One thing I find somewhat funny about internet atheists denying God is the claim of Yahweh being a sky war god, despite their being some debate if Yahweh of the old Israelites and the Yahweh in the Bible are the same deity. Anyone more knowledgeable than I got any opinion about this?
When the stories of the Old Testament were being lived and written, the entire ancient Near East was polytheistic. Every nation, tribe, and city had its own patron god or pantheon of gods.
- The Babylonians had Marduk.
- The Canaanites had Baal, El, and Asherah.
- The Moabites had Chemosh.
- The Philistines had Dagon.
The early Israelites knew this, so the idea wasn't that other gods didn't exist, but that Yahweh was their God, the God of Israel, and He was more powerful than any other god. The wars between nations on earth were seen as an extension of the wars between their respective gods in the heavens. This is called monolatry: the worship of one god without denying the existence of others.
We see this throughout the Old Testament. For instance, in Exodus 15:11, after the victory at the Red Sea, Moses sings:
"Who is like You among the gods, O Yahweh?
Who is like You, majestic in holiness,"
And then in
Joshua 2:8-14 where Rahab the prostitute tells the two spies that Joshua sent:
“I know that Yahweh has given you the land, and that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land have melted away before you. For we have heard how Yahweh dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you devoted to destruction. Indeed we heard it, and our hearts melted, and a courageous spirit no longer rose up in any man because of you; for Yahweh your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath. So now, please swear to me by Yahweh, since I have shown lovingkindness to you, that you also will show lovingkindness to my father’s household and give me a pledge of truth, and preserve my father and my mother and my brothers and my sisters alive, with all who belong to them, and deliver our lives from death.” So the men said to her, “Our life for yours if you do not tell this business of ours; and it will be when Yahweh gives us the land that we will show lovingkindness and truth to you.”
And, over time, the idea went from "Our God is the
strongest" to "Our God is the
only God" which Rahab already understood, despite not being an Israelite. The "other gods" were no longer seen as weaker rivals to fight against, but as powerless idols. These are the idols the commandment against 'graven images' warns against. It was a prohibition against worshipping these false gods, which the prophets revealed to be nothing more than "wood and stone." So their theological framework evolved from monolatry to monotheism.
Isaiah 45:5-7 makes this new understanding crystal clear:
"I am Yahweh, and there is no other;
Besides Me there is no God.
I will gird you, though you have not known Me,
That they may know from the rising to the setting of the sun
That there is no one besides Me.
I am Yahweh, and there is no other,
The One forming light and creating darkness,
Producing peace and creating calamity;
I am Yahweh who does all these."
So, as you can see, revelation was progressive, this is what we call Divine Pedagogy. God met the Israelites where they were, He didn't drop the full, complex truth of Trinitarian Monotheism on a Bronze Age tribal people. He revealed Himself to them step-by-step until finally revealing Himself fully and perfectly through the incarnation of Jesus Christ.
After Christ's Ascension, the various Church Councils and Saints further deepened the understanding of this fullness of revelation. These Saints who helped clarify our faith are held in high regard, and are given the title "Doctor of the Church" which has only been given to 38 people in 2000 years. This is why it's so exciting to have St. John Henry Newman as a new Doctor, because his most famous contribution to theology was his work on the 'Development of Doctrine,' the idea that our understanding of God's truth unfolds over time under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. He perfectly expressed how the Progressive Revelation found in Scripture continues and deepens within the Church.
Because, for much of its history, the Church’s main focus was on guarding the "deposit of faith" as a precious and unchanging treasure handed down from the Apostles, which was a necessary and holy task for that time. Just like the early Israelites needed the simple, powerful idea of Yahweh as their supreme warrior God to establish their identity in a hostile world, the Church needed a strong, defensive posture to preserve the core truths of the faith against fragmentation and heresy. So its main focus was on preservation and stability of a "static" model that provided clarity when it was most needed.
But this created a new challenge over time: how could the Church explain doctrines that became clearer and more defined centuries after the Apostles? And on top of that, the Church faced heavy intellectual challenges from the Enlightenment and the Protestant Reformation: "If the faith is unchanging, why does the Papacy of the 19th century look so different from the 2nd century? Where was the Immaculate Conception in the writings of the early Fathers?" This is where Saint John Henry Newman's genius provided the breakthrough. He showed that doctrines develop authentically, not by adding anything new, but by the Church reflecting more deeply on what it already possessed. Like an acorn growing into an oak tree, the truth doesn't change its
essence, but its
form deepens and its meanings become clearer. This gave the Church the intellectual framework to be historically honest while staying theologically faithful, proving that development is not corruption, but a sign of life.
