Do the gods Exist? Satan, Baal, and Zeus and the "god" of This World

"The god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers..." (2 Corinthians 4:4)

Everyone has heard of Zeus and the other gods of the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians and, well pretty much all ancient cultures. What few bother to ask, because they presuppose a negative answer from the get-go is, are the gods actually real? Do other gods actually exist? This is a rather foundational question to my series and one I want to briefly address here. Having already argued for what these gods would be by their nature according to the etymologies of the corresponding terms—that is entities that share communicable attributes with the One True God, but do not share his incommunicable attributes—and that the Bible nowhere teaches us that these gods are not properly called gods, we are now able to process if other entities called gods actually exist.

DEMONS

I know that in one sense this is a completely wild question for most Christians to ask. But frankly, this will not be a difficult concept to grasp, so long as you have read the previous posts. Why? Take for example demons being called gods:

“They sacrificed to demons that were not God,

      to gods they had never known,

to new gods that had come recently,

      whom your fathers had never dreaded”

                                              (Deut 32:17 ESV 2025 revised translation).

This verse comes in the middle of Moses’ farewell poetic song and is classic Hebrew synonymous progressive parallelism where line 1 introduces the worship of demons, not God, lines 2 and 3 restate and expand, describing these demons as gods (elohim) that came recently, and line 4 mocking Israel for worshiping entities that their fathers did not dread.

Without getting into the weeds on the precise nature of these “demons” (Heb: shedu), we simply need to ask here, do demons exist? If the answer is yes, they all we need to note is that the text calls them gods, not once, but twice, and in fact it distinguishes these demon-gods from God, precisely how I’ve argued the Bible always does. In saying they are gods, it clearly distinguishes two definitions for elohim in the same verse. One--there is The Elohim who alone possess the incommunicable attributes that no other entity in the universe shares; Two-- the other elohim share only in his communicable attributes. Yet, both are “elohim.”

ANGELS Psalm 97:7 says, “Worship him, all you gods!” It is a strange thing to think that God could be commanding entities that do not really exist to worship him. While some will admit that they do exist, but that they are not “properly” called “gods,” an idea I’ve dealt with in my second article in this series, it is important to look at the Greek LXX translation of this verse. It says, “Worship him, all you angels.” The LXX does this in other places too. In Psalm 8:5 when it says God man a little lower than the elohim (gods), the LXX and Hebrews 1:6 read “angels.” Do angels exist? If they do, then those who translated the LXX believed that elohim could be translated as angels. However, we mustn’t miss the point which is that nearly all English translations render elohim here as “gods.” This means that the English gods, the Greek aggeloi (angels), and the Hebrew elohim are all synonymous.

Why didn’t the LXX translate elohim here with theoi (gods) though? Why “angels?” Well, sometimes they did translate elohim as theoi-gods instead of angels. Exodus 15:11, “Who is like you among the theois, O Lord?” Here, theois (pl. gods, from theos) translates the Hebrew elim, a poetic synonym for elohim. The same idea is found in Psalm 86:8 (85:8 LXX), “There is none like you among the theois), O Lord.” This time theois translates elohim. In both verses, God is “among” other gods and you can’t be among things that do not exist. One further example is Exodus 12:12. "For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods (elohim; theois) of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord." It doesn't even make sense that god would judge entities that do not exist. The whole point of the plagues of Egypt presuppose that they do, and that they are real elohim.

Some might want to say that these elim and elohim are angels. But the Scripture doesn’t call them angels here, it calls them theoi-gods. Others might want to say the “gods” are mere statues, but statues or idols are not the gods, properly speaking. They are ritual houses of the gods, an idea that many are not familiar with and so I will dedicate an entire post to it. For now, it is enough to see that such an idea is a profound confusion of the First and Second Commandments. The First deals with the gods; the second deals with the idols. As we can see, the LXX translated elohim as both theoi-gods and aggeloi-angels. Thus, the ideas are synonymous, even as they are with the English “gods.”

SATAN, ZEUS, AND BAAL Finally, let’s look at the NT. Paul refers to someone as the “god of this world” (2Cor 4:4). While some have made the argument that this refers to God,[1] for they will argue only God has the power to “blind the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ,” since the Reformation, the dominant view of Protestants and the Reformed has been that this god is Satan.[2] 

Why? It isn’t because God doesn’t blind or harden people as a First Cause; He does (Rom 9). But He also uses means to do it such that “God hath decreed in himself, from all eternity, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably, all things, whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby is God neither the author of sin nor hath fellowship with any therein; nor is violence offered to the will of the creature, nor yet is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established…” (London Baptist Confession 1689 3.1). Even in the previous chapter, the Jews are “hardened” by the law and their own sin (2Cor 3:14).

As a second and instrumental cause of the blinding, we must remember that Satan is “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience” (Eph 2:2). He is called the “ruler/prince of this world” (John 12:31; 16:11), and this is why he is able to offer Jesus all the kingdoms of this world in his temptation and truly mean it. It was a real temptation! John says, “The whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1Jn 5:19). Thus, Paul calls him the god of this world. Surely, we have to admit that this god truly exists.

But it gets even more interesting. I have argued elsewhere that the NT clearly demonstrates that Satan is identical to Baal and that Satan.[3] For example, Jesus says, “And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out?” (Matt 12:26-27). Satan is identical to Beelzebul, i.e. Baal in this passage. Again, it teaches that Satan is also identical to Zeus. Jesus tells the church at Pergamum, “I know where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is. Yet you hold fast my name, and you did not deny my faith even in the days of Antipas my faithful witness, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells” (Rev 2:13). Archeologists dogmatically maintain that “Satan’s throne” refers to the well-known “Altar of Zeus,” that was taken by the Germans and brought to Berlin. Thus, Satan is Zeus.

Comparative religions all recognize that Baal and Zeus are the same deity via the process known as interpretatio graeca. Both are the storm-lightning god and lord of heaven. Curiously, Jesus tells us that he saw Satan "fall like lightning from heaven" (Luke 10:18), an apropos description if he is referring to the lightning god. Of course, Baal is called an elohim in the OT (Jdg 10:6; Jer 7:9; etc.). This parallels Paul calling Satan a “god” in the NT. And obviously, as we began this post, Zeus is considered a god by the Greeks and Romans. Therefore, the only biblical conclusion we can infer if we believe that demons, angels, and Satan truly exist is that the Bible calls them elohim and therefore, according to the Bible, the gods do in fact exist. Zeus is real. He is the biblical character known as Satan.

[1] For example, Ivor Poobalan, “Who is the ‘God of this age’ in 2 Corinthians 4:4?” Dissertation to the University of Cape Town (2015).

[2] E.g. Calvin, Commentary on 2Cor 4:4; Luther, Lectures on 2Cor 4:4. But this was no novel view. It was held by many in the early church. See Irenaeus, Fragment XLVI; Tertullian, Against Marcion 5.11, 17; Origen, Commentary on Matthew Book 11, Augustine, Reply to Faustus the Manichaean; etc, each of which can be read here. Clearly, Poobalan overemphasizes the case that the Patristics did not hold this view and that it was rather a later view initiated through Erasmus.

[3] For a deeper dive see Douglas Van Dorn, “Satan, Zeus, Baal, and the Prince of Rome,” Academia (Feb 2024). Doug Van Dorn Aug 15, 2025