A Modern Polytheism? Nietzsche and James

Polytheism is a strange view to hold in modernity. Connected as it is in the popular imagination with archaic, animistic, magical, prescientific systems of thought, we don’t hesitate much before casting it into the dustbin of history. Even if we are not monotheists, we are likely to think of monotheism as the obviously more plausible position. The traditional arguments for the existence of God, which have been enormously influential in Western philosophy of religion, do not necessarily rule out polytheism but they are clearly formulated with monotheism in mind. While there could be multiple first causes, intelligent designers, or beings than which nothing greater can be conceived, the simplest and most natural...