Interesting article on how the concept of Gods evolved from immortal and powerful, but as immoral as humans, to most powerful, immortal and unrivaled moral God- and humans became nothing but morally frail, who need God’s graciousness to become moral. (F.Sheikh). Some excerpts from article;
” Cruelty, treachery, disloyalty, corruption, meanness – the myths and tales of most ancient societies were alive to the worst aspects of human nature. Such moral frailty was not, however unique to humans. The gods were often equally wretched in their behaviour. The line between humanity and God was drawn not in morality but in power. Gods possessed powers that humans could only dream of, and as immortals they were untouched by death, but their power and immortality did not improve their moral conduct.
Monotheism remade that line between human nature and divine nature. Gods remained powerful, humans restricted in their powers. Indeed, as a whole divinity of gods was reduced down to a single Creator, that single Creator became far more powerful than previous gods had been. But the key distinction between human beings and God was now not simply one of immortality and power. It was also one of morality. The monotheistic faiths drew a new contrast between corrupted humanity and incorruptible God, a contrast that transformed moral frailty into a condition, not of the cosmos, but of being human. It was in Christianity that this distinction was made clearest.
In redrawing the line between humanity and God, monotheism both adopted and discarded major themes in Greek philosophy. Greek philosophers had recognized human moral frailties, but had also believed that through reason and education some individuals at least could overcome the lure of the baser aspects of the soul. It was in the use of reason to accommodate life to the exigencies of fate that human dignity lay. At the same time, there was a strand within Greek philosophy that helped make more profound the distinction between Man and God. The distaste for the idea of capricious gods, and the desire for naturalistic explanations, evident from the Presocratics onwards, led some, like Democritus, to dismiss the very idea of gods and to insist on a purely materialist universe. Others redefined the nature of godliness.”
“Greek philosophers had accepted that the standards followed by virtuous people are too demanding for ordinary folk, but believed that, given the appropriate knowledge and character, human individuals are capable of satisfying the most exacting moral measure. For Aristotle, humans were capable both of establishing what constituted the good and of working their way towards it. For Plato, the Good was defined by a transcendental Form in a different realm. Humans, however, or at least some humans, possessed the capacity to apprehend the Good and to attempt to create the good life on Earth. For Christians, however, only through the grace of God could humans be moral. ‘None is good’, as Jesus was to say, ‘save one, that is, God.’ Or as Paul wrote in his letter to the Ephesians ‘For by grace are ye saved through faith and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God’. The other side of faith in the goodness of God was the insistence on the moral wretchedness of human beings. Not for more than a millennium would a new vision of human nature, and of human capacities, begin to challenge Pauline despair.”
http://kenanmalik.wordpress.com/2013/12/11/what-did-the-greeks-ever-do-for-god/