| “ | That was a god you just encountered. A real mythological god. Most people seem to think that they were fallen angels posing as deities to stray humanity's faith from God, but that was not the case. They were the real deal. The actual gods you've read about in your mythology books. And they're every bit as powerful, grandiose, and dangerous as the legends make them out to be. Watch your back. Any one of them can flatten a whole city, or the world if they're in a really bad mood, in one swoop if provoked. They're egotistical like that, too. | „ |
| ~ Gabriel |
Deities, also known as Theos, Old Gods, or Elohim, are beings with powers far greater than those of humans, demons, monsters, and most angels, but who interact with humans, positively or negatively, in ways that carry humans to new levels of consciousness beyond the grounded preoccupations of ordinary life. They embody or personify concepts, actions, animals, emotions, elements, and much more which is all the more reason why they are so essential and important in maintaining the balance of the universe.
Appearance
They are thought to be invisible or inaccessible to humans, dwelling mainly in otherworldly, remote or secluded and holy places, such as the concepts of Heaven, and Hell, the sky, the underworld, under the sea, in the high mountains or deep forests, or in a supernatural plane or celestial sphere.
Deities are depicted in a variety of forms, but are also frequently expressed as having human form. Some faiths and traditions consider it blasphemous to imagine or depict the deity as having any concrete form. Gods that are found in many Indo-European traditions, were anthropomorphic. The Mesopotamian gods for example were often envisioned as being of tremendous physical size. Deities across all the cultures also possess a divine light called melammu and bleed ichor.
Typically, they rarely reveal or manifest themselves to humans, and make themselves known mainly through their effects. Monotheistic deities are often thought of as being omnipresent, though invisible. They can be described as abstractions, ideas, or concepts although they are commonly seen as persons. However, they can be sensed and even seen by other supernatural beings, but even though they can sometimes allow themselves to be unseen by the supernatural beings, it doesn't stop the latter from sensing them regardless. Some Avestan and Vedic deities were viewed as ethical concepts. In Indian religions, deities have been envisioned as manifesting within the temple of every living being's body, as sensory organs and mind.
History
Theogony
Deities all descend from Asherah, the wife of God and the patron mother of all polytheistic gods. They are also the descendants of the Primordials, the first gods in existence, and the direct children of Asherah, along with being the ones that helped shape the very fabric of all creation itself while embodying the aspects of latter. The deities, whom are regarded as either a second generation of primordials or third depending on the sources, are tasked with maintaining the balance of the natural order and represent the natural forces of the Earth and beyond as well.
When the universe and all that it is was properly formed, God and His angels rested and left its maintenance in the hands of the Primordials. However, as time went on, some of the Primordials established a hierarchy of sorts over the cosmos which then led to the conception of the gods that humans have come to know in ancient mythology while other Primordials were simply concerned with the tasks given to them.
Divinomachy
When the gods of old were born by the Primordials or the Second-Generation Primordials, many of them warred against their mighty parents and relatives for the right to claim lordship over the Earth and the universe whilst others relinquished their status to their children. The second generation were mostly comprised of what humans call Giants (such as Titans, Jötunn, or Fomorians) and were the first to set foot unto the newly created Earth. The Giants were the ones who were originally tasked with molding it as a paradisal planet for the coming of humanity but forsook that task and instead opted to take it for themselves.
The children of these divine giants emerged victorious and established themselves as the new rulers of the cosmos in place of their parents and ancestors. Some of these deities took more drastic measures such as fashioning realms and their own kingdoms out of the corpse of their primordial predecessors. This could mean that quite literally the kingdoms that lay beyond the veil of normalcy and ones that normal humans could not perceive are constructed out of the mutilated bodies of ancient primordial beings who were former rulers of the cosmos.
While the status quo has changed, they left alone the Primordials that did not partake in the system change as they posed no threat and were pivotal in keeping the universe functional. Seeing this, Asherah charged the deities with sustaining as well as embodying the planet, its natural forces, its creatures, its aspects, concepts, and beyond it like the stars and solar bodies much like how God charged His angels.
Newly Cosmic Rulers
The gods ruled over various sections of the planet and the universe, coexisting and sharing kingdoms with one another, albeit bitterly in certain circumstances. They also defended the planet from the threat of the Ogdru Hem who attempted to take the Earth as their own with the deities emerging victorious in their wars against the Old Ones and consequently establishing a council of gods from various pantheons to discuss important matters concerning the Earth and the universe which not one pantheon can handle alone. This has also led to the gods and angels working alongside one another at times and would exchange tools, tasks, and operatives in their operations.
Moreover, it is also said that the gods aided in the construction of humanity. God was the one who had created the souls while the gods helped in making the bodies. In the beginning, when God completed the soul, he requested the gods to await the impending arrival of man. But most of the gods were impatient and thus, sought to make the body of man instead, though they could not give it the proper structure and function. Prometheus was the one bold enough to take a discreet glance over the walls of Eden and saw the bodies of man and woman, soon to be named Adam and Lilith, to which he then studied and relayed the diagram to the other gods. When they created the bodies of their own humans in the image of the Almighty's human creations, they realized that they did not have the power to give independent life to the body; the bodies could act only when the gods thought of them.
Then God spoke to the deities, asking why they would seek to exceed His power and authority by attempting to make new life. The deities repented, answering that the drive to create was kindled in them by Asherah, and that they only wished for other beings of their own making to share the beauty of the world alongside His own creations. They admitted that their impatience had driven them to folly as seen with the marring of the world due to their rivalries with one another. Instead of punishing them, God showed that He had accepted the way they formed the body, and thus opted to share the soul with them, which philosophers dictate as a unification between monotheism and polytheism. The bodies of the humans they had made were crafted in an image by the eyes of the gods while the one made by the Almighty was crafted in His own image. Moreover, His image would be placed above those of the gods', and the humans they created would follow the path of those made by God complete with their own gardens as well.
Powers and Abilities
Various cultures have conceptualized a deity differently than a monotheistic God. An Elohim need not be omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, eternal. A monotheistic God is almighty, omnipresent, omniscient, omnibenevolent and eternal. Monotheistic religions typically refer to God in masculine terms, while other religions refer to their deities in a variety of ways such as masculine, feminine, androgynous and gender neutral.
Some gods were asserted to be the directors of time and fate itself, the givers of human law and morality, the ultimate judges of human worth and behavior, or designers of the universe, instead of being a natural result of the laws of physics. The boundary between human and divine in most cultures is by no means absolute. Demigods are the offspring from a union of a human with a deity, and most royal houses in Antiquity claimed divine ancestors.
Deities are often thought to be immortal, and are commonly assumed to have personalities and to possess consciousness, intellects, desires, and emotions comparable but usually superior to those of humans. A male deity is a god, while a female deity is a goddess. They were thought to be able to work supernatural miracles and to be the authorities and controllers of various aspects of human life (such as birth or an afterlife). Despite their immortality, some gods can die and be incapacitated but they cannot truly perish and instead reincarnate. Whenever a god perishes, they go through a cycle of reincarnation and are then revived into their "true" forms within the "space beyond space" due to the fact that they are fundamental mythical aspects of reality and thus could never truly be killed.
Deities by Culture
- Dingir - Mesopotamian
- 'ilhm - Canaanite
- Netjer - Egyptian
- Siu - Hittite
- Bog - Slavic
- Dievadeli - Baltic
- Jumala - Finnish
- Vanir - Norse
- Aesir - Norse
- Dêwoi - Celtic
- Theótita - Greek
- Numen - Roman
- Deva - Indian
- Kami - Japanese
- Shén - Chinese
- Teotl - Aztec
Quotes
| “ | When God Most High divided up the nations— when he divided up humankind— he decided the people's boundaries based on the number of the gods. Surely the LORD's property was his people; Jacob was his part of the inheritance | „ |
| ~ Deuteronomy 32:8-9 declaring a possible origin of the various gods of the world. |
| “ | But gods are born of ichor and nectar, their excellences already bursting from their fingertips. So they find their fame by proving what they can mar: destroying cities, starting wars, breeding plagues and monsters. All that smoke and savor rising so delicately from our altars. It leaves only ash behind. | „ |
| ~ Madeline Miller |
| “ | Magic is in itself a form of religion, but there are powerful beings who can be considered as gods and goddesses. Herne the Hunter, Morrígan, Cernunnos, Epona are a few British deities just like Odin, Thor, Zeus, Hera, Isis, Osiris, etc. are deities of other times and countries. Even the more modern gods like the Christ, Buddha, Allah, etc. are powerful beings or representations of the ‘Uncaused Cause’ as the creator of all things is sometimes called. | „ |
| ~ John Constantine |
| “ | There's only one God, Ms. Hawkins. And I'm pretty sure He doesn't dress like that. | „ |
| ~ Klaus Von Reinherz to Abigail Hawkins regarding Ares' outfit |