Googler Question:
“Where did Abraham get the idea
there was only one God?”
It’s not a surprising question given the polytheistic nature of today’s religious scene. Coming to belief for the modern individual is like shopping for just the right outfit only worse.
There are many different gods to choose from and once you settle on one you still must wade through the many different conflicting ideas popularized for the one you choose.
You’d need a guru to lead you along. Trying to keep track of it all is near impossible.
But did Abraham have the same problem? Are we to assume he also faced an endless list of gods?
The world was polytheistic in Abraham’s day for sure but rather than ask where Abraham got the idea of one God, a better question might be, “where did the multiple-god idea originate in the first place?”
We mustn’t assume that what we observe today was always true.
For example, where would Abraham, in the dawn of human history, get the idea there was only one God? Did Abraham coin the concept or did monotheists predate him and pass the idea down?
The evidence indicates the latter is true.
- It was one God who spoke to Adam and Eve.
- It was the same God who accepted Abel’s offering and confronted Cain.
- Who took Enoch.
- Who spoke to Noah.
- And led Abraham to the land of Canaan.
Abraham and his ancestors were familiar with only one God. There was no reason for him to expect there to be more. Only an overactive imagination would lead him to think otherwise.
And apart from what Abraham’s ancestors experienced and believed, is there anything in nature, in his day or ours, that suggests polytheism is true?
Is there any reason to believe that the control of a universe too vast to measure could be managed better by disparate, sometimes antagonistic multiple gods rather than by one?
Since Adam and Eve, and those who came after only dealt with one God, maybe we should see polytheism as the outgrowth of:
- So many different people…
- Over so many different millennia…
- Ignorantly believing in the one central idea, God…
- And in an attempt to define Him…
- Voicing their individual opinions on how they perceive Him to be…
It creates a buildup of ideas that can’t all fit comfortably into a one God frame and the easy way out is to suggest there must be several.
But that wasn’t the case in Abraham’s day. There were different opinions about God, yes, but there were very few by comparison and they hadn’t been published, institutionalized or traditionalized like the gods of today.
The one central idea in the largest number of religions, however, is “God.”
When you read through the various versions you discover that the differences are the result of humans trying to interpret the gray areas, things we can’t be sure of. But God, the Supreme Being, is central.
Unfortunately, we like playing with the fringes, even people who believe the Bible, but that gives rise to many strange beliefs that can’t be correlated so the diplomatic solution is polytheism.
Abraham believed in one God because it was the logical assumption. He didn’t need to reject polytheism. It wasn’t an established tradition in his day. There was much about God he didn’t know but the things he did know insulated him from errant ideas to the contrary.
We can’t know everything about God since He is a bit too complex for human comprehension to absorb – e.g. the trinity – but we can know more than Abraham. We have all the revealed knowledge in the Bible (Abraham had only a few chapters) and a considerable amount of insight from nature, God’s handiwork.
THINK!AboutIt
One God would likely exclude the Christian trinity.
Islam excludes the trinity. Judaism excludes the trinity.
Yeshua worshipped the God of Israel, Yahweh. Why is this trinity still being adhered to?
Makes no sense to me. D
Thanks for the visit, David. It’s a good question.
The short answer is Abraham lived long before most of the Bible was revealed. Although there was plenty of evidence for the Trinity in the earliest chapters of the Bible, it didn’t become a predominant focus until the New Testament. Those early revelations were skeletal but very obvious. The issue clarified with the coming of Jesus.
Mohammad, the founder of Islam on the other hand, came after Jesus, had all the knowledge of Jesus, even His divinity, but also had motive to deny that divinity.
For Abraham, the Trinity was a revelation in process. For Mohammad and Islam, it was an obstacle.
Of course, understanding the Trinity is outside the boundaries of human ability but evidence of it is obvious. We can see it and appreciate the importance of each Person in the Trinity and many have attempted to illustrate it, but our insight falls short of completely understanding it.
Just wanted to share – this story is a central to the Father Abraham (formerly “Abram”) narrative:
Abram’s father Terah was a professional idol-maker. Abram could have taken over the family business and made a good living in Ur of the Chaldees (Gen. 12:28). Instead, he believed God and journeyed to the land of Canaan. The story of his exit is very colorful within Jewish lore. The following account is my paraphrase of an ancient Jewish legend.
When Abram was a young man, he told his mother that his father’s idols were hungry. Abram requested that she prepare a meal for them. She cooked a nice dinner but they did not eat anything. Abram told her that the idols did not like her cooking. So she worked very hard and served a sumptuous banquet for the wood and stone idols. When no one was looking, Abram smashed all but the largest idol with an axe. Then he placed the axe in the hand of the large idol.
When his father heard the commotion, he came and found all but one of his idols destroyed. Terah screamed at Abram, “What have you done? Why did you smash my idols?” Abram responded with intensity, “Dad, they were hungry. I just fed them. When the little ones reached to take their portion, the big idol killed the rest of them.” Terah was exasperated. He turned to Abram and said, “What nonsense! I made these idols. They cannot move. You smashed them Abram! You put the axe in the hand of the remaining idol. Now you tell me lies and expect me to believe that the idol did this terrible thing.” Abram said, “Dad, you are right. You made these idols with your own hands. They cannot move, they cannot breathe, they cannot deliver you from your enemies, and they cannot protect you from sickness or death. Why do you worship them? There is only one true God. He created the heavens and the earth. He is the only God that I will worship!” With that, Abram smashed the last idol and left town on his journey of faith.
Great story Nika! Thanks for sharing. Makes me think that the generation gap has been around as long as Monotheism :).
Abraham, the “friend of God” established the idea of ONE, true God, making him the Father of Monotheism. This wasn’t a natural inclination for his family – his forefathers worshipped idols, which he later destroyed after challenging his elders. The Torah/Bible and Qur’an reference this. Specific details vary, but the main idea is prevalent in the texts…(May Almighty God be pleased with Prophet Abraham.)
Thanks for the visit and the comment Esther. Glad you enjoyed.