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I understand that the fundamental well accepted definition of polytheism is usually

The worship of two or more god deities

But from studying about philosophy of god (concepts of god) and psychology and history of religion I understand that there might be a more sophisticated definition, involving a pattern of how polytheism is done → most often by worshiping two or more gods with a human or human-animal hybrid form, personality and biography;
Practically it would likely be done by creating statues of this deity and also behaving as follows:

  • Bowing before deity statues
  • Burning incense near deity statues
  • Burning the bodies of dead (or in some very sad cases, alive organisms) near deity statues
  • Bringing food or gifts (including money) to priests near deity statues
  • Putting offerings near (or on) the statues until these decay and get cleared.
  • Celebrating calendaric holidays often including special prayers and offerings

The worshiped gods usually deemed eternal (unless killed), large in body size, and such that require the care of humans worshiping them at their "houses" (temples) on earth; also, they are often ancestors or totems of an ancestor.

My problem

From all my learning about this subject it is unclear to me if philosophers have isolated a most common pattern of polytheism which would be shared between most polytheistic religions.

My question

Is there an hypothesis about global features of polytheism and if so, what is it?

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    It is difficult to have "essential" definitions regarding social and historical facts: [Polytheism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytheism) "is the worship of or belief in **multiple** deities." We have found many different versions of it, also not historically related and it is difficult to imagine that they must have some common "deep" feature. – Mauro ALLEGRANZA Feb 18 '20 at 12:39
  • Hello @MauroALLEGRANZA ; I kindly disagree it's difficult ; I honestly recognize no reason to assume such assumption. –  Feb 18 '20 at 12:54
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    This is not a problem for philosophers but for etnographers, anthropologists, and comparative religion scholars. This question seems more suitable for [Psychology SE](https://psychology.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/anthropology) or [Mythology & Folklore SE](https://mythology.stackexchange.com/). – Conifold Feb 18 '20 at 13:40
  • Hello @Conifold ; I kindly disagree - a very similar question was rejected by the community of Psychology SE ; I think this site is the best fit (would Chris Rogers agree)? Chris, where are you man? –  Feb 18 '20 at 13:42
  • @Conifold -- the philosophy of religion is part of philosophy, and the difficulty of defining terms within it, and whether it has essences or foundations, are philosophical questions per Socrates. – Dcleve Feb 18 '20 at 19:19
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    @Dcleve Sure, but "human or human-animal hybrid form, personality and biography; creating statues of this deity and also... bowing before deity statues..." do not strike me as philosophical patterns. Philosophers are not equipped to judge which practices are sufficiently universal in polytheistic worship any more than to judge which linguistic templates (if any) are sufficiently universal in human languages. There could be a philosophical question about the "essence of polytheism", but this one isn't. It is the Frazer's Golden Bough type of material. – Conifold Feb 18 '20 at 21:25
  • @Conifold I would appreciate it if you turned this comment into an answer. The current answers, as you can see, either make unsourced claims about religious history or have fundamental logical flaws, so it would be helpful to have a frame challenge to upvote. – probably_someone Feb 18 '20 at 22:54
  • @Conifold -- I agree on the confused nature of the question. The asker is confused about what a religion is, and is focussed on particular social practices -- this confuses them when they then go looking for commonalities, definitions, and essences for polytheism. A good answer would help educate them, and clear up some of their confusion. As an aside, I consider Campbell's thesis that comparative mythology provides an insight into the essence of what it is to be human to be a philosophic premise. – Dcleve Feb 18 '20 at 23:24
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    So you have listed several common (in your opinion) traits of polytheistic beliefs. Fine. But pray tell me, how are they specific to polytheism? I'd say Christianity ticks most of the boxes. – IMil Feb 19 '20 at 00:26
  • @Dcleve you haven't shown evidence to the absurd claim that I am "confused about what religion is"; you talk about confusion so much without a shred of evidence. –  Feb 19 '20 at 01:19
  • @probably_someone I am afraid, my personal rule is not to post answers to questions I consider off-topic, it only encourages more of them. I only explain in comments why I believe them to be off-topic and vote to close. – Conifold Feb 19 '20 at 04:29

2 Answers2

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Two writers who have produced 'global' hypotheses about the features of polytheism are Jean-Pierre Vernant and Walter Burkert.

Vernant identifies the following features:

A god is a power that represents a type of action, a kind of force. Within the framework of a pantheon, each of these powers is defined not in itself as an isolated object but by virtue of its relative position in the aggregate of forces, by the structure of relations that oppose and unite it to the other powers that constitute the divine universe. The law of this society of the beyond is the strict demarcation* of the forces and their hierarchical counterbalancing. This excludes the categories of omnipotence*, omniscience and of infinite power.

Compare this with Burkert:

The distinctive personality of a god is constituted and mediated by at least four different factors: the established local cult with its ritual programme and unique atmosphere, the divine name, the myths told about the named being, and the iconography, especially the cult image.

The point may be obvious but Vernant is surely right to stress that polytheism debars omnipotence. The collectivity of gods might be omnipotent but if one god is omnipotent, the picture becomes monotheistic in all but name. Polytheism can recognise differentials of power among the gods but not the categorial difference between one omnipotent god whose power is not demarcated at all and other, finite gods.

References

Jean-Pierre Vernant, Religion grecque, religions antiques, in the series Textes à l’appui (Maspéro Paris 1976): 15; tr. H.S. Versnel, Coping With the Gods, Brill. (2011): 27-8.

Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical (translated by J. Raffan, Oxford 1985): 119.

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Geoffrey Thomas
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  • Downvoted for logical flaws. You and Vernant both seem to completely miss a possibility. You both talk about how polytheism prohibits omnipotence of _one particular_ god over the others, because then it's apparently "actually" monotheism. But what if _all_ gods in the pantheon are omnipotent? Based on your logic here, there wouldn't appear to be a problem with that, which means polytheism doesn't actually prohibit omnipotence. – probably_someone Feb 18 '20 at 22:05
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    Also downvoted because calling polytheism with one omnipotent god "monotheism in all but name" is setting an entirely arbitrary brightline, based on a definition which favors monotheism. I'm sure many monistic polytheists, many followers of Hinduism included, would be very surprised indeed if you told them that their religion of many gods was actually just a religion of one god, and that the things that they worshipped weren't actually gods. – probably_someone Feb 18 '20 at 22:12
  • To be clear, by "all gods are omnipotent" I specifically mean "_every single_ god is _individually_ omnipotent". – probably_someone Feb 18 '20 at 22:14
  • Anyway, if you apply Burkert's definition, as you've quoted it, you could make an argument that Catholicism, with its religious rites devoted to Mary and the saints, is "polytheism in all but name". And that's not even getting into the theology of the trinity, which a polytheist might say is just 2,000 years of trying to make an essentially polytheistic concept fit in a monotheistic frame (unsuccessfully, I might add, due to the many schisms it spawned that still exist today). – probably_someone Feb 18 '20 at 22:17
  • @probably_someone If every single god is individually omnipotent, what happens if two of them are in conflict with one another? – Mason Wheeler Feb 18 '20 at 22:21
  • @probably_someone I'm not the answerer, but here's one interesting argument I've heard for there being at most one omnipotent being. "Omnipotence" is defined as being able to actualize any logically possible state of affairs. Suppose A and B are both distinct omnipotent beings. Then, for some logically possible state of affairs P, A could actualize P, and B could actualize not-P, since they're both omnipotent. So, possibly P and not-P. But it's not possible that P and not-P. Therefore there cannot be two distinct omnipotent beings. – Adam Sharpe Feb 18 '20 at 22:22
  • @MasonWheeler What happens when God creates a boulder so big he can't lift it? Such contradictory positions clearly don't prevent valid theologies from existing. – probably_someone Feb 18 '20 at 22:22
  • @AdamSharpe Two clocks that always agree are not the same thing as one clock. If it isn't logically possible for two omnipotent gods to act against each other, then they don't. This doesn't make them the same god. For instance, they could have chosen to divide their focus between two disjoint domains. Or they don't even _have_ to have made such a choice, if neither of them are omniscient. It's certainly possible that both gods would have the power to do anything that's logically possible if they knew that it needed doing, but each god is only aware of events happening in its own domain. – probably_someone Feb 18 '20 at 22:23
  • @probably_someone Two omnipotent beings might happen to always agree, but if what you're saying is true then they *necessarily* agree about everything that is within their power. This seems to lead to a kind of necessitarianism, whereas some believe that Gods would have free will. I would also argue similarly against the clock analogy. Clocks might always agree because they behave deterministically, they have a state and there are laws that update those states. With Gods there are no prior existing laws that would govern Gods and "force" their agreement. God creates and sustains such laws. – Adam Sharpe Feb 18 '20 at 23:04
  • @AdamSharpe In any case, let's write an identical argument, with some real-world substitutions. Instead of omnipotent beings, let A and B be two distinct able-bodied people, sitting in a room containing a window. Let P be the state of affairs in which the window is open. Both A and B, being able-bodied people, are able to open and close the window; therefore, A can actualize P and B can actualize not-P. Why does this make it possible that the window is both open and closed? – probably_someone Feb 18 '20 at 23:06
  • @AdamSharpe Even getting past that flaw, the argument you present concludes that since A and B can both open and close a window, they must not be two distinct able-bodied people. Anyone trying to claim this in any realm outside of theology would be laughed at. – probably_someone Feb 18 '20 at 23:07
  • @probably_someone There is a dis-analogy in your parody argument. A and B are not *omnipotent*, which is exactly the relevant difference between my argument and your parody argument. If A is omnipotent, and A willed it that P, then P must obtain. If it didn't then A wouldn't be omnipotent; there is something logically possible that A cannot do, namely bring it about that P. If an able-bodied person wills it that P, it may not follow that P obtains because A is not omnipotent. I will all sorts of things that don't happen, because I'm not omnipotent. – Adam Sharpe Feb 18 '20 at 23:13
  • @AdamSharpe Responding to your more recent reply: First, once again, we don't have to assume omniscience; everything can be within their power, but not everything has to be within their knowledge, and they can't (or don't) act on things that they don't know about. Second, we don't have to assume that they always have to act if they disagree. They can disagree but one or the other can choose to abstain from carrying out the opposing act. If this doesn't qualify as free will, then humans also don't have free will. Third, we don't have to assume that gods have free will at all. – probably_someone Feb 18 '20 at 23:15
  • @AdamSharpe And responding to your most recent reply: your definition of omnipotence is _really_ odd, and doesn't in fact line up with what people usually think the word means. If it's possible for humans to exercise self-control, to refrain from actualizing P _even if we will_ that P and _even if we have the power to actualize_ P, then why can't gods also have the same kind of self-control? Preventing gods from having the power to deny their own will seems contrary to the term "omnipotence" as it is usually used. – probably_someone Feb 18 '20 at 23:19
  • @AdamSharpe Anyway, omnipotence as I've seen it usually defined, meaning simply "having the ability to actualize P for any logically possible P", without that weird after-condition involving will, doesn't actually factor into the argument at all. There's a hidden step you're glossing over: "If A and B are omnipotent, then they both have the ability to actualize P and not-P." I simply started from the second step: assume that we have two beings A and B, both of which have the ability to actualize P and not-P. I didn't change anything other than that. – probably_someone Feb 18 '20 at 23:23
  • @probably_someone -- An omnipotent being could grant itself omniscience. An omnipotent being could eliminate its competitor with an act of will. You presume an "omnipotence" that can do neither of these things, IE not omnipotent. If you are going to downvote, and then fill up an answer with you comments, it is best to understand the subject you are commenting on! – Dcleve Feb 18 '20 at 23:38
  • @probably_someone To your first comment: perhaps if you restrict either a gods knowledge or freedom of will, you might be able to avoid the argument. I don't think you can (because knowledge and freedom of will are powers that an omnipotent being could at least possibly bring about for itself), but for some this is already too high a price to pay. To your second comment: I'm not using omnipotence in a way any different than I've heard before. I *agree entirely* with the definition you've offered in your third comment. I only brought up will as a way of discussing your parody argument. – Adam Sharpe Feb 18 '20 at 23:40
  • @probably_someone The reason two able bodied persons who both have powers to cause P and not-P don't bring about contradiction is because their wills are not entirely efficacious. One must fail to bring about their desired outcome, and so their powers are frustrated. If a god brought it about that P and another god brought it about that not-P, either a contradiction occurs, or one of them will fail, and so not be omnipotent. – Adam Sharpe Feb 18 '20 at 23:40
  • @Dcleve But why are we assuming that a god granting itself omniscience is logically possible? Omnipotence only allows the god to do the logically possible, based on every definition we've seen so far. And in order to grant itself omniscience, a god would have to know what knowledge to grant itself already, which means it already would have been omniscient. Hence, a contradiction, leading us to the conclusion that an omnipotent god cannot grant itself omniscience. – probably_someone Feb 18 '20 at 23:40
  • @AdamSharpe Even getting past the fact that nowhere in your argument do you specify that A _wills_ P and B _wills_ not-P, there's another possibility you're forgetting. If A wants the window open and B wants the window closed, A can still decide that, even though he still wants and will continue to want the window open, and has and will continue to have the ability to open the window, he's nevertheless not going to open it. Are you denying that this is possible? Because it seems like "either a contradiction occurs, or one of them will fail, and so not be omnipotent" is a huge false dichotomy. – probably_someone Feb 18 '20 at 23:47
  • @probably_someone -- I am not omniscient, yet I have the ability to discover that I am not omniscient, and I can and do know a great deal about categories of knowledge that I do not currently know. Your assertions about omniscience are simply false. As are your claims about omnipotence -- any creator God with omnipotent power, can and did create logic. Your assertions about constraints and contradictions in both categories are not correct. – Dcleve Feb 18 '20 at 23:48
  • @Dcleve Discovering that you are not omniscient is a **very different** thing from becoming omniscient. The knowledge that you are not omniscient is just that: another piece of knowledge. There may be some things you're aware that you don't know, and there are _definitely_ some things that you _aren't_ aware that you don't know. In order to grant yourself omniscience, you must entirely eliminate the category of things you aren't aware you don't know, because you must learn about all of them. It is impossible to do this without already having omniscience. – probably_someone Feb 18 '20 at 23:54
  • @Dcleve In addition, can you explain what specifically you mean by the following phrases: "I can and do know a great deal about categories of knowledge that I do not currently know", and "any creator God with omnipotent power, can and did create logic"? – probably_someone Feb 18 '20 at 23:56
  • @Dcleve To see why it's logically impossible to eliminate the category of things you aren't aware you don't know, it suffices to ask a simple question: if you start learning things you weren't originally aware you didn't know, _how do you know when you're done_? How do you know that you've entirely depleted the category? By definition, you didn't know that any of the knowledge in this category even existed in the first place, so how do you know when none of it is left? – probably_someone Feb 18 '20 at 23:59
  • @probably_someone -- I provided an explicit refutation. I took your prior unsupported assertion: "in order to grant itself omniscience, a god would have to know what knowledge to grant itself already, which means it already would have been omniscient", and showed it is invalid relative to limited knowledge, by example. If your logic formulation does not work with non-infinities in it, then it will not suddenly work when applied to infinities. Logic tends to go the other way. You have not recognized your failure to support your claims, nor seem able to recognize direct refutations. – Dcleve Feb 19 '20 at 00:03
  • @Dcleve How, specifically, did you "show it is invalid relative to limited knowledge"? What specific argument did you use to show that, whatever you mean by that phrase? How is it _logically possible_ for a non-omnsicient being to transform itself to an omniscient being? – probably_someone Feb 19 '20 at 00:07
  • @probably_someone If a being is omnipotent, then it can grant itself any power, including the power of knowledge. This is straightforward logic from the meaning of omnipotence. One need not specify item by item what one has knowledge of, a power is generally not object-specific, and an omnipotent being can provide itself non-object-specific powers. Your claim that this is a logical necessity for knowledge - is once more quite simply a falsehood, and once more a simple example can demonstrate this. The power of sight by opening my eyes -- I do not first need to specify what items I see. – Dcleve Feb 19 '20 at 00:36
  • @Dcleve Ok, so let's take your particular meaning of omnipotence, which appears to include the ability to grant oneself any power. Based on what I've seen so far of your definition, this also includes a god granting itself the power to make a boulder that's impossible for that god to lift. Do you allow such paradoxes in your definition of omnipotence? Is an omnipotent god allowed to permanently restrict its powers in such a way? If so, is that god still omnipotent once it does so? – probably_someone Feb 19 '20 at 03:57
  • @Dcleve Or does your definition of omnipotence impose restrictions on the powers that a god can give itself (like, for example, the powers have to be logically consistent)? If so, how do you know that the power to grant itself omniscience is not barred by those restrictions? Currently you're just _assuming_ that it's not, but you haven't actually shown that to be true (and, using the "powers must be logically possible" definition of omnipotence, I have already shown that it is false). Non-object-specificity has absolutely nothing to do with it. – probably_someone Feb 19 '20 at 04:03
  • @Dcleve Also, the power of sight _is_ object-specific - you can only see certain objects. You can't see the wind, or viruses, or radio waves, just to give a few examples. In fact, the argument could be made that the power of sight involves only *one* external object - the photon, striking your retina. – probably_someone Feb 19 '20 at 04:19
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    Let us [continue this discussion in chat](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/104630/discussion-between-dcleve-and-probably-someone). – Dcleve Feb 19 '20 at 05:24
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Part of the problem you are having lies in the way you are framing the issue, i.e., where you say:

The worshiped gods [...] require the care of humans worshiping them at their "houses" (temples) on earth

You've inverted the relationship. Gods do not need the care of humans on earth; humans want to appeal to the power that gods ostensibly have, and offer temples and devotions and such as a way of building a relationship. Thus you might think about a 'rain dance': a tribe needs rain to raise crops and fill rivers, so a shaman begins a rain dance in order to attract the attention of whatever god or power controls the rain.

Polytheistic societies (as Geoffrey Thomas noted in his answer, with a quote from Vernant) tend to anthropomorphize all of the various forces that impact their lives, or at least those that are seemingly out of their immediate control: sun, weather, tides, success in warfare or love, different aspects of nature, etc. By making these forces anthropomorphic, the society can then appeal to them as it would to a powerful human, seeking its support and favor. In more advanced polytheisms these personifications tend to lose their 'naturalistic' qualities and become more archetypal: i.e., practitioners tend less to appeal to the god and tend more to identify with it. This shift towards identification leads down the road towards monotheism, as people stop trying to appeal to any force except the one they choose to identify with.

Ted Wrigley
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