How Can Anyone Think Satan Is A God?

"How do you come to the conclusion that Satan or the devil is either a God, or he doesn't exist?"

 I'm afraid that after almost 2000 years of Catholic and Roman influence on interpreting the Bible, there is no short answer to the question. At least not one that addresses the necessary elements of the issue.

Don’t get your onion pages all balled up in a knot, I have never said that the Devil of Christianity is equal to God. I am saying that if the devil is real he is a God according the Biblical definition of a God. Here is how it rolls out in this view. But before I get into this question I offer a few thoughts.

I know we are engaged in a really intriguing discussion here but I just want to ask you to consider that there are hundreds of resources available that deal with the origin of Hell, Satan, and how a belief that Satan is real is to believe in two Gods. Especially in the sense that many believe Satan can thwart the good God, So please continue researching and I am happy to help if you would like. I challenge you to use the same powers of deductive reasoning and inductive study to explore yet another doctrine that may or may not be erroneous. I and many others have been on the “dark” side of the Satan fence before. I was once a staunch defender of a literal satan and experienced hundreds of “manifestations” of dark evil power.

I am certain; correct me if I am wrong, that you and your faith group have found doctrines of mainstream Christianity that you do not agree with. So why not explore this doctrine to see if it is agreeable to the rest of Christendom and if it is agreeable to the Bible. I know you have a lot of questions, after all, most of us have been spoon fed Satan since we were old enough to be afraid of the dark. I am happy to answer any questions you have. I do find however, many Christians, make statements with absolute resolve and put forth questions expecting they already have the right answers. So then, upon being given another possible answer for the statement or question that claims The Devil is real, he or she simply ignores the point and throws out another "Well what about this Jim?

I assure you, when one takes the time to set their Greco-Roman view of the Scriptures on the shelf and peer at the ancient writings through the cultural, historical, literary, social, and religious lens of the first century Aramaic culture, he or she will see how it is possible. It is possible that the idea of Satan being what Christendom asserts he is today, was not the understanding of the speakers or authors of the New Testament. Jesus in fact, had a very different view of this Satan than we have been given today. I deal with this extensively in Volume 3 of my work, “Who's The Devil Jesus Knew?”

Throwing Scripture Around Doesn’t Prove Satan is Real

 Now, one can throw bible verses at this all day thinking the English reading of those verses settles the matter, but those verses can be explained. When we take English words and find the Greek definition, but neglect to trace it back to the Hebraic thinking of the first century Jewish Apostles and Messiah, we miss the original authorial intent. I agree this is serious if I am "deceived" but there is something extremely emotionally difficult for folks to accept I am explaining that The God of creation and His Messiah are the only God. I am not discrediting the Creator, the Messiah, or the Bible in any way, this is simply explaining how there is only One God. And it is not the Bible that becomes unreliable in all this, it is man who has been unreliable in understanding and interpreting a 2000 year old idea that was filtered through many languages and cultures and is now positioned as one of the major doctrines of the religious sects. Now on to the original question I quoted above.

How can I say the devil is a God if you believe he is real?

Let's go back to the pre-Exodus time, after all, Paul said all the "Scriptures", the Old Testament in his view, is where we get doctrine from. Back before the Exodus, the Hebrew people had a father, Abraham. Abraham came from Mesopotamia, a place that was populated by many false Gods created by the hands of men. Then, Yahweh showed himself to Abraham. Abraham left town, went out on his own to go after this One True God. The interesting point here is that the many man-made gods of Abraham's father Terah, were void of any reality. They were believed to have powers but , as the Bible says, there were nothing. These imaginations were non-existent but because the people believed in them, the Creator called them “gods”. We find that even though they didn't exist as a supernatural force, the fact that the pagans ascribed God-like attributes to these things made them "gods". Many of them were worshipped by the masses and many of them weren't. This did not change the label the Creator gave to these non-entities; they were still gods in the people's thinking. Deuteronomy begins to address this, by stating these "gods" which are made up in the minds of people, do not literally exists;

Deu 4:28 And there ye shall serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.

Anything that cannot hear, eat, or smell, is something that does not have any animated qualities. If we jump right to Revelations we find the same thing stated about the idols;

"Rev 9:20 And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk: "

 John lets us know that these things, which many felt possess power to affect this world, do not exist. Something that cannot walk, hear, or see does not exist.

So how does this relate to Satan?

Good question! The word for devil in John’s writing is the word daimonion...demon.  And in this context it is a man-made concept that has no literal existence, power, or form. The idea of Satan came from a composite of ancient Egyptian lore, ie. Set. This is only one example that the idea of Satan was originally an idea of another God. The whole concept was built on throughout many other pagan cultures such as the Babylonia culture and the Persian religious teaching. A made of thinking that expressed there is One Good God and there is a second, weaker but very influential evil God. The adaptation of these myths flowed out of Persia and the Pharisees adopted the thinking of the Persian magi on this. It is in this period, Post Persia but Pre- Christian era, that the Apocalyptic writings started to flourish and an entire system of demonology was developed. Oddly enough, religion can’t even agree on everything about the Satan they claim is real. Today, there are various ideas and doctrinal differences on who and what Satan is and what exactly he can do. Some believe Satan can read thoughts and others assert that he can't. This is only one example of the divergent views.....................

‘Hell’-enisation Sure Helped The Cause Of Satan

As Hellenised Judaism developed, the thinking that the One Good God was not responsible for the evil that happened to His children proliferated. Due to this view it was thought therefore, the bad that has happened to God’s Sons and daughters must be this other evil God's doing. Eventually, Christianity began to develop, yet the influence of the Hellenised religious leaders was strong. The idea of this second, powerful, supernatural being, was embraced by a people who were completely disconnected from the Hebraic understanding. An understanding that was buried in hundreds of years of religious instruction under the watchful eye of Pharisaical teachers.

The word sawtawn, never meant a cosmic entity to the Pre-Persia people of God but soon the "adversary", always referring to either God or another Human, was given a capital “S” so to say. In taking personification of evil to the next level, sawtawn the noun became Satan the proper-noun. The personification of evil became a literal entity in the fecund minds of the commoners. Looking back on all this, we can see the idea of Satan blossomed out of other belief systems. Satan can be shown to be an idea of another God that developed in other non-Israelite nations. Now, when we see that the Hebrew people leaving Persia had an idea that there was another God who was responsible for evil, we can find the issue addressed by God's prophet Isaiah. It is at this pivotal time in the historical development of Satan that Isaiah tells the people repeatedly, there is one God and none else. This is when and why he says, “He (Yahweh) is God there is none else, and He creates evil;"

Isa 45:5 I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me:

Isa 45:6 That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else.

Isa 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. "

The people found another idea of a God to blame evil on but the Prophet told them no, there is no other God. In this context, Yahweh is responsible for all this "evil". Those awful things that happen Isaiah asserts, the Lord says He does them.  Don’t blame an evil cosmic being for the evils that have occurred....

…So now, we have a people, believing a second lesser-God, not necessarily worshipping this entity, but ascribing the things God does to this man-imagined being. In response, the LORD tells them that this thing does not exist...and that he is the only God. We find that this Persian idea of a secondary evil entity was called a God by the Persians, it is called a God by the Prophet Isaiah and by Yahweh, the Only God. Just to be clear about how powerful or important they thought the evil God was, one would not hesitate to claim that God is “The God” and therefore either Satan himself or a Demon, are just lesser Gods. This is where we can use the full counsel of God to figure out how Satan is a God if he is real.

Who Knew That There Were Lots of  False “Gods”?

Let's say everyone in the New Testament era had heard about these other lesser Gods. And let's say they heard some of them were supposedly good and some of them were evil. In that thought one must admit, they are gods. So in time, Paul found he needed to deal with this. even though the "Christians" didn't worship, or hold these other Gods as equal to Yahweh, Paul let them know what they really were. In their minds, they were literal gods, also called demons. But by having been ascribed powers like God, they were gods by definition. .... We learn from the Bible that the Gods of other nations were demons, we know that the character of satan, called by other names such as Beelzebub, was a god in other nations. And we are told that the prevailing attitude to oppose the Creator, is the god of this world. In the New Testament this anti-God attitude is called Satan. We then find that these man-made gods, which are demons and therefore includes Satan, are nothing, they cannot see, hear, and walk. Yet if the Satan of Christendom is real, he can do all those things. To say a false God is nothing  is juxtaposed against the one true God who is living and can see, hear, and walk. …………….Notice in Psalms that the nation’s Gods are demons;  therefore the demons, including Satan, are labelled as Gods for those who ascribe power to them. Remember, not al false Gods were worshipped by the Israelites or other nations, yet they are all called Gods by the Bible.  You do not have to “worship” or “serve” Satan in the Christian sense of these words in order to be seen as believing in more than one God.

For all the gods of the nations are demons;... Psa 96:5

And notice aging that the demons, including Satan who is and was a "God" of the other nations, are said to be nothing…which means they do not exist in reality...Demons are gods, and idols are demons...therefore idols and demons are gods and that makes Satan a God. Now to recap what the Creator has to say on this…He says the other Gods do not exist, and that He is the only God…there is none else.

Although it is said Satan is a fallen angel, according to  a misrepresentation of the word Lucifer and twisting the context of the Isaiah 14:12 passage; he is by definition a demon, a god , and an idol... And Paul says he does not exist in identifying the idols are devils and they are nothing …

....1Co 10:20  But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils.

  Prior to this he makes the statement that there is only one entity that can ever interact with creation;

1Co 8:4  As concerning therefore the eating of those things that are offered in sacrifice unto idols, we know that an idol [demon, false god such as Satan] is nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but one.

 So the idols are demons, demons are gods and yet somehow they are nothing

So What Are The Other Gods?

In closing, the other gods were the ideas of real supernatural beings that were thought to be able to interact with and affect the world. With this in mind we cannot ignore the fact they "are not" which is taken to mean they do not exist. In the dangerous field of taking things one reads in the Bible literally, why don't we take God's statement about “Him only existing” as literal? I would submit that the words which show the idea of idols, devils, demons, and Satan to be Gods, and the words that come from Yahweh claiming He is the only God and there is none else, should be taken literally.......

......(Isa 45:6 KJV)  That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else.

Below is a brief quote to represent this is far from a new idea, it is just one that has been shelved by Christianity because we have thought our idea of satan to be correct up until recently.........

"Kimchi, from Saadiah Gaon, observes, that this is said against those that assert two gods, the one good, and the other evil; whereas the Lord is the Maker of good and evil, and therefore must be above all; and it is worthy of observation, that the Persian Magi, before Zoroastres, held two first causes, the one light, or the good god, the author of all good; and the other darkness, or the evil god, the author of all evil…"

LoveIt ....JimJr