There is a somewhat hot debate today about whether the Bible teaches there is only one God (monotheism) or whether God is the chief god among many gods (henotheism) but who alone should be worshiped by the Israelites (monolatry).
Different passages seem to suggest different things. For example, “the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods” (Ps 95:3) and “God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment” (Ps 82:1) both suggest that God is one god among others, that there is a council of divine beings, and that the God of the Israelites is the foremost deity among them.
Other texts have a stronger monotheistic thrust: “I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god” (Is 44:6) and “yet for us there is one God” (1 Cor 8:6).
How should we understand all these biblical references to God and the gods? Is the Bible henotheistic or monotheistic?
The Hebrew, Greek, and Latin words for “god” (el, theos, and deus, respectively) have a range of meaning, similar to our English word “divine.” They could refer to a range of beings (including humans) who possessed powers and attributes beyond the typically human, such as immortality, incorruptibility, glory, or transcendent beauty. Indeed, drawing upon traditions present in both the Old and New Testament, the Church Fathers believed, and argued, that the world was full of spiritual beings—angels and demons, thrones and dominions, principalities and powers—who populated the invisible world. Between humans and God were countless invisible creatures who either served or opposed God’s plans. Any of them could be called “gods” or “divine,” meaning only that they possessed some excellence beyond the normal course of nature.
The “gods” of the Old and New Testament are creations of God, all of whom were originally good, but some of whom turned away from God in rebellion. But, good or evil, these spiritual beings are creatures of the one true God and in no way equal to the God who made them.
The Church Fathers had another provocative way of explaining the language of “gods” in the Bible, an interpretation all the more striking because of their pagan surroundings. Early Christians, following Isaiah (see Is 44, for example), mocked the pagan gods as demons or idols or projections of human desire or imagination, false gods who tempted God’s people away from worshiping God.
The “true gods,” these Christians argued, are the baptized, those who have been transformed into true children of God. St. Clement of Alexandria, writing at the turn of the third century, is typical in his explanation:
It is time, then, for us to say that the pious Christian alone is rich and wise, and of noble birth [because born of God through baptism], and thus call and believe him to be God’s image, and also His likeness, having become righteous and holy and wise by Jesus Christ, and so far already like God. Accordingly this grace is indicated by the prophet, when he says, “I said that you are gods, and all sons of the Highest” (Ps 82:6). For us, yea us, He has adopted, and wishes to be called the Father of us alone, not of the unbelieving. (Exhortation to the Heathen, 12).
Baptism makes us God’s sons and therefore “gods,” that is, creatures of God who have become “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet 1:4) and who, as the Catechism says, “share in God’s own blessed life” (CCC, 1). Augustine is typically striking when he says, “If we have been made sons of God, we have also been made gods: but this is the effect of Grace adopting, not of nature generating” (Exposition on the Psalms 50.2). There is only one God who has only one (eternal) Son, but we can become “sons” and therefore “gods” through God’s grace. “The only-begotten Son of God,” states the Catechism, quoting St. Thomas Aquinas, “wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods” (CCC, 460).
In a rather shocking (to us) rhetorical question, St. Paul says, “Do you not know that we are to judge angels” (1 Cor 6:3)? Paul is reminding the Corinthian Christians that there is one God and he became human so that through his humanity we might become gods, which means that, at the end of all things, we will share in his judgment. Sharing in Christ’s divinity, we will share in his power to judge. We will be the true gods who will judge the false ones.
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Humans seem to have a god addiction… so basically the way it works is that they just imagine something invisible/powerful and then build alters and worship schedules for it. Next, it’s completely real and all other tribes’ imaginations are invalid. Did I miss anything?
“Did I miss anything”
Yes, let me tell you about my other invisible friends. They need no introduction, lets discuss them all the same!
Radio waves, we don’t see them yet our ear discerns the outcome. The “alter” must be the radio itself!
Electricity, we don’t see the current, however we see what it does (allowing us to communicate today, via the internet).
Atoms, when did you and I see one with the naked eye.This little friend is a building block of the universe, isn’t it?
It has been my experience that the atheist has questions yet, his limited quest for divine knowledge, never provides plausible answers. Is not atheism a circular religion of imprudence and folly? Or in your case, why are arguing against something that doesn’t exist?
That’s just great Brian. Truth is truly unbeatable.
Yes, God is truth.
Romans 1:19-20 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.
For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
Psalm 8:3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
God bless you as you walk with Him.
While not directly associated with the article, this came to mind. My aunt, Rosemary married Ed, who became my uncle. They adopted two boys , Joseph (Joey) and Edward (Eddie) who became part of the “family”, and of course the extended family. They were no longer living in an orphanage with no parents to love them and care for them. Instead they became sharers of all that is associated with good families. My aunt and uncle asked for the sickest kids, ones that were not getting adopted.
God is compassionate, tenderheartedness is one of the strengths of the Catholic Church.
Mark 6:34 When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things.
Colossians 3:12-13 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.
Ephesians 4:32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
Many blessings.
“…they build alters,” … well, using remedial spell-check we find that we build “altars.”
But following your lead, we do discover (!) “alters,” that is, realities other than, or alternative to our narcissist selves…And perhaps by the human capacity for reason we discovery the alter-reality or Ultimate Reality which/Who actually exists (or more correctly, subsists), rather than not.
It gets back to some math wizard named Leibniz (and even before) who wisely supposed: “why anything, rather than nothing?” An interesting question, yes? except for quadrupeds–and for culturally lobotomized bipeds who have no need for real questions in addition to the scientific method.
About the question of our contingency, said some lunatic named Karl Marx, “this question is forbidden to socialist man.” A forbidden question! Have a nice day, comrade.
You are here, commenting. Must mean you feel you are missing something.
Yes, you missed it. But you’re also assuming that people don’t see your comment for what it is. Please stop trolling the site. No one here is buying what you are trying to sell.
While destined to be divinized (by graced participation, and not quite by divine nature), maybe it’s not so much that we are gods, but (as you allude earlier) that “the pagan gods [are] demons or idols or projections of human desire or imagination.”
“Projections of human desire or imagination”…Somewhere within anthropology there’s the school of thought holding that polytheism, historically, was a fragmentation of a more original and undifferentiated monotheism. Then to be followed later by the opposite trajectory toward monotheism.
But now, within current sociology and the degenerative zeitgeist, we find this month a judicial nod toward polygamy in the United States (see below)…at this regressive point we might recall that in the Old Testament, polygamy, temple prostitution and polytheism were cut from the same cloth. Today, we are all autonomous “gods” in our own minds. This “tyranny of relativism” cannot be entirely bridged by the seamless garment (?) of fraternity.
But, thanks be to the one God, that this positivist and now septic mindset at least cannot be parsed from the United States Constitution (Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization). Stay tuned…
NOTE: The New York State Court of Appeals: ttps://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/court-that-first-legalized-same-sex-marriage-now-legalizing-polygamy
We exchange our mortality by participating in the divinity of Christ. “A plan to be carried out in Christ, in the fulness of time, to bring all thigs into one in Him, in the heavens ad on earth.” (Eph 1:10). St. Paul repeats that often: IN CHRIST! “The gift of God is eternal life IN CHRIST Jesus our Lord,” (Rom 6:23). Greeting “the holy ones in Christ Jesus in Philippi.” “Through him all things were made; he holds all creation together in himself.” (1 Cor) “All of us, gazing with unveiled face on the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as from the Lord who is the Spirit. ” (2 Cor 3:18) We shall be like Him, His image, being in Him, we will share in His glory to be able to see God in His mystery, His glory and His holy power and perfection like the angels. “At the resurrection they neither marry or are given in marriage but are like the angels in heaven,” (Matt 22:30). “For in him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28). “He belongs to the Father from eternity and could not give himself away to any human being. He could only incorporate the persons who wanted to give themselves to him into the unity of his Incarnate Divine Person as members of his Mystical Body and in this way bring them to the Father.” (Edith Stein, Collected works p. 104) We dwell in Him and He dwells in us. “How great will your glory and happiness be, to be allowed to see God, to be honored with sharing the joy of salvation and eternal light with Christ your Lord and God…(CCC 1028) “The Beatific Vision, in which God opens himself in an inexhaustible way to the elect, will be the ever-flowing well-spring of happiness, peace, and mutual communion.” (CC 1045). Jesus is the divine Bridegroom, we are the bride; but we will not become the bridegroom! God essentially the I AM, eternal with no beginning. Creation has a beginning, through Him we have life. God who is, was and will be forever. “This Son, like in all things to the Father, is the only Son of God. He is so because He has with the father, one same and indivisible Divine Nature, and both although distinct from one another (on account of their personal properties (of being Father” and “of being Son”), are united in a powerful, substantial embrace of love, whence proceeds that Third Person,…the Holy Ghost.” (Christ the Life of the Soul, p/23), Abbott Marmion). “To exist, God has only need of Himself and all His infinite perfections, finding all felicity in the perfections of His nature, and in the ineffable society of His Persons, He has no need of any creature; He refers to Himself in Himself, in His Trinity, the glory which springs from His infinite perfections.”(P.29) “The ineffable communications of the Divine Persons with each other are all that is necessary in God. These mutual relations belong to the very Essence of God; it is the life of God. All other communications that God makes of Himself are the outcome of a love supremely free. But as this love is divine, the gift of it makes us so likewise. God loves divinely, He gives Himself.” (p.30) “Here is a marvel of the Divine Wisdom, power and goodness. God gives us a mysterious share in His Nature which we call “grace”…Grace makes us sharers in the nature of God in a way we cannot fathom. We are raised above our nature by grace; we become, in some manner, gods. WE DO NOT BECOME EQUAL, BUT LIKE GODS.” (p.31)”For us participation in this Divine life is brought about by grace, in virtue of which our soul becomes capable of knowing God as God knows Himself, of loving God as God loves Himself, of enjoying God as He is filled with Hi own beatitude, and thus living the life of God Himself.” (p.31). “The Divine design is to constitute Christ the Head of all redeemed, of all that is named in this world and in that which is to come … in order that by Him with Him, and in Him we may all arrive at union with God, and realize the supernatural holiness which God requires of us.” (p.33) “But God only gives us this adoption through his Son, Jesus Christ. It is in Him, and by Him, that God wills to unite Himself to us, and that we should be united to Him. Christ is the way, the only way, to lead us to God and without Him we can do nothing.” (p.38). “GOD wills to make us partakers in Christ’s eternal inheritance; it is for the exultation of His glory.” “All power is given to me in heaven and on earth.” (Matt 28:18). For You alone are the Holy One! “Christ crucified and risen, the one high priest of the truer sanctuary, the same one ‘who offers, and is offered, who gives and is given. Finally, it presents “the rivers of the waters of life…flowing from the throne of God and the Lamb”, one of the most beautiful symbols of the Holy Spirit.” (CCC 1137) “And then on that day, the mountains shall drip new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk; and the channels of Judah shall flow with water; a fountain shall issue from the house of the Lord…” (Joel 4:18) “Our holiness has no other foundation than that same one which God has established that is to say, union with Jesus Christ (p.38). “For you alone are the Holy One, you alone are the Lord, you alone are the Most High, Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit, in the glory of God the Father.” “..all the angels, the heavens, and all the powers, the cherubim and seraphim cry out without ceasing: Holy holy holy Lord God of hosts.” (Te Deum).
Thankful, wish I was as articulate.
If anyone is debating today whether or not there are many gods, we are going backwards rapidly. I am with Isaiah. These other gods were projections of the human mind in that era, in search of a real God. Not to be forgotten is that in the day of the early Jews and early Christians, having innumerable false gods in one’s society was the norm.That is why any talk about one true God would include the societal reality of recognition of those other false gods. Having a belief in only ONE God was most certainly an anomaly. Today’s “competing” gods are apt to be oneself, one’s self self-interest. At least, for those who practice no religion and think themselves accountable to nobody but themselves in any manner. Far too many people have left behind what they perceive as the “restrictions” of religious belief and as a result our society is becoming more violent, more corrupt, and more unsatisfactory. Statistics show that each year fewer and fewer people attend Mass or religious services. We have moved from a society where the majority believed and attended church, to a society where that is now the action of a minority of the population. I leave it to the reader to decide if our society is the better for it, or not. I think not.
A very excellent response to the meaning of our being gods through baptism in likeness to the divinity, specifically as summarized by St Clement of Alexandria [Alexandria the home of doctrinal giants of the faith along with Athanasius and Cyril].
“Do you not know that we are to judge angels”, thought shocking. If I may embellish, how then by what virtue, faculty is this done? As Jared cites, created in God’s image given his likeness pronouncedly in baptism. What then do we judge about angels, if not their affinity or distance from God. Apostolic warning from John, Paul et all that we discern Spirits. That not all spirits as they communicate to us interiorly are from God.