The history of True Monotheism as indicator of the truth of Christianity.

[Xavier]

Before the Flood, some retained primitive revelation and kept the natural law, including the knowledge that God is One, and is Infinite Power and Goodness. After the flood, most of the world fell into idolatry, we see this in both the Epic of Gilgamesh and the other pagan accounts of the flood - even where they relate the events on earth correctly or mostly so, they almost inevitably err on matters in Heaven, and arbitrarily assign many or multiple different gods, or take created objects like the sun and moon as their many heathen gods. Genesis was especially revealed by God and written through the Prophet Moses to refute all this as well. Secularist encyclopedias will say a pagan monotheism in Egypt (that began after the Prophet Moses defeated the mighty Pharaohs of Egypt by the Power of the True God!) that considered a sun as god was real monotheism (this false but limited form of monotheism was actual instituted after the Pharaohs had known and seen the power of the True God) and perhaps (they claim) the most ancient around 1400 B.C.

But it was the Patriarch Abraham around 2000 B.C. to whom God Almighty personally revealed Himself after the Flood. This Patriarch, having left his pagan father, sought God for a long time, St. Irenaeus tells us; finally, he was privileged with the knowledge of God, came to understand He is Almighty and One, and received several promises for himself, including that his  descendants would be multiplied as the stars of the sky and the sand on the seashore, and all nations would be blessed through his seed, Who is Christ. etc.

We know it was the Prophet Moses who before the pagan monotheism in Egypt instituted later had already given the true account of God as the One Who has Being in Himself (YHWH - I AM HE WHO IS), Who created all life including the sun, and Himself was Omnipotent, Omnipresent and filled all things etc. Moreover, the true God of Abraham and of Moses is the only one Who gave and enforced the command, Ex 20:2 "I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 3 Thou shalt not have strange gods before me." So, it was God Almighty Himself, against the whole world, Who first powerfully revealed and insisted to all men the Truth that God is One, and no other can be like Him, some 4000-3500 years ago through Abraham, Moses and the Prophets. At this time, the whole world was sunk in pagan polytheism.

Now, reason and philosophy proves clearly and indisputably, and many even are ready to admit today that God is One. The question is, since God has now been proved by (especially) Christian Philosophy to be One and Simple and Infinite etc, should not those who acknowledge God is One also acknowledge Christianity is very likely true? I'm thinking especially e.g. of some Hindus, Buddhists, pagan New Agers etc, who may sometimes believe in a kind of generic "open theistic" God, but don't see Him as being active in history.

Also, Platonists say they believe in one God and all that came much later

To Platonists and other such folk, how did Moses happen to know so clearly and teach so repeatedly that God is One? Was it just a lucky guess?

[John Lamb]

Xavier, see St. Justin Martyr – Hortatory Address to the Greeks – on this topic. You can search "Moses" and "Plato".

Also, an interesting book by a Protestant writer, After the Flood.

And St. Augustine's City of God.

Justin Martyr's works are especially exciting in this area because he confronts Greek philosophy head on while living in the midst of it. He has both good and bad things to say about it.

[Greg]

After the flood, most of the world fell into idolatry

What was the point of the flood then?

[Kaesekopf]

I'm pretty sure this is nowhere near the level I expect for Sacred Sciences posts. 

[John Lamb]

After the flood, most of the world fell into idolatry

What was the point of the flood then?

Some conjecture that there was widespread sodomy and bestiality during the time immediately before the flood, that such unions were even blessed as marriages (I think this is the opinion of the Jewish commentators / rabbis).

Others affirm that the nephilim (the "giants") referred to in Genesis, who were the offspring of the "sons of God" and the "daughters of men", were some kind of demoniac-human hybrid (the "sons of God" being fallen angels). This is the doctrine of the Book of Enoch, which only the Ethiopian church regards as canonical, but which nevertheless is quoted by St. Jude in his canonical epistle. St. Augustine was strongly against this view, and for him the "sons of God" were simply the sons of the just man Seth, third son of Adam & Eve, and not the demons Enoch refers to as "the Watchers". If the "Watcher" thesis is true, I presume the giants / nephilim were produced by some kind of genetic manipulation, with the fallen angels taking the seed of men and using it to impregnate women (to some extent demonically possessed), genetically manipulating the foetus so that it would grow into a giant race: "The ancient giants did not obtain pardon for their sins, who were destroyed trusting to their own strength." ; "And from the beginning also when the proud giants perished, the hope of the world fleeing to a vessel [Noah's ark], which was governed by thy hand, left to the world seed of generation." The flood was sent partly to wipe out this wicked race of giants that had begun to dominate the earth and the rest of mankind. This apparently was the view of the mystic Bl. Anne Catherine Emmerich:

One of Cains descendants was Tubalcain, (Genesis 4:22.) the originator of numerous arts, and the father of the giants. I have frequently seen that, when the angels fell, a certain number had a moment of repentance and did not in consequence fall as low as the others. Later on, these fallen spirits took up their abode on a high, desolate, and wholly inaccessible mountain whose site at the time of the Deluge became a sea, the Black Sea, I think. They were permitted to exercise their evil influence upon men in proportion as the latter strayed further from God. After the Deluge they disappeared from that region, and were confined to the air. They will not be cast into Hell before the last day.

I saw Cains descendants becoming more and more godless and sensual. They settled further and further up that mountain ridge where were the fallen spirits. Those spirits took possession of many of the women, ruled them completely, and taught them all Sorts of seductive arts. Their children were very large. They possessed a quickness, an aptitude for everything, and they gave themselves up entirely to the wicked spirits as their instruments. And so arose on this mountain and spread far around, a wicked race which by violence and seduction sought to entangle Seths posterity likewise in their own corrupt ways. Then God declared to Noah His intention to send the Deluge. During the building of the ark, Noah had to suffer terribly from those people.

I have seen many things connected with the race of giants. They could with ease carry enormous stones high up the mountain, they could accomplish the most stupendous feats. They could walk straight up trees and walls just as I have seen others possessed by the devil doing. They could effect the most wonderful things, they could do whatever they wished; but all was pure jugglery and delusion due to the agency of the demon. It is for that reason that I have such horror of every species of jugglery and fortune telling. These people could form all kinds of images out of stone and metal; but of the knowledge of God they had no longer a trace. They sought their gods in the creatures around them. I have seen them scratch up a stone, form it into an extravagant image, and then adore it. They worshipped also a frightful animal and all kinds of ignoble things. They knew all things, they could see all things, they were skilled in the preparing of poisons, they practiced sorcery and every species of wickedness. The women invented music. I saw them going around among the better tribes trying to seduce them to their own abominations. They had no dwelling houses, no cities, but they raised massive round towers of shining stone. Under those towers were little structures leading into great caverns wherein they carried on their horrible wickedness. From the roofs of these structures, the surrounding country could be seen, and by mounting up into the towers and looking through tubes, one could see far into the distance. But it was not like looking through tubes made to bring distant objects into view. The power of the tubes to which I here allude, was effected by satanic agency. They that looked through them could see where the other tribes were settled. Then they marched against them, overcame them, and lawlessly carried all before them. That same spirit of lawlessness they exercised everywhere. I saw them sacrificing children by burying them alive in the earth. God overthrew that mountain at the time of the Deluge.

Enoch, Noahs ancestor, opposed that wicked race by his teachings. He wrote much. Enoch was a very good man and one very grateful to God. In many parts of the open fields, he raised altars of stone and there the fruits of the earth flourished. He gave thanks to God and offered sacrifice to Him. Chiefly in his family was religion preserved and handed down to Noah. Enoch was taken up to Paradise. There he waits at the entrance gate, whence with another (Eliot) he will come again before the last day.

Hams descendants likewise had similar relations with the evil spirits after the Deluge, and from such connection sprang so many demoniacs and necromancers, so many mighty ones of the world, so many great, wild, daring men.

Semiramis herself was the offspring of demoniacs, consequently she was apt at everything save the working out of her salvation.

Later on, there arose another people esteemed as gods by the heathens. The women that first allowed themselves to be ruled by evil spirits were fully conscious of the fact, though others were ignorant of it. These women had it (the principle of possession) in them like flesh and blood, like original sin.

Source

I've heard that these writings are doubtful however because her scribe Brentano allegedly was not a faithful amanuensis. He could have written this based on his own research and attributed it to her. As far as I know it's uncertain.

[Xavier]

Thanks, John. St. Justin Martyr is one of my favorite Church Fathers. I glanced through it and he develops some of these arguments. He shows those who invent polytheism are inconsistent among themselves. He proves from some testimonies of their poets (as also the Apostles did when preaching in Athens, Acts 17), that all who reason rightly know that God is One. And then, he shows the antiquity and uniformity of the true religion in maintaining the truth of One True God. He shows even heathen oracles acknowledge the antiquity of the God Who spoke to Moses.

Here's the argument in a nutshell:

1. Reason and philosophy prove God is one.
2. Therefore, any religion that invents many gods is proved false.
3. Further, the truth of the one true God is so important that only the religion that consistently and from earliest antiquity had maintained it could be the true one.
4. Therefore, the God of the Christians is true and the True God is not to be found among the idols (though some individual commendable Greek writers did know God is One and Almighty) of Greece or of heathenism in general anywhere (e.g. the many gods of Indian mythology, Chinese folklore, African witchdoctor voodooism, other forms of neo-paganism)

Kaesekopf, have you read St. Justin or how the other early Fathers (and Apostles) explain to pagans some reasons they should consider becoming Christian? It seems to disturb you more that Christians labor to help our fallen former Christian brother and sisters who have lapsed come back to seeing the light than that they lapsed in the first place. The Popes say, Someone who sees a brother in error and does not labor to correct him shows himself to be in error. If you think there's a mistake in the premises above, point it out. If you see a better argument to be made from monotheism to Christianity, make it. It's easy to detract and criticize. Not so easy to develop theological refutations of error. As St. Alphonsus clearly proves in a work of his on the subject, to do that is definitely one of the important parts of the sacred science.