Is there more than one god?

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dominikus28

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In the old testament God himself mentions other gods. Does this mean that there are more than one god? Is this how the greeks and romans and ancient egyptians got their gods?

Here is the quote:
“Do not rebel against the Lord and don’t be afraid of the people that live there. We will conquer them easily. The Lord is with us and has defeated the gods who protected them; so don’t be afraid.” (Numbers 14:9)
 
No. Put it this way - it was common belief that the gods each nation worshipped were linked closely with the very land and soil of that nation.

That’s why Naaman the Syrian takes earth from Israel with him - so he can build an altar with it to worship Israel’s god, since he thinks the earth of no other place will do.

So saying that Israel or Yahweh defeated the ‘gods’ of a country is simply a shorthand way of saying they conquered the land occupied by that country.
 
No. There is only one God, the father almighty maker of heaven and earth. I started to write the creed.
 
LilyM said:
No. Put it this way - it was common belief that the gods each nation worshipped were linked closely with the very land and soil of that nation.

That’s why Naaman the Syrian takes earth from Israel with him - so he can build an altar with it to worship Israel’s god, since he thinks the earth of no other place will do.

So saying that Israel or Yahweh defeated the ‘gods’ of a country is simply a shorthand way of saying they conquered the land occupied by that country.
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Also, one could say that these “gods” that pagans worshiped were, at least in some cases, demons masquerading as gods to decieve these folks into idolatry.

In any case, the Bible only refers to them as “gods” because, at least to the people that were worshipping them, that’s what they were.
 
patg said:
This is purely a matter of faith - there is no way to determine its truth.
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:rolleyes:

Lord, save us from skeptics who are skeptical about everything except their own ability to determine what is knowable.

– Mark L. Chance.
 
patg said:
This [that there is only one God, the father almighty maker of heaven and earth] is purely a matter of faith - there is no way to determine its truth.
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Sure there is. That’s why we have the Sacred Scriptures, Sacred Tradition, and the Magisterium, as well as reason.

*Revealed *truth is a form of truth. And in revealed truth as in scientific truth, something does not cease to be true just because one does not, for whatever reason, believe it.
 
dominikus28 said:
In the old testament God himself mentions other gods. Does this mean that there are more than one god? Is this how the greeks and romans and ancient egyptians got their gods?

Here is the quote:
“Do not rebel against the Lord and don’t be afraid of the people that live there. We will conquer them easily. The Lord is with us and has defeated the gods who protected them; so don’t be afraid.” (Numbers 14:9)
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I will risk the mod’s anger. Forgive me if this is not compatible with Church teaching.

I believe that it is possible, that the “gods” are demons.

Seriously :yup:
 
CatholismRox said:
No. There is only one God, the father almighty maker of heaven and earth. I started to write the creed.
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Perhaps the Muslim statement of faith could be an illumination:
There are no gods, yet G_d is.
This is my best translation of the Arabic, others may translate differently, but there lose the essence of the statement, which is G_d is much more than the supreme god.
To think of G_d as just a special god, or the mightiest god, or even the only god, greatly devalues G_d.
G_d is ineffable.
G_d is beyond definition.
G_d is beyond limitation.
 
Mystic_of_God said:
I will risk the mod’s anger. Forgive me if this is not compatible with Church teaching.

I believe that it is possible, that the “gods” are demons.

Seriously :yup:
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If this statement could make the mod angry, it must be a slow anger since I brought up this theory back in Post #5.😃
 
Dear Dominikus28,
The literary understanding of god’s has much to do with the culture of the times. Moses had to show Pharoh that his God was greater than all the other god’s the Egyptians believed in. Each miracle Moses performed showed how much greater the God of the Abraham was over the pagan animal gods. Culturally, they used the term god to show a power people could not understand and not as a term of universal onipesence.

mdcpensive1
 
We know “God” --that is the supreme reality (I think there could be more than one God that constitutes the supreme reality) – created plants, animals, men and angels from our natural experience and divine revelation. I think it’s entirely possible that God also created other kinds of beings – perhaps beings that could be legitimately be described as “gods” – some kind of glorious beings that differ from both angels and men and are still dependent upon the one God.

Islam holds that there indeed personal beings that are neither angels nor men. They are called “jinn.” They are not considered in any way to be gods, however.

In the OP, it quotes the Bible as speaking of the defeat of the gods who “protected” them – this implies that these “gods” were real, i.e. with real power – otherwise they would not have been able to exert an influence of protection (against which God’s influence was greater)

Many modern scholars say that the Israelite religion was originally henotheistic (a form of polytheism you could say) but gradually evolved into monotheism. So you may see that original henotheism in the scriptural texts. Of course, traditionalist people deny all this modern scholarship. Read:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henotheism#Israelite_beliefs_and_Judaism

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_(god)#.C4.92l_in_the_Tanakh

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monolatry#Monolatrism_and_Judaism
 
cor said:
Of course, traditionalist people deny all this modern scholarship
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“Traditionalist” (by which I presume you mean those who follow the teaching of the Church rather than float with every new idea and faddish thought) don’t “deny” modern scholarship, which can be very useful. What they often do, however, is disagree with the conclusions that many of these scholars arrive at from their data: conclusions that are usually based on an anti-supernatural premise and on a “hermeneutic of suspicion.”

Biblical scholars have no authority in themselves: they are simply there to search for, discuss and provide information which we can take or leave. It is what the Church teaches that matters.
 
patg said:
This is purely a matter of faith - there is no way to determine its truth.
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I disagree. Reason can lead us to the knowledge of God’s existence (Romans 19-20) - and from there to the existence of only one God. Here is an explanation I find compulsive for One God:

The concept of the infinite contains several significant “notes,” one of the more prominent of which is that the infinite is that which, by definition, is without any bounds. If we were to suppose that there could be two infinite beings, we would have a situation where there would be two beings without any bounds, but in that case the “extent” of the two beings would be the same and therefore there would be nothing to distinguish them, and there would not be two beings but one. It does not make any sense to insist on the possibility of there existing two infinite beings because the very idea of the infinite implies singularity and uniqueness, and therefore non-duplicability. Thus, if one attempts to multiply the infinite one effectively destroys the infinite, or, to put the matter more precisely, one begins talking about something that is not the infinite at all. …
(From “Metaphysics” by D. Q. McInerny)
 
Nita said:
I disagree. Reason can lead us to the knowledge of God’s existence (Romans 19-20) - and from there to the existence of only one God.
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I agree with you that reason can lead us to the knowledge of the existence of a supreme reality, but I don’t know of any good argument for why this supreme reality must be constituted in only one being.
Here is an explanation I find compulsive for One God:
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The concept of the infinite contains several significant “notes,” one of the more prominent of which is that the infinite is that which, by definition, is without any bounds. If we were to suppose that there could be two infinite beings, we would have a situation where there would be two beings without any bounds, but in that case the “extent” of the two beings would be the same and therefore there would be nothing to distinguish them, and there would not be two beings but one.
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Well, this assumes the principle known as the Identity of Indiscernibles – that if a and b have exactly the same properties, then they are one and the same thing. It also assumes that each beings’ haeccity cannot be a property that distinguishes one from the other. Be that as it may, the major problem I see with this argument is that it doesn’t really show that the two beings would have the same properties. What if for example, one being was purple while the other being was orange? Being purple versus being orange is not a matter of being infinite or not and so one infinite being could be purple while the other could be orange. If you think infinite beings can’t possess color properties, I could give other examples. What if one being had a special affection for the feminine and the other being had a special affection for the masculine? Either special affection is consistent with infinity and so these things can distinguish one being from the other.
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Fidelis said:
Sure there is. That’s why we have the Sacred Scriptures, Sacred Tradition, and the Magisterium, as well as reason.

*Revealed *truth is a form of truth. And in revealed truth as in scientific truth, something does not cease to be true just because one does not, for whatever reason, believe it.
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But Revealed Truth is only believed because one has faith in the revelation. The Sacred Scriptures, Sacred Tradition, and the Magisterium are believed to represent the truth because one has faith that God is speaking through them. Other religions have just as much faith that God is speaking through their similar instruments (and not speaking through ours). Stories about *our *God are easy to believe because they’re true; stories about *their *God are easy to dismiss because they’re farfetched and fictitious.
 
cor said:
Well, this assumes the principle known as the Identity of Indiscernibles – that if a and b have exactly the same properties, then they are one and the same thing. It also assumes that each beings’ haeccity cannot be a property that distinguishes one from the other. Be that as it may, the major problem I see with this argument is that it doesn’t really show that the two beings would have the same properties. What if for example, one being was purple while the other being was orange? Being purple versus being orange is not a matter of being infinite or not and so one infinite being could be purple while the other could be orange. If you think infinite beings can’t possess color properties, I could give other examples. What if one being had a special affection for the feminine and the other being had a special affection for the masculine? Either special affection is consistent with infinity and so these things can distinguish one being from the other.
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I don’t see how the identity of indiscernibles or haeccity (thisness)can be applied to the infinite. It would be a failure to understand what is meant by infinite. And I grant you that no human can fully understand - we’d be God if we could. But still, we can know some things.

You give the idea of color - as tho one infinite being could be one color, another a different color. An infinite Being would have all color, infinite color, would be the source of all color. An infinite Being is infinite in all qualities. If He weren’t, He wouldn’t be infinite - there would be an area where He was limited/finite. If that were the case, we could no longer speak of Him as an Infinite Being.

Regarding affection; an infinite being has infinite affection for all. He IS love; He IS goodness; He IS being; etc.

The examples you give have meaning in regard to contingent being, created being - but not to an infinite God, non-contingent, eternal.

Nita
 
patg said:
But Revealed Truth is only believed because one has faith in the revelation. The Sacred Scriptures, Sacred Tradition, and the Magisterium are believed to represent the truth because one has faith that God is speaking through them.
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Even if that were true (which it isn’t), that would have no bearing on the truth of Divine Revelation. Our believing or not believing isn’t what makes something true. It either is, or isn’t true based on other factors.

If Christians believe about Divine Revelation what you think they do, that would be blind faith, which the Christianity does not advocate. Instead, it has been shown that there are arguable reasons that the Divine Revelation, especially the Scriptures are reliable on several fronts, most notably internal consistancy, historicity, and universiality.
Other religions have just as much faith that God is speaking through their similar instruments (and not speaking through ours). Stories about *our *God are easy to believe because they’re true; stories about *their *God are easy to dismiss because they’re farfetched and fictitious.
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If you look at the ancient stories of other religions, no one (not even the adherents) seriously argues that they are based on historical or other factual events. Even those that do (such as Mormonism) cannot offer evidence that stands up under the that rigor of historical criticism that the Christian religion has been subjected to for 2000 years.
 
Nita said:
Regarding affection; an infinite being has infinite affection for all. He IS love; He IS goodness; He IS being; etc.
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I wasn’t saying that he had more or less affection for the feminine versus the masculine. I was speaking of having a special kind of affection for the feminine versus the masculine. Just as you might love your spouse and your children equally but have a certain kind of special affection for one and different kind of affection for the other. So maybe, one God has a certain kind of affection for the feminine while another God has that kind of affection for the masculine – while both have infinite affection for both the masculine and the feminine.
 
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