The founding idea of monotheism is not so much the belief in a supreme Being as the idea that He is the creator of the world, and that He would have commerce with the world, so that this Being, reputed to be abstract and universal, embracing all existence, can nonetheless manifest Himself in the universe – effectively negating monotheism’s presupposition that this Being would be beyond the material world. How, then, can the one God, distinct from a world that does not pre-exist him, create this world without inscribing himself in it?
The aim of this essay is not to present a scholarly overview of the question, but to help the curious reader grapple with an essential intellectual issue of monotheism: why can’t belief in a single God dispense with the idea of an intercessory instance between finitude and infinity?