On the plurality of gods

Ordinal polytheism is motivated by the cosmological and design arguments. It is also motivated by Leibnizian–Lewisian modal realism. Just as there are many universes, so there are many gods. Gods are necessary concrete grounds of universes. The god-universe relation is one-to-one. Ordinal polytheism...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inReligious studies Vol. 49; no. 3; pp. 289 - 312
Main Author STEINHART, ERIC
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press 01.09.2013
Subjects
Cosmology
General points
General subjects. History of religions. Religious anthropology
History and sciences of religions
History of science and technology
History of science in relation to other disciplinary fields
Mathematics
Paganism & animism
Philosophical logics. Philosophy of language
Philosophy
Religion
Religious studies
Studies in religion
Theology
New York
United States > US
Hierarchy
Number
Polytheism
Monotheism
Cosmology
Mathematics
Leibniz (G. W.)
Online AccessGet full text
ISSN0034-4125
1469-901X
DOI10.1017/S0034412512000285

Cover

More Information
Summary:Ordinal polytheism is motivated by the cosmological and design arguments. It is also motivated by Leibnizian–Lewisian modal realism. Just as there are many universes, so there are many gods. Gods are necessary concrete grounds of universes. The god-universe relation is one-to-one. Ordinal polytheism argues for a hierarchy of ranks of ever more perfect gods, one rank for every ordinal number. Since there are no maximally perfect gods, ordinal polytheism avoids many of the familiar problems of monotheism. It links theology with counterpart theory, mathematics and computer science. And it entails that the system of universes has an attractive axiological structure.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 14
content type line 23
ISSN:0034-4125
1469-901X
DOI:10.1017/S0034412512000285