Did you ever wonder why The Avengers movies have Thor as the god of thunder? Why does Wonder Woman depict Ares as the god of war?
Many cultures honored gods that were personifications of certain attributes or realities of the world. The Norse tradition had Thor as personifying thunder just as the Romans had Ares as personifying war. To go even further, the planet Mars (also Ares) has two moons named after two of the offspring of Ares: Phobos (the personification of fear) and Deimos (the personification of terror).
If you are facing an “intangible” struggle in your life, such as depression, anxiety, or fear, you are probably encouraged to take some type of medication and perhaps therapy to deal with the source of the issue. If you lived in Rome or Greece 2000 years or so ago, then a likely solution would be something very odd from a modern perspective. Instead of doing something “tangible” about it, you’d probably offer a temple sacrifice to the god personifying your particular struggle.
Today, we no longer find this to be a valid course of action. We recognize that Thor is not causing the thunder and Phobos is not causing you to have a fear of flying. Ares is not inciting the latest war. Instead, we look at socio-economic factors, the psychology of trauma, and many other aspects of life that explain many of the issues we find in the world every day.
However, Scripture does point toward the spiritually-based struggle we all experience. We don’t want to have an ignorant view of the way the world works, but is it possible that the enemies of Creator God are actually helping to personify evil today? – to be continued in part 2