Polydeism (from Greek πολύς ( 'poly' ), meaning 'many', and Latin deus meaning God) is a polytheistic form of Deism encompassing the belief that the universe was the collective creation of multiple Gods, each of whom created a piece of the universe and then ceased to interact with the universe. This concept addresses an apparent contradiction in Deism – that a monotheistic God created the universe, but now expresses no apparent interest in it – by supposing that if the universe is the construct of many gods, none of them would have an interest in the universe as a whole.

Creighton University Philosophy professor William O. Stephens, who teaches this concept to his students, suggests that C. D. Broad projected this concept in Broad's 1925 article, "The Validity of Belief in a Personal God". Broad noted that the arguments for the existence of God only tend to prove that "a designing mind had existed in the past, not that it does exist now. It is quite compatible with this argument that God should have died long ago, or that he should have turned his attention to other parts of the Universe." and notes in the same breath that "there is nothing in the facts to suggest that there is only one such being". Stephens contends that Broad, in turn, derived the concept from David Hume. Stephens states: