Theology means discourse or study of religion. This is the first stage in the Law of Three Stages. During the this stage, man believed that all the phenomena of nature are the creation of the divine or supernatural powers. Man failed to discover the natural causes of various phenomena and hence attributed them to supernatural or divine power. This stage is dominated by priests and ruled by military men.
The Theological Stage is divided into 3 sub stages. They are;
- Fetishism (animism)
- Polytheism
- Monotheism
1. Fetishism:
- Fetishism is the primary stage of the theological stage of thinking.
- It is also known as animism.
- "Fetish" means inanimate and "ism" means philosophy.
- Throughout this stage, the primitive people had a belief that inanimate object had living spirit in it, also known as animism.
- People worshipped inanimate objects like trees, stones, a piece of wood, volcanic eruptions, etc.
- It did not admit priesthood.
2. Polytheism:
- Fetishism is the second stage of the theological stage of thinking.
- "Poly" means many.
- At this stage people believed in many Gods.
- Primitive people believe that each natural forces were controlled by different Gods;
- A few examples would be: God of water, God of rain, God of fire, God of air, God of earth, etc.
- They created the classes of priests in order to get goodwill and blessings from these Gods or Goddesses.
- But later, the presence of too many Gods also created mental contradictions.
3. Monotheism:
- This is the final stage in the theological stage.
- "Mono" means one.
- Monotheism means believing in one God or God in one; attributing all to a single, supreme deity.
- At this stage, people believed that there is only one God and He is controlling every natural phenomena in this world.
- During this stage it slowly started giving for thinking and rationality.
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