Is Christianity Henotheistic?

[crowonsnow]

Is Christianity henotheistic? It certainly appears to be in practice. I ask because I’ve only ever heard one Christian refer to people of other religions as atheist.

I think something like 31% of the global population is some variation of the Christian religion, but I hear most Christians stating that only 2% to 11% are actually atheist.

Wouldn’t 69% be considered atheist if indeed those other gods are not real?

Or are these other religious gods considered some form of idolatry and do Christians consider idolaters as being theists? Is it better to be an idolater than an atheist? Is it just better to worship something?

I have heard the words “invincible ignorance” applied to persons of other religions by Christians, but am unsure of exactly what that means in terms of being thought of as theistic / atheistic.

 

[tm30]

Christianity is not henotheistic. We don’t recognize, for example, Buddah, to be a god. Or Vishnu. Or what have you. The Church believes that there are glimpses of God in what some peoples seek. In worshipping Buddah, Buddhists unwittingly encounter a fleeting image of Christ in the desire for peace. It’s not Christ whom they worship, yet it is not purely atheistic. They believe in “a” god of some sort, but not Yaweh. It’s akin to looking through a pane of broken glass. The image on the other side is there, however distorted it may be. They can’t quite make it out, so in ignorance believe in it for whatever they apprehend it to be. They make of it whatever they worship. At other times, the Enemy influences the ignorant and spiritually weak to see it as something that will serve him directly, completely at odds and offering not a glimpse of the Creator.

Our job as Christians is to fix that window and reveal clearly that what they see is not Buddah or Vishnu or Mother Earth or the Four Winds, but Jesus Christ, through Whom all things were created - of whom they unwittingly catch a glimpse but do not acknoweldge.

Another comparison would be the Greeks, who, Paul tells us, worshipped “the unknown god” within their paganism. Even they had a sense that, above all of their gods, there was One who was unknown and ruled them all. In a beautiful parallel of the early Hebrews, even they could not give to this god a name. If they had been directly visited by Yaweh, they would have referred to Him as I AM.

 

[Contarini]

Is Christianity henotheistic? It certainly appears to be in practice. I ask because I’ve only ever heard one Christian refer to people of other religions as atheist.

I think something like 31% of the global population is some variation of the Christian religion, but I hear most Christians stating that only 2% to 11% are actually atheist.

Wouldn’t 69% be considered atheist if indeed those other gods are not real?

Or are these other religious gods considered some form of idolatry and do Christians consider idolaters as being theists? Is it better to be an idolater than an atheist? Is it just better to worship something?

I have heard the words “invincible ignorance” applied to persons of other religions by Christians, but am unsure of exactly what that means in terms of being thought of as theistic / atheistic.

First of all, an “atheist” usually means someone who does not believe in the existence of God, not someone who worships false gods. So even Christians who believe that members of other religions are by definition not worshiping the true God would not call those people atheists. However, this is largely semantics. Christians were called “atheists” for not worshiping the Roman gods, and at least one early Christian martyr (Polycarp) responded by calling polytheists atheists.

There’s a further question, though, and one that in my experience atheists never seem to understand: no one has ever believed that Thor or Apollo or Indra was the kind of being whom Christians believe God to be. It’s not that polytheists think some other being is the One True God, but that by their own confession they pay divine honors to various beings who are not the One True God. However, early Christians recognized that Greek philosophers, for instance, acknowledged some sort of Supreme Divinity. They did not consider this Supreme Divinity to be a false god, but the true God imperfectly understood. St. Paul took this approach in the speech at Athens recorded in Acts 17. The same thing would apply to the Hindu concept of Brahman.

Buddhists, on the other hand, are arguably atheists, though not in the Western sense (and this is more obviously true of Theravada than of Mahayana Buddhists). They do not believe in the being whom we worship. They do not think that there is such a being. At the same time, they also do not pay divine honors to the devas (the superhuman beings whom Hindus traditionally worship as gods). It’s complicated!

Edwin

 

[Matariel]

Christianity is not henotheistic. We don’t recognize, for example, Buddah, to be a god. Or Vishnu. Or what have you. The Church believes that there are glimpses of God in what some peoples seek. In worshipping Buddah, Buddhists unwittingly encounter a fleeting image of Christ in the desire for peace. It’s not Christ whom they worship, yet it is not purely atheistic.

I disagree. St.Paul says that the heathen gods are fallen spirits, and Beelzebub, Rimmon, Baal, and other such gods are repeatedly referred to, and are depicted in the Bible as devils.

 

[StCsDavid]

I heard a priest on Vatican Radio yesterday say that if God loves Roman Catholics then there is great hope for the Hindus. We are all, each and every one of us, the result of a thought of God. I like to say that we’re all Catholic, but some of us haven’t realized that yet. Christianity is not henotheistic…however, if you look hard enough I’m sure you can find a few folks out there with those tendencies.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

I disagree. St.Paul says that the heathen gods are fallen spirits, and Beelzebub, Rimmon, Baal, and other such gods are repeatedly referred to, and are depicted in the Bible as devils.

OTOH, that is hostile witness.​

St. Paul says - quoting a Psalm - that “the gods of the nations are demons”. “Demon” means “a superhuman evil spirit” for Christians; but non-Christians did not always think of demons as malign: the daimon of Socrates is probably his conscience, externalised.

 

[Matariel]

OTOH, that is hostile witness.​

Don’t get me wrong, I believe there is truth in other religions. But it is fractured and stained, a dismorphic version of the full Catholic Truth. Also, not all of the beings honoured by pagans are demons. Such an example in the human Siddharta Guatama (the Buddha). Many of these are “pagan saints” who did the best they could with the knowledge they had. Not trying to be hostile at all, just stating what I think is the Catholic position.

St. Paul says - quoting a Psalm - that “the gods of the nations are demons”. “Demon” means “a superhuman evil spirit” for Christians; but non-Christians did not always think of demons as malign: the daimon of Socrates is probably his conscience, externalised.

St. Paul meant what Christians and Jews meant by when they said “demon”. Also, these being do have an independent existence (“for there are gods many, and lords many”). So the it’s not like they worship non-existent entities, although they must be clearly subordinate to the Holy Trinity, fallen or not.