Damn. Well, this is a depth-charge in-waiting to blow up your magical practice. You can spend decades lost in the weeds here.
Religion is such a fraught area overall, and such a blind spot. Either people take it way too seriously, or not enough. You can spend your entire life worrying about this. Just go into ritual and take it literally, then come out and take it as a metaphor and live your life. See what real world effects you working had. If none, course correct, as better information comes in. This is a practice.
If you want to dive deep into a spiritual tradition, then do that later. We are magicians, and we all sit a bit to the side of formal religion, no matter how much we might like them on a vibe level.
OK, to get more into the weeds here.
I approach this question through a Neoplatonic lens: 'God' is that which we hold ultimately sacred. You can call that 'the gods' if you prefer, or Satan. I really don't care. If you force me to be more specific, I will align with the Neoplatonic and classical Catholic view that God is the Ground of Being - the primordial source from which all existence , and (some) thought arises.
Core to the Neoplatonic (and the Thomistic Catholic, I will add) idea is that all things participate in Being. We are participants in Being, and we can experience the Divine, even if we cannot intellectually define Being, just as a fish in water cannot even see the water to begin to define it.
I also deeply value the Catholic Apophatic tradition, the 'Negative Way.' (and Buddhist and Hindu traditions , if I am reading their texts correctly). By asserting that God is 'neti, neti' - or ‘not this, not that,’ or even Nothing at all - we avoid the trap of anthropomorphism and mythic literalism, and help make sure we don’t commit the error of turning a lesser being or a finite concept into an idol to rule over our lives.
While in this framework the something-something we call 'God' is the 'Ground of Being' , immanent/present in all things , the Catholic aophatic theology approach reminds us that 'God' is also 'wholly other,' meaning transcendent and beyond reach. This can be taken way too far into atheism, but it was originally meant to prevent your view from collapsing into simple polytheism and vitalism, and from having them dictate your life (not that bureaucratic factions in the Church don't also try to do this.).
You have to have a 'thing' that is the connective tissue from Infinite Consciousness ('God' or 'the gods') to us and the 3D world of hard matter. Moden magic ideas often does this by postualing even MORE matter - in the form of magical electricity or other fine woo-woo particulates that are somehow causative, which I think is a bit silly.
What the head of the Temple of Set, Michael Aquino, calls 'neteru' and 'Set,' and I call the 'Logos' (with much of the Stoic and Catholic aspects in place), the 'HGA', and 'Christ.'
The names are cultural expressions of similar, or even the same, core concept. I am sure Dr. Aquinio just as I do, thinks this " Human Faculty-X" is quite real at its own level (there are simlar myths in indengenous stories about human being somehow special in reality / Creation) - but I;m just piting out Dr. Aquino and I are simply t using different cultural and artistic ideas to express the same idea to our respective audince.
His audience : The Temple of Set membership and readers. Me: nobody in paticular.
