Reductionism

Abstract

Determining whether a purported example of religious reductionism is truth conditional can require some careful unpicking.¹ For example, Euhemerus, a Greek author of works on geography and ancient myths working in the third century BCE, is sometimes identified as the first religious reductionist. Although only fragments of his work survive, classical and early Christian writers attribute to him the view that the gods in the Greek pantheon were based on real, mortal, historical figures revered after their death for their contributions to human society and subsequently elevated to the status of gods. Discussing Euhemerus’s views, the fourth century Christian writer Lactantius comments: ‘Without doubt, all those who are worshipped as gods were men, and were also the earliest and greatest kings; but who is ignorant that they were invested with divine honours after death, either on account of the virtue by which they had profited the race of men, or that they obtained immortal memory on account of the benefits and inventions by which they had adorned human life?’ (1871, p. 22)