I. Christian Monotheism
1. Monotheism: belief in one God.
2. Atheism: denial of the existence of God.
3. Agnosticism: assertion that the existence of God is unknown or unknowable.
4. Pantheism: belief that God is nature or the forces of the universe.
5. Polytheism: belief in more than one God.
a. Ditheism: belief in two Gods
b. Tritheism: belief in three Gods.
6. Beliefs in Christendom.
a. Trinitarianism: belief in three distinct persons “in” the Godhead.
b. Binitarianism: belief in two persons.
c. Strict monotheism (excluding multiple persons) with a denial of the full deity of Jesus Christ. Examples: Arianism, dynamic monarchianism.
d. Strict monotheism (excluding multiple persons) with an affirmation of the full deity of Jesus Christ. Examples: modalistic monarchianism (modalism); Oneness.
B. Old Testament Emphasis
1. Deuteronomy 6:4 teaches absolute monotheism.
a. It is the historic Jewish confession of faith, called the Shema.
b. It is important to teach continually (Deuteronomy 6:5-9).
c. It is the first and greatest commandment (Mark 12:28-31).
2. God declared His absolute oneness in Isaiah: “alone, by myself, no God beside me, none else, no God else, none like me.” (See Isaiah 37:16; 42:8; 43:10-11; 44:6, 8, 24; 45:5-6, 21-23; 46:5, 9; 52:6.)
3. Over fifty times the Bible calls God “the Holy One,” but never the holy two or three. (See Isaiah 54:5.)
4. Old Testament saints had no trinitarian concept.
C. New Testament Emphasis
1. It affirms Old Testament monotheism (Romans 3:30; Galatians 3:20; I Corinthians 8:4, 6; James 2:19.)
2. There is one God, and one mediator (John 17:3; I Timothy 2:5).
a. The mediator is the sinless man Jesus, in whom God was manifested. He reconciles the holy God and sinful humanity.
b. If there were a second, co-equal divine person, he could not be the mediator; he also would need a man to mediate between him and sinful humanity.
3. Jesus endorsed the Jewish concept of God (Mark 12:29; John 4:22).