Monotheism and Polytheism

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These differences in theological belief can be used to analyse the content of both the system that is maintained by a priesthood and the changes to such a system that are proposed by a prophet. As previously discussed, the priesthood is defined by the function that it plays in society. Here we move on to engage with the question of method, not function. The question is how does the priesthood go about their work: which beliefs give their actions its specific shape? In this way, the generalised process of societal change and development, which is outlined in the previous sections, can take on specific life and form depending on the theological beliefs that are at play. This, therefore, will allow us to analyse the specificities of China, and how the processes of change driven by particular theological considerations gave shape to China's national theology.

3.3.1 Monotheism and Polytheism

The first spectrum that will be explored runs between monotheism and polytheism. This has been hinted at already and, along with the other spectrum, is based upon the charisma – bureaucracy antinomy provided by Weber. The question at hand is a numeric question, concerning not just the nature of ‘this-world’ but the nature of reality. This question is reflected in the conception of divinity.

To ground this discussion, it is important to return to perhaps the defining feature of a bureaucracy in Weber's mind: that the owner and the operators of a system are kept separate.

In a system of charismatic dominance, they are blended, and so the loyalty and willing dedication is not to the system but the semi-divine leader in the system. The theological implications of worshipping a charismatic leader are well explored. (Weber 1965, 157-160) The theological implications of devotion to a system itself, are not. This can be redressed by the simple equation of the 'owner' of a system to that system's divinity. From here it follows that a monotheistic system draws a firm distinction between divinity (owner) and humanity (operator), whereas a polytheistic system, tied to Weber's vision of Charisma, see the human leaders as themselves embodying divinity to varying degrees; able to channel and share in divinity to some respect, thus being worthy of worship themselves, blending divinity and humanity, owner and operator.

A useful way of conceptualising this spectrum, therefore, is the level to which divinity is anthropomorphised. Monotheists place greater distance between humanity and divinity;

(Weber 1965, 25) we are recipients rather than participants in divine work. Theology in such a

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system is a science, we are observers. To a polytheist, however, divinity reflects the messy, capricious nature of humanity. Divine work and human work are similarly diverse and conflictual, akin to the battlefields of Troy in the Iliad. This makes theology an attempt to convince or coerce divinity to do humanity's bidding, (Weber 1965, 26) this is an art, not a science. A good way to judge where a society can be placed upon this spectrum is how clearly and regularly the society's divinity is pictured in human or humanoid form. But it is important to note that this does not necessarily refer to a human literally being described as a god, but a leader being highly venerated or idolised. This is a very common phenomenon even in the most nominally secular societies.

Keeping this in mind, Weber writes that a fundamental distinction ‘was and remains:

who is deemed to exert the stronger influence on the individual in his everyday life, the theoretically supreme god [monotheism] or the lower spirits and demons [polytheism]?’

(Weber 1965, 20) This struggle between competing visions of divinity determines the shape of the priesthood and therefore necessarily the shape of society as a whole.

This reflects the difference in style between the bureaucratic priest and the charismatic magician; the priest rationalises and systematises beliefs into a unified and coherent system, the magician diffuses and mystifies, thus creating a decentralised network of locally relevant theological practices. A magician claims to have power over things. A Priest claims to understand those external forces that have power over things. As an adaptation of Weber’s thought, this aspect of the distinction between priest and magician is explained here as the difference between monotheism and polytheism.

A monotheistic theology equates divinity with universal, positive, principles. Weber writes that ‘[u]pon these gods depend both rational economic practice and the secure, regulated hegemony of sacred norms in the social community.’ (Weber 1965, 22) Such a belief in a singular creative force, and therefore singular intention behind reality is the primary driving force behind the priesthood’s organisation and centralisation. As the imaginative bedrock for a people, this centralisation and unification prefigures an imagined community that is similarly united and centrally organised.

A polytheistic theology can be similarly systematised, but even when this is the case it carries over specific characteristic traits that are reflected in the conception of divinity. The obvious point about the number of gods belies a more significant point about the essential

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disunity that this signifies about reality itself. Polytheism is marked by a chaotic and dynamic conception of reality; one where no single force (god) is willing or able to establish order.

The perceived singularity of divine intention translates into societies that are organised around certain principles that are believed to be universally true. Such a society sees itself as cosmically central, geographically and/or ideologically, and divinely sanctioned to combat and reject anything which contradicts the principles that are seen as written into the fabric of reality by a creator God who are themselves without peers or restrictions. Alternatively, when disorder and chaos is written into the very fabric of reality, as with polytheism, then it is true that any society adopting such an imaginative basis for its conception must be more tolerant of the plurality, not just of peoples but of ethical standards. This is because any position is simply one of many; diversity and dynamism are the default position. However, the constant parochial bickering of the gods naturally translates to endless violent conflict between the different people of the world.

As with all ideal types, the important point to take away from this section would be that these extremes feed into each other, that no society is a ‘pure’ form of anything, societal developments can be traced by looking at movements in one or other of these directions. Also important is the view that each side is likely to have of the other. A polytheist would look at a monotheistic society and see a Kafkaesque nightmare where everything is determined and structured and everything must conform to universal standards. A monotheist looking at a polytheistic society would see a people without purpose, disordered, provincial, even narrow-minded and excessively individualistic. These types flow into one another, and systems can develop in either direction.

Using this framework, we can see that Weber himself was a polytheist. His polytheism is inherently tied to his nationalism. His value-neutral approach to science belies his aversion to the monotheistic claim that there are universal truths. For this bureaucratisation of truth made a system ‘totally unable to bring forth leaders’. (Mommsen 1989, 115) For a polytheist, the core of reality is contested, as humans take a part in shaping it just as they take part in divinity.

Weber was not an extreme version of this; he argues that you need bureaucratization and charisma in order to maintain freedom and competition within a system (Mommsen 1989, 29)

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‘Weber welcomed, in principle, an international system in which a number of strong nation-states confronted each other in permanent rivalry.’ (Mommsen 1989, 29)⁵

This discussion of nationalism brings us to a key weakness of Benedict Anderson. This is focused on his insistence on the uniqueness of the nation as he presents it, especially when contrasted with the cosmically central ‘Religious Community’ and ‘The Dynastic Realm’ as types of imagined communities.

On the point of the nation being limited he writes that '[t]he most messianic nationalists do not dream of a day when all the members of the human race will join their nation in the way that it was possible, in certain epochs, for, say, Christians to dream of a wholly Christian planet.' (Anderson 2006, 7) This is true of Christianity and other monotheistic theological systems that are Universalist. But there are plenty of examples of more polytheistic theological systems that do quite closely reflect the world of nations as Anderson presents it. In almost all polytheistic systems the god is very much a reflection of the territory and the people that live within it.

Consider the sheer strangeness of picturing a Caucasian Nuwa, an African Zeus, or a Chinese Ra.

Worshippers of Marduk, or Baal, or Jupiter, did not see their goal as converting their neighbours. They did not see their neighbours as worshipping false gods; they saw them as worshipping weak gods. Conquering a territory or simply being more powerful than your neighbours was equivalent to proving that your god was stronger; it was not equivalent to convincing your enemy that their god does not exist. Being the dominant power in a region meant that, either through conquest or immigration, these powers faced the same issues of how to assimilate or integrate populations that remained 'other' in much the same way that modern nation-states deal with issues of immigration and minority populations from colonised or economically weaker areas. Nations may be distinct from monotheistic societies in how they conceive of themselves, but they are nearly identical with polytheistic societies. It follows logically from this that the more globally aware set of nations that make up the international system itself closely resembles a polytheistic system. Where varying levels of conflict, competition, and cooperation are seen as the natural state of affairs between sovereign societies.

This is an important thing to bear in mind before we enter into our analysis of China's national theology. The fact that China is a nation and we are studying the development of it as a nation

5 Leo Strauss' criticism of Weber's value-neutrality can, therefore, be seen as a monotheist criticism of Weber's

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necessarily restricts the range of positions that it could be placed on this spectrum; although not by much.