Polycentric Polytheism and the Philosophy of Religion
This post is a breakdown of the essay “Polycentric Polytheism and the Philosophy of Religion” by Edward P. Butler. Butler’s writing is notoriously dense and therefore pretty inaccessible for most. However, I think his ideas are thought-provoking and therefore should be made into an accessible post for people to read and engage with. This post by necessity is a bit lengthy but I made sure to include short breakdown summaries for people. That way the ideas contained in this paper should be accessible to many people.
(It’s worth noting now that Butler comes at this with a very particular view of divintity that not all will agree with. So go into this aware of that perspective. However, I hope this will give people something to think about regardless of their beliefs surrounding divinity is.)
In the abstract to his paper, Butler states that he sets out to do the following: Using Neoplatonist* theory, he seeks to establish:
that focusing on one deity at a time is not indicative of monotheistic tendencies
give guidelines for non-reductive cross cultural comparisons
a foundation for a polytheistic philosophy of religion
In addition, while not stated in his abstract, Butler also discusses how syncretic practices preserve the uniqueness of gods, how gods can have overlapping functions, how contradicting myths do not create falsehoods, and lays out the beginning of an historical defense for creating one’s own ‘pantheon’ set up.
* - Neoplatonism is a school of thought from 3rd century Greece. It is hard to give a summary of beliefs but the center of it revolves around the derivation of the many from the One. The One is beyond being and is what makes reality. As such for Butler, the One is equivalent with the divine. From the One and the divine come reality and existence. Other relevant Neoplatonist terms will be discussed through the body of the paper as they arrive.
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