meant that in
local council elections (as in Great Britain), ratepayers and their
spouses, whether renting or owning the property, could vote. Company
directors had an extra vote by virtue of their company's status.
However, unlike the situation in Great Britain, non-ratepayers did not
have a vote in local government elections. The franchise for elections
to the Parliament of Northern Ireland had been extended in 1928 to all
adult citizens who were not disqualified, at the same time as the
franchise for elections to Westminster. But, university representation
and the business vote continued for elections to the House of Commons of
Northern Ireland until 1969. They were abolished in 1948 for elections
to the UK House of Commons (including Westminster seats in Northern
Ireland). Historians and political scholars have debated the extent to
which the franchise for local government contributed to unionist electoral success in controlling councils in nationalist-majority areas.
Based on a number of inequities, the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association
was founded in 1967. It had five primary demands, and added the demand
that each citizen in Northern Ireland be afforded the same number of
votes for local government elections (as stated above, this was not yet
the case anywhere in the United Kingdom). The slogan "one man, one vote"
became a rallying cry for this campaign.
The Parliament of Northern Ireland voted to update the voting rules for
elections to the Northern Ireland House of Commons, which were
implemented for the 1969 Northern Ireland general election, and for local government elections, which was done by the Electoral Law Act (Northern Ireland) 1969, passed on 25 November 1969.
United States
Historical background
"One man, one vote" emblem (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC - New Jersey)
The United States Constitution requires a decennial census for the purpose of assuring fair apportionment of seats in the United States House of Representatives
among the states, based on their population. Reapportionment has
generally been conducted without incident with the exception of the
reapportionment that should have followed the 1920 census, which was effectively skipped pending resolution by the Reapportionment Act of 1929. State legislatures, however, initially established election of congressional representatives from districts
that were often based on traditional counties or parishes that had
preceded founding of the new government. The question then arose as to
whether the legislatures were required to ensure that House districts
were roughly equal in population and to draw new districts to
accommodate demographic changes.
Some U.S. states redrew their House districts every ten years to
reflect changes in population patterns; many did not. Some never redrew
them, except when it was mandated by reapportionment of Congress and a
resulting change in the number of seats to which that state was entitled
in the House of Representatives. In many states, both North and South,
this inaction resulted in a skewing of influence for voters in some
districts over those in others, generally with a bias toward rural
districts. For example, if the 2nd congressional district eventually had
a population of 1.5 million, but the 3rd had only 500,000, then, in
effect – since each district elected the same number of representatives –
a voter in the 3rd district had three times the voting power of a
2nd-district voter.
Alabama's state legislature resisted redistricting from 1910 to
1972 (when forced by federal court order). As a result, rural residents
retained a wildly disproportionate amount of power in a time when other
areas of the state became urbanized and industrialized, attracting
greater populations. Such urban areas were under-represented in the
state legislature and underserved; their residents had difficulty
getting needed funding for infrastructure and services. Such areas paid
far more in taxes to the state than they received in benefits in
relation to the population.
The Constitution incorporates the result of the Great Compromise,
which established representation for the U.S. Senate. Each state was
equally represented in the Senate with two representatives, without
regard to population. The Founding Fathers considered this principle of such importance that they included a clause in the Constitution to prohibit any state
from being deprived of equal representation in the Senate without its
permission; see Article V of the United States Constitution. For this reason, "one person, one vote" has never been implemented in the U.S. Senate, in terms of representation by states.
When states established their legislatures, they often adopted a
bicameral model based on colonial governments or the federal government.
Many copied the Senate principle, establishing an upper house based on
geography - for instance, a state senate with one representative drawn
from each county. By the 20th century, this often resulted in state
senators having widely varying amounts of political power, with ones
from rural areas having votes equal in power to those of senators
representing much greater urban populations.
Activism in the Civil Rights Movement
to restore the ability of African Americans in the South to register
and vote highlighted other voting inequities across the country. In
1964–1965, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 were passed, in part to enforce the constitutional voting rights of African Americans. Numerous court challenges were raised, including in Alabama, due to the lack of reapportionment for decades.
Court cases
In Colegrove v. Green, 328U.S. 549 (1946) the United States Supreme Court held in a 4-3 plurality decision that Article I, Section 4
left to the legislature of each state the authority to establish the
time, place, and manner of holding elections for representatives.
In 1975, a Michigan court ruling
declared that "majority preferential voting," as Instant Runoff Voting
(IRV) was then known, did not violate the one-man, one-vote rule:
Under the 'M.P.V. System', however, no one person or
voter has more than one effective vote for one office. No voter's vote
can be counted more than once for the same candidate. In the final
analysis, no voter is given greater weight in his or her vote over the
vote of another voter, although to understand this does require a
conceptual understanding of how the effect of a 'M.P.V. System' is like
that of a run-off election. The form of majority preferential voting
employed in the City of Ann Arbor's election of its Mayor does not
violate the one-man, one-vote mandate nor does it deprive anyone of
equal protection rights under the Michigan or United States
Constitutions.
The constitutionality of IRV has been subsequently upheld by several federal courts.
In 2018, a federal court ruled on the constitutionality of Maine’s use
of ranked-choice voting, stating that "'one person, one vote' does not
stand in opposition to ranked balloting, so long as all electors are
treated equally at the ballot."
Training Wheels for Citizenship, a failed 2004 initiative in California, attempted to give minors
between 14 and 17 years of age (who otherwise cannot vote) a fractional
vote in state elections. Among the criticisms leveled at the proposed
initiative was that it violated the "one man, one vote" principle.
The courts have found that special-purpose districts must also follow the one person, one vote rule.
Due to treaties signed by the United States in 1830 and 1835, two Native Americantribes (the Cherokee and Choctaw) each hold the right to a non-voting delegate position in the House of Representatives. As of 2019, only the Cherokee have attempted to exercise that right. Because all tribal governments related to the two in question exist
within present-day state boundaries, it has been suggested that such an
arrangement could potentially violate the "one man, one vote" principle
by granting a "super-vote"; a Cherokee or Choctaw voter would have two
House representatives (state and tribal), whereas any other American
would only have one.
The "one man, one vote" election system has been successfully implemented in many developing countries, most notably India and South Africa.
Reforms thwarted
The term "One man, one vote, one time" has been applied to Zimbabwe, Zambia, Angola, Belarus and Russia where representative elections were successfully held that were relatively free of corruption and violence. In each case, a strongman came to power and effectively ended free and equitable voting.
Monotheism is the belief that there is only one deity, an all-supreme being that is universally referred to as God.
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. The term monolatry was perhaps first used by Julius Wellhausen.
The word monotheism comes from the Greekμόνος (monos) meaning "single" and θεός (theos) meaning "god". The English term was first used by Henry More (1614–1687).
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, e.g. in the Nasadiya Sukta. Later, ancient Hindu theology was monist,
but was 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 (1766 BCE) until the modern period centered on the worship of Shangdi (literally "Above Sovereign", generally translated as "God") 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
(470 BCE–c.391 BCE) approached true monotheism, teaching that the
function of lesser gods and ancestral spirits is merely to carry out the
will of Shangdi, akin to the angels in Abrahamic religions which in turn counts as only one god.
Since the sixth century BCE, Zoroastrians have believed in the supremacy of one God above all: Ahura Mazda as the "Maker of All" and the first being before all others. While this is true, Zoroastrianism is not considered monotheistic as it has a dualistic cosmology, with a pantheon of lesser "gods" or Yazats, such as Mithra,
who are worshipped as lesser divinities alongside Ahura Mazda. Along
with this, Ahura Mazda is not fully omnipotent engaged in a constant
struggle with Angra Mainyu, the force of evil, although good will ultimately overcome evil.
Post-exilic
Judaism, after the late 6th century BCE, was the first religion to
conceive the notion of a personal monotheistic God within a monist
context. The concept of ethical monotheism, which holds that morality stems from God alone and that its laws are unchanging, first occurred in Judaism, but is now a core tenet of most modern monotheistic religions, including Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, and Baháʼí Faith.
Also from the 6th century BCE, Thales (followed by other Monists, such as Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Parmenides) 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 (divine Craftsman), followed by Aristotle's unmoved mover, both of which would profoundly influence Jewish and Christian theology.
According to 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 century in favour of an evolutionary progression from animism via polytheism to monotheism, but by 1974, this theory was less widely held, and a modified view similar to Lang's became more prominent. Austrian anthropologist Wilhelm Schmidt had postulated an Urmonotheismus, "original" or "primitive monotheism" in the 1910s. It was objected that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam had grown up in opposition to polytheism as had Greek philosophical 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.
Africa
Indigenous African religion
The Tikar people of Cameroon have a traditional spirituality that emphasizes the worship of a single god, Nyuy.
The Himba people of Namibia practice a form of monotheistic panentheism, and worship the god Mukuru. The deceased ancestors of the Himba and Herero are subservient to him, acting as intermediaries.
The Igbo people practice a form of monotheism called Odinani.
Odinani has monotheistic and panentheistic attributes, having a single
God as the source of all things. Although a pantheon of spirits exists,
these are lesser spirits prevalent in Odinani expressly serving as
elements of Chineke (or Chukwu), the supreme being or high god.
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. Some (approximately 3%) of Oromo still follow this traditional monotheistic religion called Waaqeffanna in Oromo.
Amenhotep IV initially introduced Atenism in Year 5 of his reign (1348/1346 BCE) 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 (Horizon of the Aten), 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 (Agreeable to Aten) 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 (1346/1344 BCE), the capital was moved from Thebes to Akhetaten (near modern Amarna), 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 (1344/1342 BCE), 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 (commonly depicted ending in hands) 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.
Other monotheistic traditions
Some Egyptian ethical texts believed in only a single god ruling over the universe.
Americas
Native American religion
Native American religions may be monotheistic, polytheistic, henotheistic, animistic, or some combination thereof. Cherokee religion, for example, is monotheist as well as pantheist.
Some researchers have interpreted Aztec philosophy
as fundamentally monotheistic or panentheistic. While the populace at
large believed in a polytheistic pantheon, Aztec priests and nobles
might have come to an interpretation of Teotl as a single universal force with many facets.
There has been criticism to this idea, however, most notably that many
assertions of this supposed monotheism might actually come from
post-Conquistador bias, imposing an Antiquity pagan model onto the
Aztec.
The orthodox faith system held by most dynasties of China since at least the Shang Dynasty (1766 BCE) until the modern period centered on the worship of Shangdi (literally "Above Sovereign", generally translated as "High-god") or Heaven as a supreme being, standing above other gods. This faith system pre-dated the development of Confucianism and Taoism and the introduction of Buddhism and Christianity. It has some features of monotheism in that Heaven is seen as an omnipotent entity, a noncorporeal force with a personalitytranscending
the world. However, this faith system was not truly monotheistic since
other lesser gods and spirits, which varied with locality, were also
worshiped along with Shangdi. Still, later variants such as Mohism
(470 BCE–c.391 BCE) approached true monotheism, teaching that the
function of lesser gods and ancestral spirits is merely to carry out the
will of Shangdi. In Mozi's Will of Heaven (天志), he writes:
I know Heaven loves men dearly not
without reason. Heaven ordered the sun, the moon, and the stars to
enlighten and guide them. Heaven ordained the four seasons, Spring,
Autumn, Winter, and Summer, to regulate them. Heaven sent down snow,
frost, rain, and dew to grow the five grains and flax and silk that so
the people could use and enjoy them. Heaven established the hills and
rivers, ravines and valleys, and arranged many things to minister to
man's good or bring him evil. He appointed the dukes and lords to reward
the virtuous and punish the wicked, and to gather metal and wood, birds
and beasts, and to engage in cultivating the five grains and flax and
silk to provide for the people's food and clothing. This has been so
from antiquity to the present.
— Will of Heaven, Chapter 27, Paragraph 6, ca. 5th century BCE
Worship of Shangdi and Heaven in ancient China includes the erection of shrines, the last and greatest being the Temple of Heaven
in Beijing, and the offering of prayers. The ruler of China in every
Chinese dynasty would perform annual sacrificial rituals to Shangdi,
usually by slaughtering a completely healthy bull as sacrifice.
Although its popularity gradually diminished after the advent of Taoism
and Buddhism, among other religions, its concepts remained in use
throughout the pre-modern period and have been incorporated in later
religions in China, including terminology used by early Christians in
China. Despite the rising of non-theistic and pantheistic spirituality
contributed by Taoism and Buddhism, Shangdi was still praised up until
the end of the Qing Dynasty as the last ruler of the Qing declared himself son of heaven.
In Chinese and Turco-Mongol
traditions, the Supreme God is commonly referred to as the ruler of
Heaven, or the Sky Lord granted with omnipotent powers, but it has
largely diminished in those regions due to ancestor worship, Taoism's pantheistic views and Buddhism's rejection of a creator God.
On some occasions in the mythology, the Sky Lord as identified as a
male has been associated to mate with an Earth Mother, while some
traditions kept the omnipotence of the Sky Lord unshared.
The head deity of the Proto-Indo-European religion was the god *Dyḗus Pḥatḗr . A number of words derived from the name of this prominent deity are used in various Indo-European languages to denote a monotheistic God. Nonetheless, in spite of this, Proto-Indo-European religion itself was not monotheistic.
In Eastern Europe,
the ancient traditions of the Slavic religion contained elements of
monotheism. In the sixth century AD, the Byzantine chronicler Procopius
recorded that the Slavs "acknowledge that one god, creator of
lightning, is the only lord of all: to him do they sacrifice an ox and
all sacrificial animals." The deity to whom Procopius is referring is the storm god Perún, whose name is derived from *Perkwunos, the Proto-Indo-European god of lightning. The ancient Slavs syncretized him with the Germanic god Thor and the Biblical prophet Elijah.
Fictionalized portrait of Xenophanes from a 17th-century engraving
The surviving fragments of the poems of the classical Greek philosopher Xenophanes of Colophon suggest that he held views very similar to those of modern monotheists.
His poems harshly criticize the traditional notion of anthropomorphic
gods, commenting that "...if cattle and horses and lions had hands or
could paint with their hands and create works such as men do,... [they]
also would depict the gods' shapes and make their bodies of such a sort
as the form they themselves have."
Instead, Xenophanes declares that there is "...one god, greatest among
gods and humans, like mortals neither in form nor in thought." Xenophanes's theology appears to have been monist, but not truly monotheistic in the strictest sense. Although some later philosophers, such as Antisthenes, believed in doctrines similar to those expounded by Xenophanes, his ideas do not appear to have become widely popular.
Although Plato himself was a polytheist, in his writings, he often presents Socrates as speaking of "the god" in the singular form. He does, however, often speak of the gods in the plural form as well. The Euthyphro dilemma,
for example, is formulated as "Is that which is holy loved by the gods
because it is holy, or is it holy because it is loved by the gods?"
The development of pure (philosophical) monotheism is a product of the Late Antiquity. During the 2nd to 3rd centuries, early Christianity was just one of several competing religious movements advocating monotheism.
"The One" (Τὸ Ἕν) is a concept that is prominent in the writings of the Neoplatonists, especially those of the philosopher Plotinus.
In the writings of Plotinus, "The One" is described as an
inconceivable, transcendent, all-embodying, permanent, eternal,
causative entity that permeates throughout all of existence.
A number of oracles of Apollo from Didyma and Clarus,
the so-called "theological oracles", dated to the 2nd and 3rd century
CE, proclaim that there is only one highest god, of whom the gods of
polytheistic religions are mere manifestations or servants. 4th century CE Cyprus had, besides Christianity, an apparently monotheistic cult of Dionysus.
The Hypsistarians
were a religious group who believed in a most high god, according to
Greek documents. Later revisions of this Hellenic religion were adjusted
towards monotheism as it gained consideration among a wider populace.
The worship of Zeus as the head-god signaled a trend in the direction of
monotheism, with less honour paid to the fragmented powers of the
lesser gods.
The tetragrammaton in Paleo-Hebrew (10th century BCE to 135 CE), old Aramaic (10th century BCE to 4th century CE), and square Hebrew (3rd century BCE to present) scripts
Judaism is traditionally considered one of the oldest monotheistic religions in the world, although in the 8th century BCE the Israelites were polytheistic, with their worship including the gods El, Baal, Asherah, and Astarte. Yahweh was originally the national god of the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah. During the 8th century BCE, the worship of Yahweh in Israel was in competition with many other cults, described by the Yahwist faction collectively as Baals. The oldest books of the Hebrew Bible reflect this competition, as in the books of Hosea and Nahum, whose authors lament the "apostasy" of the people of Israel, threatening them with the wrath of God if they do not give up their polytheistic cults.
As time progressed, the henotheistic cult of Yahweh grew increasingly militant in its opposition to the worship of other gods. Later, the reforms of King Josiah imposed a form of strict monolatrism. After the fall of Judah and the beginning of the Babylonian captivity,
a small circle of priests and scribes gathered around the exiled royal
court, where they first developed the concept of Yahweh as the sole God
of the world.
God, the Cause of all, is one. This
does not mean one as in one of a pair, nor one like a species (which
encompasses many individuals), nor one as in an object that is made up
of many elements, nor as a single simple object that is infinitely
divisible. Rather, God is a unity, unlike any other possible unity.
Some in Judaism and Islam reject the Christian idea of monotheism. Modern Judaism uses the term shituf
to refer to the worship of God in a manner which Judaism deems to be
neither purely monotheistic (though still permissible for non-Jews) nor
polytheistic (which would be prohibited).
Among early Christians, there was considerable debate over the nature of the Godhead, with some denying the incarnation but not the deity of Jesus (Docetism) and others later calling for an Arian conception of God. Despite at least one earlier local synod rejecting the claim of Arius, this Christological issue was to be one of the items addressed at the First Council of Nicaea.
The First Council of Nicaea, held in Nicaea (in present-day Turkey), convoked by the Roman EmperorConstantine I in 325, was the first ecumenical council of bishops of the Roman Empire, and most significantly resulted in the first uniform Christian doctrine, called the Nicene Creed. With the creation of the creed, a precedent was established for subsequent general ecumenical councils of bishops (synods) to create statements of belief and canons of doctrinal orthodoxy— the intent being to define a common creed for the Church and address heretical ideas.
Christian orthodox traditions (Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox,
Roman Catholic, and most Protestants) follow this decision, which was
reaffirmed in 381 at the First Council of Constantinople and reached its full development through the work of the Cappadocian Fathers. They consider God to be a triune entity, called the Trinity, comprising three "persons", God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. These three are described as being "of the same substance" (ὁμοούσιος).
Christians overwhelmingly assert that monotheism is central to
the Christian faith, as the Nicene Creed (and others), which gives the
orthodox Christian definition of the Trinity, begins: "I believe in one
God". From earlier than the times of the Nicene Creed, 325 CE, various Christian figures advocated the triune mystery-nature of God as a normative profession of faith. According to Roger E. Olson
and Christopher Hall, through prayer, meditation, study and practice,
the Christian community concluded "that God must exist as both a unity
and trinity", codifying this in ecumenical council at the end of the 4th
century.
Most modern Christians believe the Godhead
is triune, meaning that the three persons of the Trinity are in one
union in which each person is also wholly God. They also hold to the
doctrine of a man-godChrist Jesus as God incarnate.
These Christians also do not believe that one of the three divine
figures is God alone and the other two are not but that all three are
mysteriously God and one. Other Christian religions, including Unitarian Universalism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism and others, do not share those views on the Trinity.
Some Christian faiths, such as Mormonism,
argue that the Godhead is in fact three separate individuals which
include God the Father, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. Each individual having a distinct purpose in the grand existence of human kind.
Furthermore, Mormons believe that before the Council of Nicaea, the
predominant belief among many early Christians was that the Godhead was
three separate individuals. In support of this view, they cite early
Christian examples of belief in subordinationism.
Unitarianism is a theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism.
Some in Judaism and some in Islam do not consider Trinitarian
Christianity to be a pure form of monotheism due to the pluriform
monotheistic Christian doctrine of the Trinity, classifying it as shituf in Judaism and as shirk in Islam.
Trinitarian Christians, on the other hand, argue that the doctrine of
the Trinity is a valid expression of monotheism, citing that the Trinity
does not consist of three separate deities, but rather the three persons, who exist consubstantially (as one substance) within a single Godhead.
Arabic calligraphy reading "Allah, may his glory be glorified"
In Islam, God (Allāh) is all-powerful and all-knowing, the Creator, Sustainer, Ordainer and Judge of the universe. God in Islam is strictly singular (tawhid) unique (wahid) and inherently One (ahad), all-merciful and omnipotent. Allāh exists on the Al-'Arsh[Quran 7:54], but the Quran states that "No vision can encompass Him, but He encompasses all vision. For He is the Most Subtle, All-Aware." (Quran 6:103) Allāh is the only God and the same God worshiped in Christianity and Judaism(Q29:46).
Islam emerged in the 7th century CE in the context of both Christianity and Judaism, with some thematic elements similar to Gnosticism. Islamic belief states that Muhammad did not bring a new religion from God, but rather the same religion as practiced by Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus and all the other prophets of God.
The assertion of Islam is that the message of God had been corrupted,
distorted or lost over time, and the Quran was sent to Muhammad in order
to correct the lost message of the Tawrat (Torah), Injil (Gospel) and Zabur.
The Quran asserts the existence of a single and absolute truth
that transcends the world; a unique and indivisible being who is
independent of the creation. The Quran rejects binary modes of thinking such as the idea of a duality of God by arguing that both good and evil
generate from God's creative act. God is a universal god rather than a
local, tribal or parochial one; an absolute who integrates all
affirmative values and brooks no evil. Ash'ari
theology, which dominated Sunni Islam from the tenth to the nineteenth
century, insists on ultimate divine transcendence and holds that divine
unity is not accessible to human reason. Ash'arism teaches that human
knowledge regarding it is limited to what has been revealed through the
prophets, and on such paradoxes as God's creation of evil, revelation
had to accept bila kayfa (without [asking] how).
Tawhid constitutes the foremost article of the Muslim profession of faith, "There is no god but God, Muhammad is the messenger of God. To attribute divinity to a created entity is the only unpardonable sin mentioned in the Quran. The entirety of the Islamic teaching rests on the principle of tawhid.
Medieval Islamic philosopher Al-Ghazali offered a proof of monotheism from omnipotence,
asserting there can only be one omnipotent being. For if there were two
omnipotent beings, the first would either have power over the second
(meaning the second is not omnipotent) or not (meaning the first is not
omnipotent); thus implying that there could only be one omnipotent
being.
As they traditionally profess a concept of monotheism with a singular entity as God, Judaism and Islam reject the Christian idea of monotheism. Judaism uses the term Shituf to refer to non-monotheistic ways of worshiping God. Although Muslims venerate Jesus (Isa in Arabic) as a prophet, they do not accept the doctrine that he was a begotten son of God.
Mandaeism or Mandaeanism (Arabic: مندائيةMandāʼīyah), sometimes also known as Sabianism, is a monotheistic, Gnostic, and ethnic religion. Mandaeans consider Adam, Seth, Noah, Shem and John the Baptist to be prophets, with Adam being the founder of the religion and John being the greatest and final prophet. The Mandaeans believe in one God commonly named Hayyi Rabbi meaning 'The Great Life' or 'The Great Living God'. The Mandaeans speak a dialect of Eastern Aramaic known as Mandaic. The name 'Mandaean' comes from the Aramaic manda meaning "knowledge", as does Greek gnosis. The term 'Sabianism' is derived from the Sabians (Arabic: الصابئة, al-Ṣābiʾa), a mysterious religious group mentioned three times in the Quran alongside the Jews, the Christians and the Zoroastrians as a 'people of the book',
and whose name was historically claimed by the Mandaeans as well as by
several other religious groups in order to gain the legal protection (dhimma) offered by Islamic law. Mandaeans recognize God to be the eternal, creator of all, the one and only in domination who has no partner.
God in the Baháʼí Faith
is taught to be the Imperishable, uncreated Being Who is the source of
existence, too great for humans to fully comprehend. Human primitive
understanding of God is achieved through his revelations via his divine
intermediary Manifestations. In the Baháʼí faith, such Christian doctrines as the Trinity are seen as compromising the Baháʼí view that God is single and has no equal,
and the very existence of the Baháʼí Faith is a challenge to the Islamic doctrine of the finality of Muhammad's revelation.
God in the Baháʼí Faith communicates to humanity through divine intermediaries, known as Manifestations of God. These Manifestations establish religion in the world. It is through these divine intermediaries that humans can approach God, and through them God brings divine revelation and law.
The Oneness of God is one of the core teachings of the Baháʼí Faith. The obligatory prayers in the Baháʼí Faith involve explicit monotheistic testimony. God is the imperishable, uncreated being who is the source of all existence. He is described as "a personal God, unknowable, inaccessible, the source of all Revelation, eternal, omniscient, omnipresent and almighty".
Although transcendent and inaccessible directly, his image is reflected
in his creation. The purpose of creation is for the created to have the
capacity to know and love its creator. God communicates his will and purpose to humanity through intermediaries, known as Manifestations of God, who are the prophets and messengers that have founded religions from prehistoric times up to the present day.
Rastafari
Rastafari, sometimes termed Rastafarianism, is classified as both a new religious movement and social movement. It developed in Jamaica
during the 1930s. It lacks any centralised authority and there is much
heterogeneity among practitioners, who are known as Rastafari,
Rastafarians, or Rastas.
Rastafari refer to their beliefs, which are based on a specific interpretation of the Bible, as "Rastalogy". Central is a monotheistic belief in a single God—referred to as Jah—who partially resides within each individual. The former emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, is given central importance. Many Rastas regard him as an incarnation of Jah on Earth and as the Second Coming of Christ. Others regard him as a human prophet who fully recognised the inner divinity within every individual.
Faravahar (or Ferohar) is one of the primary symbols of Zoroastrianism, believed to be the depiction of a Fravashi (guardian spirit).
Zoroastrianism combines cosmogonic dualism and eschatological
monotheism which makes it unique among the religions of the world. It
is contested whether they are monotheistic, due to the presence of Ahura
Mainyu, and the existence of worshipped lesser divinities such as Aharaniyita.
By some Zoroastrianism is considered a monotheistic religion,
but this is contested as both true and false by both scholars, and
Zoroastrians themselves. Although Zoroastrianism is often regarded as dualistic, duotheistic or bitheistic, for its belief in the hypostasis of the ultimately good Ahura Mazda(Wise Lord) and the ultimately evil Angra Mainyu(destructive spirit). Zoroastrianism was once one of the largest religions on Earth, as the official religion of the Persian Empire. By some scholars,
the Zoroastrians ("Parsis" or "Zartoshtis") are sometimes credited with
being some of the first monotheists and having had influence on other
world religions. Gathered statistics estimates the number of adherents
at between 100,000 and 200,000, with adherents living in many regions, including South Asia.
God in Yazidism created the world and entrusted it into the care of seven Holy Beings, known as Angels. The Yazidis believe in a divine Triad. The original, hidden God of the Yazidis is considered to be remote and inactive in relation to his creation, except to contain and bind it together within his essence. His first emanation is the Angel Melek Taûs (Tawûsê Melek), who functions as the ruler of the world and leader of the other Angels. The second hypostasis of the divine Triad is the Sheikh 'Adī ibn Musafir. The third is Sultan Ezid.
These are the three hypostases of the one God. The identity of these
three is sometimes blurred, with Sheikh 'Adī considered to be a
manifestation of Tawûsê Melek and vice versa; the same also applies to
Sultan Ezid. Yazidis are called Miletê Tawûsê Melek ("the nation of Tawûsê Melek").
God is referred to by Yazidis as Xwedê, Xwedawend, Êzdan, and Pedsha ('King'), and, less commonly, Ellah and Heq. According to some Yazidi hymns (known as Qewls), God has 1,001 names, or 3,003 names according to other Qewls.
Oceania
Aboriginal Australian religion
Aboriginal Australians are typically described as polytheistic in nature. Although some researchers shy from referring to Dreamtime figures as "gods" or "deities", they are broadly described as such for the sake of simplicity.
In Southeastern Australian cultures, the sky father Baiame is perceived as the creator of the universe (though this role is sometimes taken by other gods like Yhi or Bunjil) and at least among the Gamilaraay traditionally revered above other mythical figures. Equation between him and the Christian god is common among both missionaries and modern Christian Aboriginals.
The Yolnguhad extensive contact with the Makassans and adopted religious practises inspired by those of Islam. The god Walitha'walitha is based on Allah (specifically, with the wa-Ta'ala suffix), but while this deity had a role in funerary practises it is unclear if it was "Allah-like" in terms of functions.
Andaman Islands
The religion of the Andamanese peoples has at times been described as "animistic monotheism", believing foremost in a single deity, Paluga, who created the universe. However, Paluga is not worshipped, and anthropomorphic personifications of natural phenomena are also known.
Krishna displaying his Vishvarupa (universal form) to Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra
As an old religion, Hinduism inherits religious concepts spanning monotheism, polytheism, panentheism, pantheism, monism, and atheism among others; and its concept of God is complex and depends upon each individual and the tradition and philosophy followed.
Hindu views are broad and range from monism, through pantheism
and panentheism (alternatively called monistic theism by some scholars)
to monotheism and even atheism. Hinduism cannot be said to be purely
polytheistic. Hindu religious leaders have repeatedly stressed that
while God's forms are many and the ways to communicate with him are
many, God is one. The puja of the murti is a way to communicate with the abstract one god (Brahman) which creates, sustains and dissolves creation.
When Krishna is recognized to be Svayam Bhagavan, it can be understood that this is the belief of Gaudiya Vaishnavism, the Vallabha Sampradaya, and the Nimbarka Sampradaya, where Krishna is accepted to be the source of all other avatars, and the source of Vishnu himself. This belief is drawn primarily "from the famous statement of the Bhagavatam" (1.3.28). A viewpoint differing from this theological concept is the concept of Krishna as an avatar of Narayana or Vishnu.
It should be however noted that although it is usual to speak of Vishnu
as the source of the avataras, this is only one of the names of the God
of Vaishnavism, who is also known as Narayana, Vasudeva and Krishna and behind each of those names there is a divine figure with attributed supremacy in Vaishnavism.
The Rig Veda discusses monotheistic thought, as do the Atharva Veda and Yajur Veda:
"Devas are always looking to the supreme abode of Vishnu" (tad viṣṇoḥ paramaṁ padaṁ sadā paśyanti sṻrayaḥRig Veda 1.22.20)
"The One Truth, sages know by many names" (Rig Veda 1.164.46)
"When at first the unborn sprung into being, He won His own dominion beyond which nothing higher has been in existence" (Atharva Veda 10.7.31)
"There is none to compare with Him. There is no parallel to Him, whose glory, verily, is great." (Yajur Veda 32.3)
The number of auspicious qualities of God are countless, with the following six qualities (bhaga) being the most important:
Jñāna (omniscience), defined as the power to know about all beings simultaneously
Aishvarya (sovereignty, derived from the word Ishvara), which consists in unchallenged rule over all
Shakti (energy), or power, which is the capacity to make the impossible possible
Bala (strength), which is the capacity to support everything by will and without any fatigue
Vīrya (vigor), which indicates the power to retain
immateriality as the supreme being in spite of being the material cause
of mutable creations
Tejas (splendor), which expresses His self-sufficiency and the capacity to overpower everything by His spiritual effulgence
In the Shaivite tradition, the Shri Rudram (Sanskrit श्रि रुद्रम्), to which the Chamakam (चमकम्) is added by scriptural tradition, is a Hindu stotra dedicated to Rudra (an epithet of Shiva), taken from the Yajurveda (TS 4.5, 4.7). Shri Rudram is also known as Sri Rudraprasna, Śatarudrīya, and Rudradhyaya. The text is important in Vedanta where Shiva is equated to the Universal supreme God. The hymn is an early example of enumerating the names of a deity, a tradition developed extensively in the sahasranama literature of Hinduism.
The Nyaya
school of Hinduism has made several arguments regarding a monotheistic
view. The Naiyanikas have given an argument that such a god can only be
one. In the Nyaya Kusumanjali, this is discussed against the proposition of the Mimamsa school that let us assume there were many demigods (devas) and sages (rishis) in the beginning, who wrote the Vedas and created the world. Nyaya says that:
[If they assume such] omniscient
beings, those endowed with the various superhuman faculties of assuming
infinitesimal size, and so on, and capable of creating everything, then
we reply that the law of parsimony bids us assume only one such,
namely Him, the adorable Lord. There can be no confidence in a
non-eternal and non-omniscient being, and hence it follows that
according to the system which rejects God, the tradition of the Veda is
simultaneously overthrown; there is no other way open.
In other words, Nyaya says that the polytheist would have to give
elaborate proofs for the existence and origin of his several celestial
spirits, none of which would be logical, and that it is more logical to
assume one eternal, omniscient god.
Many other Hindus, however, view polytheism as far preferable to monotheism. The famous Hindu revitalist leader Ram Swarup, for example, points to the Vedas as being specifically polytheistic, and states that, "only some form of polytheism alone can do justice to this variety and richness."
Sita Ram Goel, another 20th-century Hindu historian, wrote:
I had an occasion to read the
typescript of a book [Ram Swarup] had finished writing in 1973. It was a
profound study of Monotheism, the central dogma of both Islam and
Christianity, as well as a powerful presentation of what the monotheists
denounce as Hindu Polytheism. I had never read anything like it. It was
a revelation to me that Monotheism was not a religious concept but an
imperialist idea. I must confess that I myself had been inclined towards
Monotheism till this time. I had never thought that a multiplicity of
Gods was the natural and spontaneous expression of an evolved
consciousness.
A Sikh temple, known as Nanaksar Gurudwara, in Alberta, CanadaIk Onkār, a Sikh symbol representing "the One Supreme Reality"
Sikhi is a monotheistic and a revealed religion.
God in Sikhi is called Akal Purakh (which means "the true immortal") or Vāhigurū the Primal being. However, other names like Ram, Allah etc. are also used to refer to the same god, who is shapeless, timeless, and sightless: niraṅkār, akaal, and alakh. Sikhi presents a unique perspective where God is present (sarav viāpak)
in all of its creation and does not exist outside of its creation. God
must be seen from "the inward eye", or the "heart". Sikhs follow the Aad
Guru Granth Sahib and are instructed to meditate on the Naam (Name of God - Vāhigurū)
to progress towards enlightenment, as its rigorous application permits
the existence of communication between God and human beings.
Sikhism is a monotheistic faith that arose in northern region of the Indian subcontinent during the 16th and 17th centuries. Sikhs believe in one, timeless, omnipresent, supreme creator. The opening verse of the Guru Granth Sahib, known as the Mul Mantra, signifies this:
One Universal creator God, The supreme Unchangeable Truth, The
Creator of the Universe, Beyond Fear, Beyond Hatred, Beyond Death,
Beyond Birth, Self-Existent, by Guru's Grace.
The word "ੴ" ("Ik ōaṅkār") has two components. The first is ੧, the digit "1" in Gurmukhi signifying the singularity of the creator. Together the word means: "One Universal creator God".
It is often said that the 1430 pages of the Guru Granth Sahib are all expansions on the Mul Mantra. Although the Sikhs have many names for God, some derived from Islam and Hinduism, they all refer to the same Supreme Being.
The Sikh holy scriptures refer to the One God who pervades the whole of space and is the creator of all beings in the universe. The following quotation from the Guru Granth Sahib highlights this point:
Chant, and meditate on the One God,
who permeates and pervades the many beings of the whole Universe. God
created it, and God spreads through it everywhere. Everywhere I look, I
see God. The Perfect Lord is perfectly pervading and permeating the
water, the land and the sky; there is no place without Him.
— Guru Granth Sahib, Page 782
However, there is a strong case for arguing that the Guru Granth Sahib teaches monism due to its non-dualistic tendencies:
You have thousands of Lotus Feet, and yet You do not have even one
foot. You have no nose, but you have thousands of noses. This Play of
Yours entrances me.
Sikhs believe that God has been given many names, but they all refer to the One God, VāhiGurū.
Sikh holy scripture (Guru Granth Sahib) speaks to all faiths and Sikhs
believe that members of other religions such as Islam, Hinduism and Christianity all worship the same God, and the names Allah, Rahim, Karim, Hari, Raam and Paarbrahm
are, therefore, frequently mentioned in the Sikh holy scripture (Guru
Granth Sahib) . God in Sikhism is most commonly referred to as Akal Purakh (which means "the true immortal") or Waheguru, the Primal Being.
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