The Only True God
There is at least one thing in common between Christianity and Judaism: monotheism. However, not everyone will agree with that. To many, Christianity’s claim that it is a monotheistic religion is at the very least a mix-up of categories. You cannot say that you worship only one God, but then define it in such a way that strains the definition to the max. The doctrine of the Trinity seems to be a way that Christians found to have their cake and eat it too.
But when we talk about monotheism, what are we really referring to? Are we certain that the way we’ve come to understand monotheism is the same way Jews and Christians understood it in the 1st century? That’s the main question James McGrath, associate professor of Religion at Butler University (see his blog Exploring our Matrix), poses to us in his book The Only True God. Simply assuming that the way we define monotheism today and the way it was defined two thousand years ago is a huge fallacy. We need to set aside our understanding of monotheism and let the texts that we have from that period define the term for us.
At first, I thought this was going to be a defense of Christian monotheism, showing that what people thought about the one true God was in line with later Christian doctrine. But what McGrath wants to remind us is that the worldview of the Jews and early Christians allowed for certain things that were later extrapolated (my word, not McGrath’s) in Christianity and suppressed in Judaism as a way to contain its new definition of monotheism. The result is that neither quite formulated its understanding of the oneness of God as was perceived early on.
In his survey of the different approaches by scholars, McGrath lists three major types of interpretation:
1) Both early Judaism and Christianity were monotheistic.
2) Neither early Judaism or early Christianity was monotheistic.
3) Early Judaism was monotheistic and early Christianity departed from its Jewish monotheistic roots.
I would venture to say that Christians would go with the first option and Jews with that last one. Although the second type of interpretation–that neither early Judaism or early Christianity was monotheistic–may seem odd to us, it at least raises the question of what we mean and what was meant by monotheism. McGrath tackles this question in his chapter “Jewish Monotheism in the Greco-Roman Era,” and, although he still wants to retain the term “monotheism,” many of us would probably designate it, as he admits, as “monolatry,” since it all boils down to offering sacrifices to only one God. McGrath says that “[monotheism] was far more flexible than the definitions of monotheism used in later Jewish thought and in our own time. The sacrificial worship of the one God without images was the make-or-break issue” (35). With this definition in mind, McGrath goes on to look at Paul, with a very helpful discussion of 1 Corinthians 8, the Gospel of John, Revelation and the Two Powers Heresy. In the first three, McGrath shows how those texts can be understood in terms of Wisdom personified, Logos and divine agency, all of which would be in keeping with monotheism. McGrath shows that the Greek verb proskunein (worship) has a wide semantic range, and that, outside the sacrificial system, it can fit comfortably with allegiance to one God when used of others. Of all chapters, the one on John’s Gospel raised more questions than gave answers. Although McGrath sees Christians using language to talk about Jesus—John 8 being a specific example—similar to how the Apocalypse of Abraham talks about Yahoel—that is, of God’s agent being given the divine name in order to be empowered for his mission—one wonders to what extent other agents of Yahweh put such an emphasis on their empowerment. In other words, whereas other agents are given the divine name to be empowered for their mission, Jesus’ mission, at least in John, seems to be to show people who he is in relation to God, and that what he does is exactly what God is doing. Although I don’t expect to see exact parallels to how Jesus portrays himself, are there examples of divine agents making the sort of claims (directly or indirectly) that Jesus makes?
The chapter on the Two Powers Heresy is a response to Alan Segal’s work. Segal defines this heresy as “interpreting scripture to say that a principal angelic or hypostatic manifestation in heaven was equivalent to God” (cited in an end note). Although McGrath acknowledges the import contribution of Segal’s work, he points out its shortcomings and suggests that “it is anachronistic to interpret Jewish and Christian documents from this period [first century] as reflecting ‘two powers’ heresy” (96).
The conclusion of the book not only pulls the different discussions together, but also tries to ask some pertinent questions about its theological implications. This was a turn I was not expecting in the book, and I was pleasantly surprised that McGrath took the time to answer, although briefly, what might be brewing in the back of a lot of readers’ minds. To mention just one, McGrath addresses the concern that some readers may have with his insistence on early Christianity’s monotheism as a challenge to the legitimacy of Trinitarian theology. He rejects that inference and goes on to say:
“It is certainly true that the earliest Christians were not Trinitarians in the modern sense. But neither were they monotheists in the modern sense. Perhaps the most important result of this study, and of biblical studies in general, is that the early Christians were regularly not anything at all in the modern sense but inhabited a world view and culture context fundamentally different from ours” (McGrath 2009: 100).
So the doctrine of the Trinity, according to McGrath, shows “neither faithfulness to nor apostasy from its heritage.” Since Christianity is a living tradition, it must grow, develop, and change over time. These statements contain enough to anger some and give others a helpful way to think of how Christianity was and continues to be monotheistic, which can sometimes be obscured by some of the debates of how exactly the Trinity “works.”
The Only True God helped me ask more specific questions about how exactly the books of the New Testament are monotheistic, for that seems to be the presupposition of its writer and original readers. It will be worth reading the book if, at the end, the modern reader starts asking similar questions even if their conclusions may differ from McGrath’s.
McGrath, James F. The Only True God: Early Christian Monotheism in Its Jewish Context. 1st ed. University of Illinois Press, 2009.
Homebrewed Christianity conducted an interview with James McGrath about his book The Only True God: Early Christian Monotheism in Its Jewish Context.
The interview is about 9:30 minutes into the show.
Early Christian Monotheism with James McGrath: Homebrewed Christianity 68
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