United States or Papua New Guinea ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Max Müller's Henotheism, where the god addressed Indra, or Soma, or Agni is, for the moment, envisaged as supreme, and is adored in something like a monotheistic spirit; or, finally, in the etherealised deity of advanced philosophic speculation. It has not been necessary, for our purpose, to dwell on these civilised religions.
For our present purpose, traces of the worship of one supreme God call it monotheism or henotheism is all that is required. With these limitations and qualifications in view, let us turn to the history of some of the leading non-Christian faiths.
Even henotheism, the last name which Professor Max Müller applies to the early Aryan faith, denotes oneness in this sense. The process of differentiation and corruption advanced more rapidly among the Indo-Aryans than in the Iranian branch of the same race, and in all lands changes were wrought to some extent by differences of climate and by environment.
From this polytheistic position the people took a step forward to a state of mind which Professor Max Muller calls henotheism; that is, they believed in the real existence of many gods, but that they were under allegiance to only one, their national Deity, and that him only they must serve.
When we find that many of them are credited with the same larger or smaller acts of creation, protection, or blessing, we may suspect that they were originally clan gods that have been incorporated in the great theologic system, and that "henotheism" is mainly a survival from this earlier scheme or an extension of it. Similar local gods appear in Peru and Mexico.
Investigators in the history of religion trace the steps from polydemonism to polytheism and thence to henotheism and monotheism. Along with this evolution, which reflected changes in social organization, went a corresponding moral transformation of these divine beings. Yet the setting of the outlook was largely the same as in earlier days.
But, since there never has been a time when the character of Christ and the ethics which he taught have been held in higher honour than the present, there is every reason to expect that the next 'Age of Faith, when it comes, will be of a more genuinely Christian type than the last. In contrast with 'henotheism' or 'monolatry, such as the worship of the early Hebrews.
Max Müller, who also gives the title of Henotheism to that position in which many gods are believed in as existing, but worship is given to only one. The following are examples of the various positions:
Only an ignorance of the ethical deepening of other religions can excuse the belief that this ethical development was absolutely unique. Probably it is the aspect of national monotheism, or henotheism, as it should more accurately be called, which impresses so many, whereas this feature was an historical accident.
Seeking to escape from the confusion of many gods the Indian mind is looking out even from the Vedic period for some means to conceive of them all as one. In the earliest period each reigned in turn as the supreme; a god is supreme not because he is essentially the greatest of the gods, but because circumstances have brought him to the front. This is Henotheism.
Word Of The Day