One of THOSE Questions

So, the question is, am I monotheistic or polytheistic?

Now here is my quandary. I believe in the one God. One God in three persons, each person of the Godhead; Father, Son and Holy Spirit. So, each is co-equal, yet separate. Each possesses the same power, but each has a different role. Any of those personages of God that would be missing from the equation would make it not the God of the Bible, a lesser god and not who we worship.

Something has been niggling at me for some time, and I wasn’t even sure how to articulate it. Maybe now is the time to try. Have you ever noticed that God Himself does not deny there are other gods (g)? He states clearly, He is the one true God; He is the omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent. But He also states in the 10 Commandments “Thou shalt have no other gods before me”. Doesn’t the statement that he is the one true god imply there are other lesser “gods”? Or, at least some beings in existence that man might have conceived as gods. I know, man conceiving of a being as god doesn’t make the that being a god. That would simply be man ascribing the title to that lesser being.

Now, some of these so-called gods could simply be spirits. And we have to recognize that there are spirits in the spiritual realm. This is where the atheists fall short. They only believe what they see and consider that a strength. Personally, I consider that a glaring weakness.

On the face of it this might seem trivial and “hair splitting”, but I think it is important for us to know the answer. If we are truly a small part of the bigger spiritual picture of the universe which is a Christian perspective as God is the God of the universe, then we need to know what we are up against. If there is Spiritual warfare, which we believe as Christians, and we need to be in the fight, then we must know the enemy apart from the good guys, as it were.

Now, back to the question, are there even truly lesser gods? Man, as a creation of uncreated, pre-existent beings in general, has had the hardest time in explaining spiritual things. There are those of us who do not feel like it is that difficult, yet much of what we think we “know” is purely taken on faith. That is not a bad thing, but the proof that some require is based on their corporeal existence and denies the spiritual. You see, it is in the denial that there is anything more than what you can taste, see, hear, touch or smell that prevents us, as a species, from recognizing what animates us in the first place. Man was not made to be blind to the unseen. Indeed, man was made to worship the unseen God, fight the unseen enemy, and hope for the unseen world – from a human, created perspective.

So, then the question becomes, what is it that makes it so hard to acknowledge the unseen world, realm, universe, etc.,

“The Global God Divide” is the new report of the Pew Research Center that interviewed more than 38,000 people from 34 different countries in 2019. It shows that the world is still very believing: 45% openly recognize the necessity of believing in God. It is a deeply rooted conviction in nations like Islamic Indonesia and the Catholic Philippines (96%), much less in Europe (22%), but still present in the United States (44%). Italy gives bad signals, while the former USSR very good ones.

I’m not quite sure what that last sentence means, not sure what the word “bad signals” imply. However, the fact that the article states 45% “very believing” as statistically significant makes me wonder what statistical ANOVA they used to arrive at that statement. As a believer who is doubtless  when it comes to the spiritual realm, therefore just as certain of God’s existence (which sounds ridiculous to me to even have to make the statement) I am perplexed at anyone who would deny the existence of such a realm. I do believe that there are those who claim that denial, more out of anger from personal or worldly circumstances, hold these positions from some sort of wounding. Woundings that come from bad behavior of others that were close to them, or expectations at one time that God would be more of a cosmic vending machine than the authority/creator/author of it all.

The questions that arise in life such as how could God allow this or that atrocity, this or that tragedy, this or that hurtful experience are, in my opinion, easily answered, but hard to swallow:

We live in a fallen world.

There is a reason Genesis is the first book in the Canon. (There are some who would argue and believe that Job predates the other biblical books.) While I realize that is a very simplified answer, it does not take away the veracity of the statement. Fallen things happen in a fallen world. Atrocities, tragedies and hurts came into the world when man chose to exercise his God given freewill when confronted with the choice; obedience or rebellion. Man, as a class, chose rebellion. And it says that the consequences were very fast in coming. The upshot is that sin entered the world, and God’s perfect creation was sullied, no longer perfect. Now, with what we call the New Testament, we know that God had a plan for redemption the whole time.

Back to the question, what is it that makes it so hard for man to acknowledge the unseen world, realm, universe, etc.. ?

Look, I think there is truth in the theory of evolution, I just don’t think it is the story of creation. I find it pure fancy to think that all of what there is now, from the human being to smallest of all living creatures, evolved from a one cell amoeba. That takes much more faith than believing in a creator. It also renders man generally purposeless. Purposeless is a void, nature abhors a void, there is a purpose to man. Our purpose is to serve God by serving His creatures, therefore glorifying God, and acknowledging His worthiness to be praised – given the credit for - (otherwise called worship [the act of recognizing that God is worthy-able]).

I do not know if we will ever really know why there are some who deny God’s existence while we are still in this life ‘down here’. And I do believe Paul said it well in 1st Corinthians 13:12 (AMP)

For now [in this time of imperfection] we see in a mirror dimly [a blurred reflection, a riddle, an enigma], but then [when the time of perfection comes we will see reality] face to face. Now I know in part [just in fragments], but then I will know fully, just as I have been fully known [by God].

I suppose all we can do is remain faithful and remember to engage those who do not know Him with love. If there are “other gods” and the God of the Bible is simply the creator of all, and God (notice the big “G”) simply set it up that way, with the Demiurges, Aeons and other substructures, then fine. I can live with the idea that the structure of the beings in the heavenly realms is much more sophisticated, complex and detailed than I could ever know. How much we cannot know, I believe dwarfs what we are allowed to know.