New Look at Monotheism -- Mimetic Theory and Literary Study

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Date Posted: 20:13:17 02/24/08 Sun
Author: Caitlin
Subject: New Look at Monotheism

I had never before viewed monotheism and polytheism in the way that Girard portrayed each in "I See Satan". Especially in chapter 9, Girard looks at each in view of the "creation" of divinity. "In biblical monotheism we cannot suspect God of being the product of the scapegoat process that quite visibly produce the gods in primitive polytheism" (107).

Whereas polytheism relies on the single-victim and scapegoat mechanism to create its divinities - the victim becomes a god because it takes away the violence and also because it was a divinity it was of course going to be the victim - monotheism in the biblical sense is unable to blame the victim and therefore is unable to deify it. So only one God, not many, right?

"In the myths an irresistible contagion compels the unanimous communities to see their victims first as guilty and later as divine. ... In the Bible, by contrast, the confusion of the victimization process and the divine is dissolved and gives way to an absolute separation of the two. As already notes, the Jewish religion no longer turns victims into divinities or divinity into a victim" (121).

I just thought this was a great way to look at the formation of polytheism and monotheism. Way to go Girard.

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