88 CONCEPTIONS OF ULTIMATE REALITYthought plays an important role in monotheism, with Greek monotheism offering one
sort of explanation and Semitic and Hindu offering an explanation of a different sort.
What, then, is it for something to exist necessarily? It is at least this: something
exists necessarily only if is not possible that it depends for existence on anything else.
Further, on a Greek monotheistic notion of necessity, it will be impossible that it change;
only immutable things can exist necessarily. The items in our immediate environment
change; they gain some qualities and lose others. They also come to be and pass away.
The class of things that change and come and cease belongs to the realm of generation
and corruption. What exists in this realm depends for its existence on something that
exists necessarily, but nothing that exists necessarily can be part of this realm.
Besides existing necessarily, the deity of Greek monotheism is self-conscious. He,
she, or it is also omniscient relative to logically necessary truths. But he, she, or it has no
feelings and no knowledge of logically contingent truths. Whatever might have been
false lies beyond its range of thought. Indeed, the only thing of which it is aware is itself
and the contents of its own mind. Thus the Greek deity does not create the world, or
even know that there is a world. The Greek deity does not know that you exist or that
you have needs; it is not an appropriate target for prayer of any sort. There is no prayer
that it could hear. Nor does the Greek deity bring about any events in history; there is
no notion of providence in Greek monotheism.
Being a being that exists necessarily, is immutable, self-conscious, and knows all necessary
truths is regarded as the best sort of thing to be. The Greek deity is thought of as being as
magnificent, valuable, and glorious as it is possible to be. Other things have positive worth
insofar as they resemble this deity and defective insofar as they lack such resemblance. God
is the perfect paradigm, the standard of worth; in this sense, morality rests on God – God
provides the criterion for positive worth. There can be evil in the world as Greek monotheism
conceives it. That this is a religion, of course, is highly questionable. It is not easy to see what
ceremonies, rituals, practices, or the like are appropriate to its core claims. Nonetheless, it is
of interest here for two reasons. Understanding it provides a nice comparison and contrast to
varieties of monotheism that plainly are religions; much of Semitic monotheism has tried to
introduce much of Greek monotheism into its own perspective.
Semitic monotheism
Semitic monotheism – Judaism, and Christianity and Islam which build on Jewish
foundations – also includes generic monotheism and in addition embraces the following
claims.
1 The world has not always existed (it was created in time, or time was created with
it).^5
2 God exercises strong providence.
3 The world exists because God wants it to.