Do we really want to bring back polytheism? Mary Lefkowitz of Wellesley College prefers that to the one true God of monotheistic religions, in this LA Times article: Bring back the Greek gods : Mere mortals had a better life when more than one ruler presided from on high.
She is described as “professor emerita” so presumably she wasn’t born yesterday. But judging by the article, at least, she shows no awareness of things that need to be part of this discussion, and at the same time has set up some sort of strawman monotheism to knock down.
- What about Hitler-Nazi paganism? Those weren’t Greek gods, exactly, but Lefkowitz is claiming that polytheism is a lot more wonderful than monotheism.
- She writes approvingly: “Zeus, the ruler of the gods, retained his power by using his intelligence along with superior force.” Well, if she likes a God who doesn’t force himself on people, perhaps she needs to read about the self-abnegating god of the Christmas and Good Friday stories.
- She writes: “The existence of many different gods also offers a more plausible account than monotheism of the presence of evil and confusion in the world?” It does? It offers a plausible account of conflict (confusion) but if you’re going to recognize that such a thing as evil exists, you need a standard by which to say it’s evil, and that suggests monotheism more polytheism. In polytheism, who is to say that evil is evil? It’s just another side that’s opposed to your side.
- She writes: “The separation between humankind and the gods made it possible for humans to complain to the gods without the guilt or fear of reprisal the deity of the Old Testament inspired.” Huh? The knock against the transcendant god of Christian and Jewish monotheism is usually that it’s so separate from humans. So now transcendance means gods and people are buddies who get together to debate? But more seriously, how polytheistic gods can be more transcendant than a monotheistic god suggests to me that the good professor has not spent her many years thinking very hard about this issue, or reading much about it. And maybe she should read the story of Jacob, in which a human is actually praised for wrestling with god. A wrestling match among polythestic opponents is just a rumble, but a wrestling match between humans and god is an event of consequence.
Not that I’m your go-to guy for information on these topics. But Lefkowitz certainly is not. She raises some questions worth talking about, but she needs to dig a lot deeper before she starts presenting answers.