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The Encounter with the Divine
1 Religion consists of an encounter with the absolute translated into various modalities which assume a specific cultural value. Here we look at the specific modalities of Mesopotamian religion, as compared with the Biblical religion.
Back to top: Chapter 4
A Fundamental Opposition
2 Polytheism assumes that reality can be fragmented and the unknown can be rationally and progressively appropriated by human reason. Monotheism admits a mystery beyond human reason which can only be discovered through divine self-revelation.
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Ethics and Sin
3 In the Mesopotamian conception, the gods are the guardians and guarantors of the norms, but they are in turn conditioned by them. The monotheistic god sets limits, including ethical norms which derive intrinsically from the very act of creation and represent an encounter with the divine.
4 In polytheism, sin is an overturning of order that affects the very consistency of reality, not necessarily connected with an individual’s awareness of the sin, which requires a process of purification to restore integrity to the individual and the world around him. In monotheism, sin is considered an affront against the absolute which set the norms, and it is this absolute which must take the initiative in forgiveness.
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Divine Initiative
5 In monotheism, the initiative rests with God while in polytheism, the divinities are more receptive than active. Divine love in monotheism is the basic constitutive element of happiness while in polytheism it consists of divine acts of benevolence, and prayers are primarily petitionary while monotheistic prayers include adoration. Polytheistic conceptions of the divine entail an ontological continuum that makes rapprochement a question of gradualness. The monotheistic god, instead, explodes the ontological barrier and transposes the human sphere beyond the abyss by virtue of an inexhaustible creative love.
6 Biblical religion features human personalities who are conceived as historically valid and who propose their own intuition of divine reality as a specific expression of a manifestation or revelation deriving directly from that reality which Mesopotamian religion does not.