Tolkein had the right idea.

When I was a kid, I loved mythology. Hell, I still do. All those Egyptian & Greek Gods. The crazy stories. The quirky characters. For some reason they went out of style, and all of a sudden a single God took their place.

From polytheism came monotheism; that is: from many Gods came one God. A single God with split personalities is atrocious, in my mind. It's like converting analog music to digital – you diminish the quality of the music, and some of it is lost in translation.

But Tolkein had it right. In The Silmarillion, he wrote of Eru Ilúvatar, The One Father of All. Eru had within his mind the multitude of characters that were the Ainur. Some of the most famous included: Manwë, Melkor, Aulë, Yavanna, & Ulmo. Manwë was the second-greatest, but most benevolent. Melkor, the greatest, was later renamed Morgoth, the Dark Lord; obviously, he was the most malevolent. You may recognize his chief minion from The Lord of the Rings: Sauron. Then there was Aulë. Well, nobody cares about Aulë. Yavanna was awesome. Ulmo ruled the sea; you just don't mess with him. I'd argue that Ulmo is actually the greatest of the Ainur, but John & Chris Tolkein say it just isn't so. Sigh.

As I said: Tolkein had it right. Instead of evolving polytheism into monotheism, he identified that within one God there was indeed a multitude of Gods. Polytheism within monotheism, if you will.