Xenophanes Concept of God :: Philosophical Philosophy Religion essays

Xenophanes Concept of God Xenophanes of the late 6th and early 5th centuries BC should be credited, in opposition to his critics and misinterpreters, with an advanced component to the Western philosophy of religion, namely that there is one God. First, he exposes the weaknesses of the Greek pantheon. Then he satirically demonstrates the narcissistic limitations of human conceptions of the nature of the divine. Third, he logically structures a coherent concept of the nature of the only God. Then finally he reveals how his concept explains certain observable natural phenomena in an account of visible reality. 1. Xenophanes said there is one god, among gods and men the greatest... 1 but why would that idea be unusual for his culture, in its history? He explains that everyone in his culture had been taught by the famous poets and writers, including Homer, that a pantheon of multiple deities existed and affected the lives of humans in various ways. The nature of these gods, however, def ies the whole notion of deity. Anaximander had earlier conceived of the underlying stuff of the universe as apeiron, an unexplainable something. But Xenophanes carries the notion much farther by attacking the mythology of his time and giving definition to the ineffable source of life. The famous writers attributed to the gods all things that are shameful and a reproach among mankind theft, adultery, and mutual deception 2. Illogically also, humans thought that gods were born and had clothing, voices, and bodies as well 3. Surely, gods had to be more than proclaim albeit often more immoral than humans, by the definition of god. Probably Xenophanes viewed God from two perspectives. First, the Homeric gods demonstrated behavior that simply resembled the behavior of humans. God, by definition, had to be someone greater, better than humans in some way(s). He said that the One God is greatest among the gods, not like mortals in form or thought. Thus worship of this God implies that an a ll-encompassing greatness is a factor of worship, which means primarily submission to and reverence for a being greater than oneself. As well, morality seems to be recognized by all cultures in some form or another, but reveals a certain weakness or zest in humans to behave badly at times, as opposed to behaving well at times. There is an inherent recognition that there are close and bad actions and God is not like mortals in form or thought.