God with multiple personalities

[D. Gray Warrior]

I just came up with an idea for a religion yesterday. It is a monotheistic faith centering around the worship of a Supreme Being. This Supreme Being has multiple personalities and works similar to humans with multiple personalities. While technically a monotheistic religion, the multiple personalities make it seem polytheistic.

The world has various faiths or cults that worship a certain personality of that god.

My question is what causes these changes in personality? Is he all of them at once? How would this affect the world?

 

[IrelandBeaver]

If I'm not mistaken, I believe that the Faith of the Seven from A Song of Ice and Fire has is similar to this concept. GRRM has one god who has seven aspects. In the series, people who practice the faith pray to a particular aspect for with specific intentions, such as the Father for justice, the Warrior for strength in battle or the Mother for childbirth/child raising.

In Christian tradition, there is one God who is three persons. In Catholic teaching, this is referred to as the Mystery of the Most Holy Trinity. Here's what the Catechism says about it: Catechism of the Catholic Church - The Father.
The Catechism states that "The Trinity is a mystery of faith in the strict sense, one of the "'mysteries that are hidden in God, which can never be known unless they are revealed by God'." Essentially, God's nature cannot be understood unless He reveals it.

Perhaps your questions of what causes the personality changes and whether he can be all at once should remain mysteries to your characters. It can be a real struggle for people to grasp the concept of multiple persons in one god, just look at St. Patrick and the shamrock. It can also cause people to have doubts, to question their own or others beliefs, and to seek a deeper understanding of god. As a response to this, you could have people praying/worshiping particular personalities for specific intentions.

 

[WooHooMan]

There are the avatar of Hinduism depending on what versions of the story you look at. During a given time, Krishna is Vishnu while Vishnu is also Vishnu. And they are also Rama, Buddha and so forth. All at the same time. That's probably a good example of multiple gods in one.
Parvati and her other forms would be the place to look. Her form "Kaali" is the third most widely worshiped being in Hinduism but her other forms are much lesser known and not as widely worshiped.

Numakulla is an Australian (maybe African) sky god who existed in two forms. One was the day/Sun, one was the night/moon and they are usually treated as separate gods despite being one. Mawu-Lisa is a similar deity.

If you want a more contemporary example, Talos/Akatosh/The Dragonborn/Alduin/Lorkhan are an example in the Elder Scrolls video game series. But if you want to look into that, there's a lot of reading. It gets pretty complex/crazy.

So, there's those guys.

 

[Androxine Vortex]

I like this concept, reminds me of Sheogorath from the Elder Scrolls. I think it would be a good twist to maybe have some people have feud or holy wars with each other. Perhaps they worship the same deity but do not realize it and group A calls him Bob and group B calls him Ted.

As far as the why, maybe leave it a bit of a mystery. Just have the reader understand that there is one deity though different civilizations worship him under different names and understandings.