>2 Corinthians 4:4 - In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.Who's the god of this world? I thought God was.
>>18226863One thing I hate about Paul's writings is that he somehow manages to mix brilliant teachings with Judaism and Gnosticism. The "god of this world" is the warped image of the divine. The true God is ineffable and the image of God, this "Christ", is effectively this God's imaginary existence. He is the apex, the peak of existence, the image to which all other images orient, and the source of being and intelligibility. The Logos, the Son, whatever you want to call it.
>>18226863There are 2 theories:1) Satan is the god of this world. He is frequently referred to as the prince of this world in the NT and in other early christian writings. In the earliest datable part of the Ascension of Isaiah (9.14 in particular) Satan is straight up called the god of this world, the earliest sections of Ascension of Isaiah date to the first century and likely predates atleast some of the gospels. Against this is the fact that the word θεος is almost never used by the NT authors to refer to anyone but God, Paul uses it once in Phillipians to refer to people who have money as their "god", but that is the one exception I can think of.2) This is talking about God who doesn't want everyone to come to believe in Jesus because he wants his enemies to burn for his glory, which is kind-off a dick move IMO.
