This paper provides a response to Christopher Haw’s book Monotheism, Intolerance, and the Path to Pluralistic Politics by evaluating it within the understanding of monotheism developed by F.W.J. Schelling in his philosophy of mythology and his philosophy of revelation.
First, Schelling’s conceptions of natural theism, relative monotheism, successive polytheism, and absolute monotheism are interpreted from the standpoint of René Girard’s mimetic theory. Examples from the book of Genesis are used to illustrate Schelling’s ideas. Second, these ideas are compared with Haw’s discussion of Girard’s understanding of monotheism as a “refusal to divinize victims.” Schelling’s philosophy is shown to be illuminated by mimetic theory and Haw’s treatment of it.
Regarding Genesis, the evolution of a conscious awareness of God is discernible in the five cycles of Genesis and in some parallel mythologems in Hesiod’s Greek mythology. Five points in particular are discussed by using mimetic theory together with some Schellingian interpretations.