Henotheism (
Greek εἷς θεός heis theos "one god") is the belief and worship of a
single god while accepting the existence or possible existence of other
deities that may also be worshipped. The term was originally coined by
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (1775–1854) to depict early stages of monotheism, however
Max Müller (1823–1900), a German philologist and orientalist, brought the term into common usage. Müller made the term central to his criticism of Western
theological and
religious exceptionalism (relative to
Eastern religions), focusing on a cultural
dogma which held "monotheism" to be both fundamentally well-defined and inherently superior to differing
conceptions of God.