What Do Gods Do?

There is more than one God being worshipped around the world, so answering this question will depend on knowing which God one is referring-to and what is being said about that God, since all Gods do not behave alike. With those two caveats stated, this (it seems to me) is the rule: Gods do what they are thought to do—no more, no less! Basically, God is an idea that "exists" in most human minds. Hence, God has no "objectified existence"—that is, an "over-there-ness away from me" that can be pointed-to. God "is" (only in a sense) akin to an invisible immaterial spirit—and even that is too concrete. There is no spot in the entire universe where God can be located as a "material existing thing" as a person might be. Nor is God spread pervasively throughout the universe "in all things." To think in such a way is to objectify God by identifying God in some way with living creatures and plants (flora and fauna), and inanimate objects. A saying in the Gospel of Thomas attributed to Jesus, however, says precisely that: "Split a piece of wood; I am there. Take up a stone and you will find me there" (77b; cf. Colossians 1:17). All Gods (if Gods there be) do not inhabit a space time continuum in the universe as human beings do.

Primitive societies, however, did make one-to-one identifications between their idols (things representing God) and the spirit of mana thought to infuse their idols. The Greeks and Romans also objectified their Gods, representing them in statuary and even thinking that sometimes the God had taken human form. They even believed their statuary possessed some of the essential power of the God. For example, in the council chamber of the city of Stratonicea (West Coast of Asia Minor) there stood the statues of Zeus and Hecate, which were said in a formal city decree to "perform good deeds of great power." The citizenry celebrated their miracles daily by sacrifice, burning incense, praying, and giving thanks.

Christians, on the other hand, generally have not objectified God, with one noticeable exception. In the 5^th century Nicene Creed Jesus, the Jewish sage, is elevated to "true God of true God" and worshipped and glorified. This is apparently a dual movement consisting of God becoming man and man becoming God: it may be thought of as an instance of divine spirit "infused" into flesh and blood, or the materializing of immaterial divine spirit into human matter. He was not always the Son of God (Rom 1:3).

An easier answered historical question, however, is what is God represented as doing in the Bible? That question can at least be investigated. The Bible is divided into two divisions: Hebrew Bible and New Testament. Among other things these divisions are characterized by two completely different thought worlds: Semitic (Hebrew Bible) and Hellenistic (New Testament). Hebrew Bible describes what God does from the perspective of Old Testament faiths according to Hebrew tradition, and the New Testament, drawing on the Old Testament, describes what earlier followers of Jesus believed about God's behavior from the perspective of New Testament faiths.

"Christian" ideas about what God does come much later as expressed in the early Christian creeds of the fourth and fifth centuries and later, which are not part of the biblical tradition, although Christians argue that both the Hebrew tradition and the early Jesus tradition inform Christian beliefs.

Between the two divisions of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and the New Testament lies Jesus of Nazareth. The thought world (how he expressed himself) of Jesus is indebted to the Hebrew/Jewish traditions. Christian theology is partly based on the sayings of Jesus, the Jewish sage, and partly on Graeco-Roman ideas of divinity. The question becomes: according to Jesus, the Jewish sage, what does God do? The most critical sifting of all sayings attributed to Jesus in early Christian literature of the first and second centuries by the Jesus Seminar suggests that there is only modest God-language to be found in the residue of Jesus sayings that survived the lapses of memory of his earliest followers, and what was attributed to him in the piety of the later church. What little there is suggests that God is not sectarian but cares for good people and bad people alike (Matt 5:45b), even to the extent of providing for their daily needs, like feeding and clothing them (Matt 5:25–30; 7:11; 10:29–31). Jesus prayed for the daily provision of the basic necessities of life, as though he himself were indigent (Matt 5:11), and he thought that God's watch-care over the world extended to "numbering the hair on peoples' heads" and micromanaging the deaths of sparrows (Matt 10:29-31). He knows how to give good things to those who ask him (Matt 7:7–11). People of means, on the other hand, will have difficulty entering God's imperial rule (Mark 10:28; Matt 6:24).

When it comes to Gods, the biggest mistake most people make is thinking that their personal beliefs control what God does. As Job said, in a sudden flash of understanding, "Shall we receive good at the hand of God and not evil" (Job 2:10, cf. 30:26). In short, the ways of the Gods (if Gods there be) are inscrutable.¹

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹This essay first appeared on this blog on June 13, 2013. It later appeared in print in Hedrick, Unmasking Biblical Faiths (2019). It appears here again reedited and expanded.

Religions and Religion

This essay is about something we all likely know, or at least should know. The term “religions” refers to various historical movements that captured the religious imagination of believers through human history. The term “religion” refers to these phenomena generically. Religions are only temporary manifestations. They come and go with time and competition. Religion as such, on the other hand, seems to be endemic to the human condition.

I do not know if this is because such a thing as a “God gene” exists,¹ or because human beings are simply incurably superstitious.² The God gene option explains that we are innately predisposed to religion in some form and cannot help ourselves. In other words, religion is a part of the human DNA. The second option explains that human beings cannot rid themselves of a predisposition to superstition. In other words, we seem to be naturally superstitious. Human history is awash with odd beliefs, supernatural beings, and gods that were invented to explain what were found to be unexplainable.³

            Here are two brief scenarios illustrating the rise and fall of two religions. The universal religion of Manichaeism was founded in the third century C.E. by the Iranian prophet Mani. The religion was universal in appeal and moved beyond the Mesopotamian region in which it was born. It was a successful competitor with the indigenous religions it encountered in the regions it entered before it passed from the pages of history. It survived for twelve hundred years and traces of the religion can still be seen datable to the 17^th century C.E.⁴

            Christianity, a religion that emerged in the first century C.E. successfully competed with the indigenous religions of the Roman Empire with the help of the Roman Emperor Constantine. The fortunes of orthodox Christian churches prospered under Constantine. By a decisive victory at the Mulvian Bridge north of Rome Constantine became Emperor of the Western Roman Empire in 317 and in 323 its sole ruler. His victory at the Mulvian Bridge he credited to a vision of a single cross and the words “Be victorious in this.” He sent his soldiers into battle with the sign of a cross painted on their shields. Although outnumbered they won the battle, and Rome and Africa passed under Constantine’s control. Constantine saw the hand of the orthodox Christian God in the victory and to ensure continued support by that God the church was everywhere granted freedom from persecution.  He restored church property that had been confiscated, gave privileges to the clergy, and undertook a building program in the church’s behalf. It appears that Christianity initially received preferred status by the Roman government in the competition between religions.

Christianity was a way for Constantine to unify his empire and in 325 Constantine called and presided over the first Ecumenical Council of orthodox churches at Nicea, where in a climate of theological controversy separating the churches, the Trinitarian Creed was pushed through.⁵ Constantine further directed that the orthodox Bishop Eusebius procure for the churches, which Constantine intended to build, 50 copies of the Holy Scriptures.⁶ This action forced Eusebius to decide what books he would include in the New Testament, an issue that was then still in flux, as he reports in his Ecclesiastical History.⁷

After 440 C.E. no pagan names are listed among the elite at Rome,⁸ and over time the indigenous Roman religions were driven into the countryside. Today, so far as I know, no one worships Zeus/Jupiter any longer, and the indigenous religions of the Roman empire have effectively disappeared from the historical scene.

The passing away of even one religion raises the question of the permanency of any religion—even Christianity. It causes one to ponder what is meant by the term “true religion.”⁹

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_gene

²See, for example, Hedrick, Unmasking Biblical Faiths (Cascade, 2019), 1-12, 20-22.

³Hedrick, “Forces at Work in the Garden of the Lord,” pp. 20-22 in Unmasking Biblical Faiths.

⁴Paul Mirecki, “Manichaeans and Manichaeism,” vol. 4:502-511 in The Anchor Bible Dictionary (1992).

⁵R. P. Davis, “Constantine I,” Oxford Classical Dictionary (3^rd ed.; 1999), 378-80.

⁶https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifty_Bibles_of_Constantine

⁷Ecclesiastical History, III, xxv.

⁸Charles Hedrick, Jr., History and Silence. Purge and Rehabilitation of Memory in Late Antiquity (University of Texas; 2000), 57.

⁹https://www.quora.com/Is-Christianity-a-true-religion-1