“There is none else beside him”

The following is based on my remarks in an X.com thread. It is not my final word on the subject, just some summary remarks. Michael Heiser was an Ancient Near Eastern scholar and the author of The Unseen Realm, a book that has become enormously popular in evangelical circles for its claim that the Bible teaches the existence of a “divine council” of lesser gods under Yahweh. Heiser died in 2023; RIP. In what follows, I argue that it is both heretical and philosophically confused to maintain that there are multiple gods. I do not claim to know whether Heiser would endorse claims such as “There are multiple gods” or “The Bible correctly refers to multiple gods,” mostly because academics start doing fancy footwork as soon as they get close to anything controversial. But such claims are my target.

My view, and that of Christians (full stop), and that of the Bible (also full stop), is this: There is exactly one God, and no other gods exist; but I acknowledge that some pagans worship or worshipped demons, some of which may exist or have existed, and which they wrongly called “gods” (Hb. elohim, Gk. theoi, Lat. deī, etc.). This is the traditional view (full stop again). It is the view of the traditional, orthodox branches of Christianity, Protestant, Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox, going back to Scripture and the early Church Fathers.

Polytheism is an ontological position, not a position about your personal objects of worship. Monotheism means belief in one God (i.e., that one exists), period. If you think there are multiple gods but you only worship one of them, you are a nonstandard kind of polytheist (maybe a henotheist)—not a monotheist. Do you believe there are many entities that are properly called “gods”? Then you’re a polytheist. That’s the standard definition you’ll find discussed in any philosophy of religion, theology, or religious studies context. The issue obviously does not turn on the question whether certain spiritual entities exist. The issue turns on the question whether in our doctrine we should, or even are permitted to, call them “gods.”

The real question is whether our doctrine must acknowledge that other entities that we call “gods” exist. Answer: no. Others call them “gods”; we call the same beings “demons.” If we or Scripture do happen to call them gods, we do so quotationally: they are “gods,” but not really. Or we do so metaphorically (see below).

This brings us to Heiser’s remarks about “gods.” Christians have always believed in a robust spiritual realm; only modern secular theologians put a damper on such beliefs, but such people were heretical anyway. Heiser’s schtick is to observe that the Bible applies elohim to various kinds of entities and then to conclude, “The ancient Hebrews believed in many gods!” But it just doesn’t follow from the data. The OT is willing to call created beings that “the nations” worship elohim, but elohim does not always mean literally “god,” and it is often used in a quotational way; it is as if the prophets would write, if they had the modern English idiom, “the nations worship demons that they are pleased to call gods.” Just because the Bible speaks of these entities quotationally as elohim, that hardly means that the writers themselves held them properly to be what we would call “gods,” or that we should call them that. If you want to translate the concept into English, you might use “spiritual being” or perhaps “entity taken as an object of worship, rightly or wrongly.” (The latter is appropriate for when Scripture calls dumb carved idols elohim, which it does; e.g., Ex 34:17.)

But Heiser made it cool for evangelicals to seem edgy by renaming angels “gods” and by saying, though he was ostensibly still an orthodox Christian, that the ancient Hebrews believed in multiple gods. He and his followers downplayed the doctrinal significance of this claim, treating it as purely a claim about Bible exegesis. It is not just that. It is certainly a doctrinal claim, and if taken seriously, it would require massive rewrites of theological tomes. But it is true that plenty of “critical” naturalistic Bible scholars, who do not concern themselves with confessions or systematic theology, had said that the Bible endorses many gods for many years. Such scholars too were quite wrong. Indeed, Heiser’s sort of view, on the supposed polytheistic commitments of OT Hebrews, has been long held by liberal critics; as others have said, Heiser sadly became the conduit for popularizing this view among rank-and-file traditionalist Protestants. Whatever his intentions were, in the hands of some, Heiser’s thesis looks awfully like a Trojan horse that smuggles in a theological framework for polytheism in a Christian context. To change the metaphor, if taken seriously in the Church, it would lay the foundation for a pantheon of spiritual beings that esoteric, New Age, and other liberal “Christians” discuss.

So whatever his views precisely were, they can be used in a way that is both heretical and philosophically uninformed—particularly as regards the use/mention distinction, or the distinction between literal and quotational uses of a word or phrase.

Consider the latter. The quotational use of language is universal. When we describe the beliefs of other people, the straightforward way is to use the words that they use, even if we do not share the same beliefs. If I condemn your belief and in condemning it say, “Look at all of the wicked gods you believe in!”—it simply does not follow that I believe in the gods that you believe in. I say the ancient Romans worshipped many gods—thousands of them! Am I saying that those gods existed? No. If I want to refer to my Hindu friend’s god Shiva, I might well use the word “god,” but that doesn’t commit me to the existence of Shiva, or that Shiva is properly called a “god.” I’m just using the word quotationally: my Hindu friend’s “god” Shiva. This is not that complicated. But it is just confusing enough that it is the reason people have introduced scare quotes. The distinction between using a word and merely mentioning it—the use/mention distinction—is one of the most basic tools in analytic philosophy of language. Its absence from the Heiser debate is striking and, speaking as a philosopher, rather embarrassing.

It is true that the prevailing ANE worldview was polytheistic, plain and simple. Nobody disputes that. But then God revealed himself to Abraham and said, essentially, “Only I am God.” Ever after, the orthodox Hebrew (and then Christian) view has been: there is one God, full stop. Sure, there are demons that rule the nations. Sure, God has messengers who, because they speak for him, are metaphorically called “gods.” To call the use metaphorical is to say that it serves as a kind of symbol or representation of the real thing—in this case, God himself. Thus angels are not literally elohim, they are called that because they are representatives of the one true elohim. Similarly, yes, there were men called “gods” because they were tasked with the godly responsibility of judging other men; this use is metaphorical as well. But none of that stands in any tension with the fundamental truth that there is one God and no other literal gods exist. So, there are quotational and metaphorical uses of “gods” in the Bible, yes; but there are no literal, non-quotational and non-metaphorical uses of the plural, because Scripture is entirely consistent and it says, “there is one God,” period. As Moses said essentially and most emphatically, there is but one God: “The Lord he is God; there is none else beside him” (Deut 4:35).

With this essential context firmly in place—which Heiser and his followers drop—I note that when Moses writes of “gods” he is using the term either metaphorically or quotationally. How else would the Lord make his point clear to Abraham? They didn’t have the markers of when they were using language quotationally, and metaphorical uses were not always noted as such explicitly. The prophets would simply repeat what the believers in false gods said, and then say, “There is only one God.”

I’m not even saying that we need to use another term. I’m saying that we need to understand that such uses are quotational and not literal. In other words, the Bible writers and God himself speak of certain entities not that they are gods, but that the Gentiles take them to be gods. For modern precision and to understand the intent, we would use scare quotes: all the “gods” of Egypt. Before Heiser, this sort of thing would have been obvious in orthodox circles, I suppose. But he has made popular the frankly heretical idea that there really were many pagan gods. No. No, there weren’t and aren’t. There were and are demons that were and still are called “gods” by some—but not by Christians.

Now, a challenge to Heiser’s defenders. Find me any place in the OT where the elohim of the nations are so called non-quotationally—that is, where a biblical writer, speaking in his own voice, calls a pagan deity elohim and means it. Also, find me any quotation from Jesus, the Apostles, or any NT writer speaking of the theoi of the Gentiles in their own voice rather than quotationally. Find me any quotation from the Church Fathers in which the “gods” (again theoi, or deī in Latin) of the Gentiles are so called in their own voice and not quotationally. I’m aware of no such place. Prove me wrong; I’ll be grateful.

I have, however, considered the strongest cases that might be raised against this position.

You might raise Exodus 20:3: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” The whole context—this is God, creator of heaven and earth, infinitely above all things—makes a reading of ontological peers impossible. The difficulty is that ancient Hebrew had no scare quotes, no “so-called,” no italics. When the available word for “entity that pagans worship” is elohim, the word will appear in contexts where the speaker obviously does not endorse the ontological claim. The absence of quotational markers does not entail the absence of quotational intent.

You might raise Deuteronomy 32:17: “They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods which they knew not.” But notice that Moses calls these same entities “devils” (shedim) in the very same verse. That is his own classification. The word elohim sits alongside it as a label for what their worshipers called them; “devils” is what Moses (and later inspired Bible writers) calls them.

You might raise 1 Corinthians 8:5: “For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many), but to us there is but one God.” But look at what Paul does here. He opens with “called” (legomenoi)—explicitly quotational—and closes with “but to us there is but one God.” Paul’s parenthetical words merely describe what pagans believe, and he is unambiguous about what he believes in: one God. Paul did not believe in other gods. He spoke of entities that might either be dumb idols or demons, and he acknowledged that the Gentiles called them “gods,” but he did not call them gods himself.

Let us consider an essential exegetical point that applies to confessional Christians, as Heiser claimed to be. Let secular Bible scholars say what they will, but if you are committed to analogia fidei, then you must interpret the OT mentions (not uses!) of elohim consistently with what Paul says. If he calls them “wood and stone” and “demons,” and that the Gentiles call them “gods,” that is the stance we must find in the rest of Scripture. And that is why the Nicene Creed affirms clearly and unmistakably: “We believe in one God.” And in the Fathers you will find no pussyfooting around with the notion that the theoi of the Gentiles really were theoi. Augustine in City of God quite explicitly calls them demons. Indeed, much of later demonological theology goes back to Augustine, where he goes on for many pages (basically, the first half of the entire massive work) explaining that the so-called daimones of the pagan believers (i.e., that’s what they were called in Greek pagan theology), while considered to be gods, are no gods at all.

A word about Psalm 82 and John 10. I take the absolutely, unquestionably traditional view (going back to Augustine) that Psalm 82 was referring to human judges, just as Exodus 21–22 does in three places (21:6, 22:8–9, 22:28). Jesus himself affirmed that some men are dignified with the title theoi (gods). In John 10:34, Jesus quotes “ye are gods” from Psalm 82:6, clearly referring to the judges or rulers of Israel; you make nonsense of Jesus’ point if you take “ye are gods” to refer to “spiritual beings.” The Jews are accusing Jesus: “Thou, being a man, makest thyself God.” Jesus responds not by agreeing that he is God, but by quoting the text and then saying, “He called them gods, unto whom the word of God came.” That is, the persons called “gods,” i.e., representatives of God, were those who received the word of God, the judges who were judging in Moses’ stead, and this is why human judges were called elohim in Exodus 21:6 and 22:8–9, 28. Jesus’ response to his accusers would be much more on point—it would have much more rhetorical impact—if all understood the psalm to be speaking of human judges. Indeed, that’s the obvious reading. The Heiser reading is strained for that reason. Moreover, Jesus claimed rather to be the divinely appointed spokesman for God—a classic feature of human judges—who could be called Son of God because “the word of God came” to him. In Psalm 82, God says the elohim will “die like men,” which is an odd thing to say to angels. But it is not odd at all; it is the sobering and biting verbal irony to dignify human judges as “gods” and then say they will die like men. Again, this is, it should be noted, the traditional reading—the reading of the Church Fathers and of orthodox commentators down the centuries. Are we supposed to ignore that? Heiser’s “divine council” interpretation of Psalm 82 is the strained novelty, not the other way around.

Since no demon is properly called a god, if Scripture refers to them as “gods”—as in the “gods of the Gentiles”—then such uses are quotational. They are describing pagan usage of words, not the Bible writers’ own usage of words in their own voice. Scripture might also call angels and men “gods” as well, but here the meaning is metaphorical: they are messengers and representatives of the one and only God. In short, in no place in Scripture and in no place in the Fathers does anyone ever speak of the “gods” of the Gentiles as gods in their own voice. The prophets, Jesus, the Apostles, and the Fathers are unanimous: there is exactly one God, and no other gods exist.

So where does all this leave us?

My view comes down to something extremely simple. If your theology causes you to say there are many actual gods—entities that really should be called gods—you’re wrong, a polytheist, and taking a fundamentally heretical position. I’m not accusing anyone (including Heiser) of taking this position, but if the shoe fits, wear it.

By contrast, if all you’re saying is that the pagans worshipped real entities that Scripture called “gods” to clarify that the Gentiles considered them such, then your position is not polytheism and you don’t really believe in multiple gods. Perhaps you’re just philosophically confused; but that’s easily resolved. The decision is what is in your own ontology (the set of things you believe actually do exist, in terms you use them to literally describe them), and whether you embrace an orthodox or a heterodox ontology. We Christians believe in one and only one God, and no other gods exist (at all). I recommend you join us in this belief.

You don’t just up and start calling demons gods. They’ll like that, you know.