Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The doctrine or belief that there is only one God.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The doctrine or belief that there is but one God.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The doctrine or belief that there is but one God.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The belief in a single god (one God); especially within an organized religion.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun belief in a single God

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

A learned 17th-century coinage, mono- +‎ theism, from (μονός (monós, "one")) and (θεός (theós, "god, deity") + -ισμός (-ismos)) The term parallels the earlier polytheism, atheism (the simplex theism being slightly later). The earliest known use is by Henry More, ca. 1660, in explicit juxtaposition with both atheism and polytheism.

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Examples

  • For all that the tradition of argument within monotheism is a long and noble one, for all that the emphasis on wisdom, justice and mercy is there, I think this lynchpin of monotheism -- this idea of a supreme moral authority, a God who makes the law, who owns the law, whose law is defined in terms of sin, dictated to us through scripture, and derived from faith -- this is the keystone of that rival tradition, I think.

    The Heirs of Job Hal Duncan 2006

  • For all that the tradition of argument within monotheism is a long and noble one, for all that the emphasis on wisdom, justice and mercy is there, I think this lynchpin of monotheism -- this idea of a supreme moral authority, a God who makes the law, who owns the law, whose law is defined in terms of sin, dictated to us through scripture, and derived from faith -- this is the keystone of that rival tradition, I think.

    Archive 2006-02-01 Hal Duncan 2006

  • Your monotheism is solely ethnocentrism and your insistance on closing your mind to the infinate realm of possibilities that truely exist.

    Friendly religious questions for Christians and other monotheists 2009

  • Your monotheism is solely ethnocentrism and your insistance on closing your mind to the infinate realm of possibilities that truely exist.

    Friendly religious questions for Christians and other monotheists 2009

  • Religious zealots associated with monotheism is the scourge that should be eliminated. arc, Lugano CH

    Obama: Iranian accusations of U.S. interference 'false and absurd' 2009

  • Not just not-monotheism, because that assumes that monotheism is the default, the standard, and I believe that polytheism is the logical choice of standard if one should exist at all.

    soooo… « Love | Peace | Ohana 2008

  • I think, he says, I need new terms here entirely because, yes, not all monotheism is universalist and predicated on the faith/doubt, win/lose scenario of Pascalus's Christianity (as your example of Judaism illustrates), not all polytheism is of that Graeco-Roman nature (as your example of Hinduism points out), and the atheism I'm talking about really includes antitheist and agnostic outlooks in its focus on doubt.

    Archive 2007-04-01 Hal Duncan 2007

  • What I'm really seeking to discredit is a specific component of homodoxy exhibited most notably in monotheism but just as present in polytheist and atheist homodoxies.

    Archive 2007-04-01 Hal Duncan 2007

  • What I'm really seeking to discredit is a specific component of homodoxy exhibited most notably in monotheism but just as present in polytheist and atheist homodoxies.

    THE HALLS OF PENTHEUS -- PART FIVE Hal Duncan 2007

  • But, I argued, their solution needs modification, because their identification of religion with monotheism is naïve.

    Balkinization 2007

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