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I was wondering if we could get a community discussion on your headcanons for the Emperor's divinity, and what you think are hints that point to the Emperor's divinity, and hints that point against the Emperor's divinity. More than just "The Emperor said he wasn't", because on the flipside Lorgar said "Only the truly divine deny their divinity". And if the Emperor was just an incredibly powerful psyker and nothing more, then how come someone like Malcador wasn't even on his level, if your argument is "he was an incredibly powerful psyker", which Malcador was as well.

There's always a counter to every argument. Cuz you know, 40k and all that.

I'd like to hear your own personal opinions on the topic.

It comes down to a pretty straightforward decision.
Do you consider a being of sufficient power to be divine? Or is there some other criterion required before something is considered divine?

Due to the Emperor's immense power, you can see why some might consider him divine. I think it is not what we think today is divinity, as the Emperor's power definitely has limits and was often channeled through science or the political power he holds. We don't tend to think of God having to get stuff done with big machines or lobbying.

But even the Chaos Gods are not really the same as the modern conception of divinity. They too are just extremely powerful Warp entities. But with their esoteric and mysterious powers and ability to spontaneously create "lifeforms", they are closer to a modern conception of divinity.

So in my view, the people who worship the God Emperor are not stupid, there are reasons to do so. And the people who reject his divinity and worship Chaos are also not stupid, there are reasons to do so. The setting is better that way!

Arguments for:

"If it looks like a God, walks like a God and quacks like a God... well you can draw conclusions on your own."

the emperor does neither, atleast not from a classic theistic viewpoint

The answer is NO. The introduction of Perpetuals definitely expanded the lore in more mystical ways, and the Emperor is simply a powerful Perpetual who is also a psyker.

No divinity to see there.

 LorgarWasRight wrote:
And if the Emperor was just an incredibly powerful psyker and nothing more, then how come someone like Malcador wasn't even on his level, if your argument is "he was an incredibly powerful psyker", which Malcador was as well.

... because the Emperor was an even more powerful psyker than Malcador?

Don't see why Malc being powerful means the Emperor can't be even more powerful.

Well, what’s the measure for Divinity here? Do we have an agreed definition, or at least a starting point there of?

Can a being be Divine without being a God? Are we talking God or god?

Are there specific behaviours or actions? After all, The Emperor created species (Primarchs, Thunder Warriors, Astartes). But using technology. Does that matter or not? To quote Terry Pratchett - just because you know how it’s done, doesn’t stop it being magic.

The vocabulary says a divinity is "a being worshipped like a God" and a God is "a supernatural being, who is worshipped as the controller of some part of the universe or some aspect of life in the world or is the personification of some force", so because the Emperor is actually a supernatural being worshipped like a God by the mankind, he is actually a God, the God of the Imperium of Mankind.

 LorgarWasRight wrote:
I was wondering if we could get a community discussion on your headcanons for the Emperor's divinity, and what you think are hints that point to the Emperor's divinity, and hints that point against the Emperor's divinity. More than just "The Emperor said he wasn't", because on the flipside Lorgar said "Only the truly divine deny their divinity". And if the Emperor was just an incredibly powerful psyker and nothing more, then how come someone like Malcador wasn't even on his level, if your argument is "he was an incredibly powerful psyker", which Malcador was as well.

There's always a counter to every argument. Cuz you know, 40k and all that.

I'd like to hear your own personal opinions on the topic.

I would say yes, he was in m31, and in m41 almost certainly is, "a god" by most reasonable definitions of the word, but not "God" in a Judaeo-Christian sense (ie "capital-G God").

first off, he wasn't just a "incredibly powerful psyker", he was so far beyond the everyone else, that he held the strain of keeping the collapsed webway shut for years, a task that literally killed what i understand to be the 2nd most powerful known pysker in a single day. He has power basically beyond the understanding of everyone else, including his own closest allies (after all, Horus, his closest and greatest son, thought he could beat the Emperor).

in short, he has a level of power that approaches Clarke's Third Law levels, I.e. "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic", or in this case "any sufficiently powerful being is indistinguishable form divinity".


A lot of dakkanauts might baulk at calling him a god, but i'd argue that basically stems form the majority of them being form Judaeo-Christian backgrounds, where their is only one God, and He is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. When compared to that (incredibly high) metric, naturally he falls short, but so do the Chaos Gods as well, though they come closer by virtue of not being tied to a single physical presence. If you compare the Emperor to the powers attributed to, say, the members of the Greco-Roman Pantheons, or the Norse Gods, I'd say he's as powerful as those gods were.

The Roman emperors were sometimes worshipped as gods, and to the vast majority of the population, the distinction between "God" and "Emperor" was of little import:

"An incredibly powerful being, who resides in a remote. but seemingly wonderous place, and to whose will you were beholden, and whose laws you must follow. if you angered them by breaking those laws, they would curse you until you appeased them with offerings."

form the point of view of the plebs, that description works for Gods, and the Emperor. I would posit that even during the age of rationality that the great Crusade was supposed to be, many, many humans would have similar feelings about the Emperor.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 LorgarWasRight wrote:
And if the Emperor was just an incredibly powerful psyker and nothing more, then how come someone like Malcador wasn't even on his level, if your argument is "he was an incredibly powerful psyker", which Malcador was as well.

... because the Emperor was an even more powerful psyker than Malcador?

Don't see why Malc being powerful means the Emperor can't be even more powerful.

The Emperor was on levels way above even Malcador. The Emperor was something more. The argument that "The Emperor was just more powerful" isn't so cut and dry because the Emperor could do things that Malcador could not. They weren't the same in terms of psychic power.

The Emperor can't be just a human, because just a human, Malcador, could not do what the Emperor could do, and Malcador had immense psychic power, rivaled potentially only by Magnus.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

xerxeskingofking wrote:

 LorgarWasRight wrote:
I was wondering if we could get a community discussion on your headcanons for the Emperor's divinity, and what you think are hints that point to the Emperor's divinity, and hints that point against the Emperor's divinity. More than just "The Emperor said he wasn't", because on the flipside Lorgar said "Only the truly divine deny their divinity". And if the Emperor was just an incredibly powerful psyker and nothing more, then how come someone like Malcador wasn't even on his level, if your argument is "he was an incredibly powerful psyker", which Malcador was as well.

There's always a counter to every argument. Cuz you know, 40k and all that.

I'd like to hear your own personal opinions on the topic.

I would say yes, he was in m31, and in m41 almost certainly is, "a god" by most reasonable definitions of the word, but not "God" in a Judaeo-Christian sense (ie "capital-G God").

first off, he wasn't just a "incredibly powerful psyker", he was so far beyond the everyone else, that he held the strain of keeping the collapsed webway shut for years, a task that literally killed what i understand to be the 2nd most powerful known pysker in a single day. He has power basically beyond the understanding of everyone else, including his own closest allies (after all, Horus, his closest and greatest son, thought he could beat the Emperor).

in short, he has a level of power that approaches Clarke's Third Law levels, I.e. "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic", or in this case "any sufficiently powerful being is indistinguishable form divinity".


A lot of dakkanauts might baulk at calling him a god, but i'd argue that basically stems form the majority of them being form Judaeo-Christian backgrounds, where their is only one God, and He is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. When compared to that (incredibly high) metric, naturally he falls short, but so do the Chaos Gods as well, though they come closer by virtue of not being tied to a single physical presence. If you compare the Emperor to the powers attributed to, say, the members of the Greco-Roman Pantheons, or the Norse Gods, I'd say he's as powerful as those gods were.

The Roman emperors were sometimes worshipped as gods, and to the vast majority of the population, the distinction between "God" and "Emperor" was of little import:

"An incredibly powerful being, who resides in a remote. but seemingly wonderous place, and to whose will you were beholden, and whose laws you must follow. if you angered them by breaking those laws, they would curse you until you appeased them with offerings."

form the point of view of the plebs, that description works for Gods, and the Emperor. I would posit that even during the age of rationality that the great Crusade was supposed to be, many, many humans would have similar feelings about the Emperor.

Phenomenal post. I agree 100% with this.

Games Workshop well understood that a multipolar world of squabbling forces is narratively infinitely more interesting than the conception of an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-judging, ever-present deity as in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Warhammer Fantasy's medieval-renaissance Europe sported a Pagan pantheon, as did Araby sport a fantasy version of its real world counterpart's pre-Islamic religion.

While omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent divinity might scratch a religious itch of many believers in these very human-centred faiths, it actually makes less sense when looking at the chaotic natural world than a supernatural interpretation of reality as depending on fractious and infighting gangs of gods, titans and monsters do.



40k and its gods is firmly planted in an ancient, polytheistic worldbuilding. As such, most gods are tribal gods, like the C'tan of the Necrons, Gork and Mork of the Orks, the Eldar pantheon or the Imperator of mankind. The Old Testament Jahve carry a great many hallmarks of his origin as yet another tribal god (like the multitude of Baals of the Syrians and Ashur of the Assyrians or Marduk of the Babylonians).



So, let's check off the criteria for godhood: Is the Emperor immortal? Is he powerful? Is he worshipped by his tribe, namely humanity?

Yep, that's a god alright.

Lorgar: 1 Emperor: 0



Bonus reading highly pertinent to understanding folk religiosity in Warhammer 40'000

LorgarWasRight wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 LorgarWasRight wrote:
And if the Emperor was just an incredibly powerful psyker and nothing more, then how come someone like Malcador wasn't even on his level, if your argument is "he was an incredibly powerful psyker", which Malcador was as well.

... because the Emperor was an even more powerful psyker than Malcador?

Don't see why Malc being powerful means the Emperor can't be even more powerful.

The Emperor was on levels way above even Malcador. The Emperor was something more.

That's exactly what I just described. He was something more - a more powerful psyker.

The argument that "The Emperor was just more powerful" isn't so cut and dry because the Emperor could do things that Malcador could not. They weren't the same in terms of psychic power.

That's exactly what I just said! I explicitly said that the Emperor was more powerful than Malcador, that they were on entirely different levels of psychic power. I don't understand why it's impossible that the Emperor *wasn't* an incredibly powerful psyker, even more so than Malc, to the point where his power could be considered godlike.

After all, by your logic, Malcador can do things other psykers can't - does that make him a god?

The Emperor can't be just a human, because just a human, Malcador, could not do what the Emperor could do, and Malcador had immense psychic power, rivaled potentially only by Magnus.

Malcador can do things that, say, Ravenor, a normal human, can't. Does that mean that Malcador can't be a human? What a bizarre line of logic.

It's totally possible the Emperor is a human. Even if Big E is "just" a human, that doesn't mean his power can't be orders of magnitude greater than Malcador's. I'm not sure why you seem to put the power "barrier" so low.

Generally speaking, I'm undecided and frankly don't care too much if the Emperor was divine or not. But this idea that "he couldn't have been a human, because he was stronger than other humans" is a slippery slope - Malcador could do things that other humans couldn't: does that make Malcador a god too?

Well, he has many features/abilities that suggest he isn't only human, whether you consider a perpetual as human for example would be a debate to have.

Also, are the primarchs human? They were made from his genetic stock, if he is human, surely they are too, or some derivative of human, as well as the custodes which I think many would agree are not human, or again, are no longer human at the very least.

However I do agree, you cannot categorically say he is not human, but I would personally suggest he is not, or no longer is at least.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

LorgarWasRight wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 LorgarWasRight wrote:
And if the Emperor was just an incredibly powerful psyker and nothing more, then how come someone like Malcador wasn't even on his level, if your argument is "he was an incredibly powerful psyker", which Malcador was as well.

... because the Emperor was an even more powerful psyker than Malcador?

Don't see why Malc being powerful means the Emperor can't be even more powerful.

The Emperor was on levels way above even Malcador. The Emperor was something more.

That's exactly what I just described. He was something more - a more powerful psyker.

The argument that "The Emperor was just more powerful" isn't so cut and dry because the Emperor could do things that Malcador could not. They weren't the same in terms of psychic power.

That's exactly what I just said! I explicitly said that the Emperor was more powerful than Malcador, that they were on entirely different levels of psychic power. I don't understand why it's impossible that the Emperor *wasn't* an incredibly powerful psyker, even more so than Malc, to the point where his power could be considered godlike.

After all, by your logic, Malcador can do things other psykers can't - does that make him a god?

The Emperor can't be just a human, because just a human, Malcador, could not do what the Emperor could do, and Malcador had immense psychic power, rivaled potentially only by Magnus.

Malcador can do things that, say, Ravenor, a normal human, can't. Does that mean that Malcador can't be a human? What a bizarre line of logic.

It's totally possible the Emperor is a human. Even if Big E is "just" a human, that doesn't mean his power can't be orders of magnitude greater than Malcador's. I'm not sure why you seem to put the power "barrier" so low.

Generally speaking, I'm undecided and frankly don't care too much if the Emperor was divine or not. But this idea that "he couldn't have been a human, because he was stronger than other humans" is a slippery slope - Malcador could do things that other humans couldn't: does that make Malcador a god too?

I wonder if the fact that the Emperor is immortal, something that falls in line with what modern humanity sees as being a necessity for godhood, coincides with the rest of your argument of him just being a normal human/psyker. Before you bring up the perpetuals, again, the Emperor was far above them in terms of psychic power. In terms of everything, really. He could do things not even other perpetuals could do. You just lump the Emperor with everyone else and fail to take into account just how separated he is from the rest of everyone. From his immortality to his psychic ability. He was something more. And that's the keyword. He was more. He was so far separated from everyone else. From what others could do.

Frankly, if you lump the Emperor in with everyone else, of course he isn't a god. He fits snug within your argument. But if you look at him from an outside perspective, and look at who he is, what he does, he falls well into a league of his own.

I mean, not to be funny, but Jesus Of Nazareth, The Christ, God the Son, was "just" a human.

on a less dismissive note,

That's exactly what I just said! I explicitly said that the Emperor was more powerful than Malcador, that they were on entirely different levels of psychic power. I don't understand why it's impossible that the Emperor *wasn't* an incredibly powerful psyker, even more so than Malc, to the point where his power could be considered godlike.

After all, by your logic, Malcador can do things other psykers can't - does that make him a god?

our point is, if he's in possession of "Godlike" power, what makes him NOT a god? what does he have to do to gain that title? Myself and the OP both seem to think he has reached a power level where the distinction "incredibly powerful" and "divinely powerful" effectively comes down your personal choice of adverb you use as a intensifier. It appears you feel that he needs to show something else to be worthy of godhood. what is it?

and, given the ability of faith in the God-Emperor in m41 to have tangible effects on reality, even if he wasnt a god in the Great Crusade, has he now become one in m41?

endlesswaltz123 wrote:Well, he has many features/abilities that suggest he isn't only human, whether you consider a perpetual as human for example would be a debate to have.

I'd say being Perpetual and human isn't mutually exclusive.

Also, are the primarchs human? They were made from his genetic stock, if he is human, surely they are too, or some derivative of human, as well as the custodes which I think many would agree are not human, or again, are no longer human at the very least.

Transhuman or posthuman, I would say.

However I do agree, you cannot categorically say he is not human, but I would personally suggest he is not, or no longer is at least.

Oh exactly, I don't mean to categorically say anything! If you don't believe he is, I can't exactly disprove you - I'm just saying that the "but he's stronger than everyone else!" argument doesn't really hold much water.

LorgarWasRight wrote:I wonder if the fact that the Emperor is immortal, something that falls in line with what modern humanity sees as being a necessity for godhood, coincides with the rest of your argument of him just being a normal human/psyker.

Is Oll Persson a god? Is Erda a god? Is Vulkan a god?

I don't think immortality is required to be a god, FWIW. So, already, we're having to deal with very different definitions of godhood.

Before you bring up the perpetuals, again, the Emperor was far above them in terms of psychic power. In terms of everything, really. He could do things not even other perpetuals could do.

Yeah. I guess he was just a very powerful psychic Perpetual!

I hope you can see what argument I'm making here - power alone doesn't make divinity. The Emperor is more powerful than, say, Vulkan, but Vulkan is astronomically more powerful than a baseline human. To a baseline human, Vulkan should class as a god.

You just lump the Emperor with everyone else and fail to take into account just how separated he is from the rest of everyone. From his immortality to his psychic ability. He was something more. And that's the keyword. He was more. He was so far separated from everyone else. From what others could do.

I'm not disputing that, I literally said it myself. What you don't seem to understand is that doesn't mean for a second that it means he's necessarily a god.

I am many many many orders of magnitude more powerful than an ant or flea, but I'm not a god. Being more powerful is just that - being more powerful. Unless you define divinity as a big "you must have THIS much power to be a god", power alone don't mean nothing.

Frankly, if you lump the Emperor in with everyone else, of course he isn't a god. He fits snug within your argument. But if you look at him from an outside perspective, and look at who he is, what he does, he falls well into a league of his own.

But I never "lumped him in with everyone else" any more so than you're lumping Malcador in with everyone else.

Look at it logically - *why* aren't you lumping him in with everyone else in the first place? Do you lump Malcador in with everyone else? You need a reason for why you didn't lump him in in the first place, otherwise, you're not exactly examining fairly.

xerxeskingofking wrote:I mean, not to be funny, but Jesus Of Nazareth, The Christ, God the Son, was "just" a human.

Well, you're dealing with real world faith there - Jesus of Nazareth was definitely a human, it's unconfirmed exactly if he was the Son of God, and is a matter of personal faith.

So, uh, I'd suggest not trying to use real religion here.

our point is, if he's in possession of "Godlike" power, what makes him NOT a god?

I'm not denying that at all. I definitely agree with the idea that, at a certain power level, power becomes indistinguishable from divinity, and ultimately, are the same thing. However, we don't have a cut off on what exactly that power level is. There is no hard line between "very very powerful mortal" and "god".

But that comes with the idea that one could be human AND divine, which seems to be something OP doesn't seem to like.

Myself and the OP both seem to think he has reached a power level where the distinction "incredibly powerful" and "divinely powerful" effectively comes down your personal choice of adverb you use as a intensifier. It appears you feel that he needs to show something else to be worthy of godhood. what is it?

No, I absolutely agree that incredibly powerful and divinely powerful do, at a point, become one and the same. The question becomes "what is that point" - and I don't have an answer to it. But, as it seems, neither does OP. My issue is that OP seems to suggest that humans are incapable of such power, and uses circular logic to do so.

They claim that "the Emperor is a god, because no human could have that much power"
When asked why a human can't have that much power, they say "because the Emperor isn't a human"
When asked why the Emperor isn't human, they say "because they have so much power".

As you can see - circular logic.

Essentially, I'm not agreeing or disagreeing that the Emperor is, or is not, a god. I frankly don't care either way, because there's no functional difference in my mind between mortal power and divine power. What I am objecting to is this idea that the Emperor simply cannot be an extremely extremely extremely powerful (to the point of godhood) human.

and, given the ability of faith in the God-Emperor in m41 to have tangible effects on reality, even if he wasnt a god in the Great Crusade, has he now become one in m41?

Functionally, I don't care if he's a god or not. He manipulates reality to some degree, whether through divine or sheer psychic power, I don't care for.

My main issue is that there is no use pointing at the Emperor and Malcador and saying "the Emperor is more powerful! that makes him a god!" because it only proves that the Emperor is stronger than Malcador. Nothing else has been proven. It's a weak argument. Instead, one needs to question "what is the power level that turns from sheer mortal power to divine power, and is there a difference"? Essentially, asking to quantify a god, which I don't believe is possible.

Hence why I really don't care for an actual answer.

I suppose the real crux of the argument for or against is the nature of his powers.

He is a perpetual, does that grant you divine powers? The suggestion in the text they do not... However, is perpetual a mutation that makes you no longer human, or evidence of some form of ascension, maybe not fully god but somewhere on the scale in between. That could be debated.

The second main point to consider is his powers, specifically his psychic powers. Does having a certain level above and beyond go from powerful to godlike? Is there a threshold to surpass and has he passed that? If we accept that daemon princes ascend and become more powerful in some form, and this is influenced/powered via the warp, then a very powerful warp wielder is on some scope divine and godlike. Maybe Malcador and Magnus were also on the scale?

Related to the above, are all of his powers derived from being a psyker/drawn from the warp? Text would suggest that is the case, but maybe you could argue some are not psychic powers? His ability to influence or change his appearance for the person looking? They may be psychic powers, but if they are not they are ‘godlike’ powers.

Good thread, enjoying reading the debate.

What is indisputably a god in the 40k universe?

The Emperor is not made of warpstuff like the Chaos Gods and has different powers. He is not that kind of god. Belief in him does not appear to alter his power, as he would the be more powerful under Imperial Creed than Imperial Truth. Thus he does not work like Chaos Gods and Gork or possibly Mork.

Perhaps his position on the matter should be taken as there are no gods at all, only powerful material or extra dimensional beings and neither should be worshiped? He is not a god because there are no gods, but he is beyond any being with whom share a single power?

It all depends on the definiation of god or divine, using the one above works well because yes he is divine because he is worshipped as as god, doesn’t actually change the fact he is a corpse on life support. Doesn’t grant him special powers or gifts or change him in anyway. He is just worshipped.

Is he the same as the chaos gods, no. That’s a different definition of a god. They are sentient manifestations of emotion in the warp with no power or ability in the materium. They are too are worshipped but they are very different “beings” that’s the emperor and there is room for both in the setting.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And don’t give me this perpetual rubbish, when they let his corpse actually die the star child is ready to be reborn!

Andykp wrote:
It all depends on the definiation of god or divine, using the one above works well because yes he is divine because he is worshipped as as god, doesn’t actually change the fact he is a corpse on life support. Doesn’t grant him special powers or gifts or change him in anyway. He is just worshipped.

Is he the same as the chaos gods, no. That’s a different definition of a god. They are sentient manifestations of emotion in the warp with no power or ability in the materium. They are too are worshipped but they are very different “beings” that’s the emperor and there is room for both in the setting.
[…]

I think that because the Chaos Gods are actually worshipped by their cultists, the definition of God I posted before can works also for them and if they weren't worshipped, we can still use that definition, simply changing the word "worshipped" with the word "perceived", due to the fact they are the personification of a certain aspect of the life: Slaanesh is the personification of the lust, Korne is the personification of the violence…

 Cybtroll wrote:
The answer is NO. The introduction of Perpetuals definitely expanded the lore in more mystical ways, and the Emperor is simply a powerful Perpetual who is also a psyker.

No divinity to see there.

Except no other known Perpetual insured belief in him to the point that those with a strong faith could manifest psychic powers to combat daemons. Keeler does this when a daemon appears on Vengeful Spirit , and during the Siege of Terra shrines built to the Emperor ward off a nurgle plague. The current Legion of the Damned fluff strongly suggests that the marines belief in serving Him and of dying before their purpose was complete creates a psychic phenomenon essentially summing them at the moment of greatest need.

Daemons borrow power from their respective god , who is in turn fuelled by their own version of belief and worship , which is essentially the same idea as Imperial Saints except they are rarer and more powerful than most daemons.

 TwilightSparkles wrote:

 Cybtroll wrote:
The answer is NO. The introduction of Perpetuals definitely expanded the lore in more mystical ways, and the Emperor is simply a powerful Perpetual who is also a psyker.

No divinity to see there.

Except no other known Perpetual insured belief in him to the point that those with a strong faith could manifest psychic powers to combat daemons. Keeler does this when a daemon appears on Vengeful Spirit , and during the Siege of Terra shrines built to the Emperor ward off a nurgle plague. The current Legion of the Damned fluff strongly suggests that the marines belief in serving Him and of dying before their purpose was complete creates a psychic phenomenon essentially summing them at the moment of greatest need.

Daemons borrow power from their respective god , who is in turn fuelled by their own version of belief and worship , which is essentially the same idea as Imperial Saints except they are rarer and more powerful than most daemons.

Chaos gods aren’t fuelled by worship, they are fuelled by emotions. That is what they are. Worship generates those emotions but Khorne is fuelled by wrath and violence and anger even when those emotions aren’t felt by people worshipping him or have no perception of the god as most humans don’t. Those emotions still go to be manifest in the warp and coalesce into the gods, the eldar didn’t worship slaanesh, slaanesh didn’t exist. Their emotions gave existence to slaanesh and still do.

There is no definite cause and effect to imperial “miracles”. Many are just fantasy and wishful thinking and there is deliberate ambiguity around if the emperor has anything to do with them. Most can be passed of warp manifestations, gestalt psychic ability or luck.

Like others have pointed out it all comes down to the definition of divinity. I feel like good arguments have been made on both sides. I have only one more to add I think. The Emperor does have angels. Or deamons. Or whatever you want to call it, in the form of the legion of the damned. I guess it could be argued that the Sanguinior and the Fenris spirits are something similar. I know about the fire hawks theory (which is a damned good theory). If it’s correct the Fire Hawks are now so influenced by the warp that they must be considered warp entities. Even so they serve the Emperor. So yeah, my argument: he is the only entity we know of, except the chaos gods, that has deamons who serve him.

Edit: some people have brought up the parallel between chaos boons and the miracles of the sisters of battle. I’m a bit sceptical on that one. Yes they do amazing things. it’s also things that should be affecting other servants of the Emperor. Like the custodes, marines, pious individuals or particularly pious guard regiments. Or even the Frateris Milita. I feel like divine boons shouldn’t be so limited to a single faction, then I’d rather explain it on other ways. I do remember the power of pure faith in dark heresy (the fantasy flight TRPG). It was basically the ability to have miracles happen and could be done by everyone without chaos corruption.

 Nerak wrote:
Like others have pointed out it all comes down to the definition of divinity. I feel like good arguments have been made on both sides. I have only one more to add I think. The Emperor does have angels. Or deamons. Or whatever you want to call it, in the form of the legion of the damned. I guess it could be argued that the Sanguinior and the Fenris spirits are something similar. I know about the fire hawks theory (which is a damned good theory). If it’s correct the Fire Hawks are now so influenced by the warp that they must be considered warp entities. Even so they serve the Emperor. So yeah, my argument: he is the only entity we know of, except the chaos gods, that has deamons who serve him.

Edit: some people have brought up the parallel between chaos boons and the miracles of the sisters of battle. I’m a bit sceptical on that one. Yes they do amazing things. it’s also things that should be affecting other servants of the Emperor. Like the custodes, marines, pious individuals or particularly pious guard regiments. Or even the Frateris Milita. I feel like divine boons shouldn’t be so limited to a single faction, then I’d rather explain it on other ways. I do remember the power of pure faith in dark heresy (the fantasy flight TRPG). It was basically the ability to have miracles happen and could be done by everyone without chaos corruption.

It's worth noting that this is theoretical also, and not proven in the lore, but suggested. It is also suggested that Celestine is a daemon prince(ss) of the emperor of sorts, however there is evidence to contradict this, namely she does not seem to have any issue maintaining he form outside of the warp, and also that she has been possessed by a greater daemon in recent times (or partially possessed, I don't think the full ritual completed) which you would not expect of a daemon of sorts, especially a powerful one of daemon prince level.

However, it may be possible for daemons to possess other daemons... In which case that is a decent sub topic and divergence in this thread that should be debated in another thread potentially.