In an ultimate sense, this is a just a subset of "the problem of evil" - and its existence At All; but most of the attempted explanations of the presence of evil in this world are focused upon human beings. Apparently; many mainstream Christians (although not me) are sufficiently satisfied by the traditional explanation that human evil is a consequence of 1. human free will (granted by God) and 2. The Fall; plus 3. that there is always a possibility that mortal humans may repent and accept salvation.
It is this possibility that any human who is currently committed to evil may, nonetheless, repent and accept salvation that serves to explain why such humans are not annihilated or incarcerated somewhere where they can do no harm.
So; most orthodox Christians believe that evil demons are real, and that they have a harmful effect on this world; but that they cannot ever repent.
This creates a contradiction.
It seems obvious (?) that any Good God who had the power to do so (as an Omni-god does, be definition); would decisively sequester such evil beings somewhere where they could not corrupt or damn human beings.
That God does not do; and allows demons access to humans, implies either that God is not Good, or that God is not "Omni".
[Note added: To clarify, here I am not trying to refute the orthodox explanation of the existence of demons in the first place. This, in traditional orthodoxy is usually a matter of angels being conceived as a separate creation from Men. Upon having been created, these angels then use their free will to choose evil - they become fallen-angels. This fall is then regarded a - according to the attributed nature of angelic beings - a permanent condition. What I am instead saying here is focused on the question of what God does about fallen-angels/ demons, after they have arisen.]
Maybe this is why so many modern Christians who cleave to the definition of God as wholly Good and "Omni" tend to deny the reality of traditionally-understood demons. Instead they (seem to) regard demons ("if they really exist") as merely confused, misguided and "disturbed" spirits who might attain salvation; or in some other way as only-partly-evil, or reversibly-evil.
Or else such Christians fall back on the "God's Goodness is total but un-understandable by Men" argument; which leaves the Christian "God-is-Good" deity indistinguishable from the Islamic concept of "Good is God".
Such are the ways in which the stark contradiction of traditional Christian theology when it comes to demons is obscured; and concealed behind imprecision, and complexity of (only vaguely-understood) abstractions.
NOTE: I intend to present an alternative metaphysics to explain permanently-evil demon-spirits and their continued operations in this world; in a soon-to-be-published post - which will be referenced back to the above argument.
I'm looking forward to your alternative metaphysics however for now my sense is that demons *can* repent. It's just that in doing so they die (in one host at least). They're terrified of love because if a host notices them, sees them for what they are and offers love anyway then they can't help but repent and wink out of existence. It's a sort of corollary to the fact that they have to be invited in in the first place.
ReplyDelete@Ron - I am here focused upon the orthodox-traditional conception of demons. Your conceptualization falls into a different category, by which "demons" are not actually never-incarnated spirits of a separate creation and nature from humans - i.e. your suggested demons are - at least wrt evil - not qualitatively different from evil humans, except in that they are extinguished by repentance. You would then need to explain *why* a Good God created such beings, for whom repentance is - in effect - punished.
ReplyDeleteI recommend looking into the work of Michael Heiser. https://drmsh.com/. His work has brought to light what I find is a much cleaner and more biblical understanding of Demons and Angels.
ReplyDeleteDemons are the disembodied spirits of the Nephlem, children of man and fallen angels. Demons had their chance at redemption like Lucifer. Those that accepted were spared in the great preload war between the nephlem.thos that rejected God are what we call "Demons" today as there physical bodies were destroyed in the battle and flood.
Because story needs antagonists?
ReplyDelete@IAMS - Yes, but you have not addressed my point.
ReplyDeleteAp - Surely there is no shortage of "antagonists" in mortal life - what will (more and less) evil Men, and the multitude of natural constraints and disasters; plus entropy (disease, ageing, death)? Surely no necessity to add totally-evil, non-excludable, non-exterminable, spirit demons?
To your point, I belive you are making a false statement due to the nature of what a "demon" is. If the demon is the disembodied spirit of the nephlem then it had its chance ate redemption prior to death.
Delete"Demon" is the start of failed redemption, not a lack of chance to obtain it. The unrepentant nephlem were doomed to earth as they had no place in heaven and their was only Sheol but Sheol was made for man not angel and not nephlem.
However they will go to the lake of fire in the end of days.
@IAMS - If you actually read the article, you will see the definition of demons under examination is that of orthodox traditional Christian theology - and the purpose of the post is to discuss how this contradicts (IMO) the orthodox traditional definition of God.
DeleteThe post is Not about the actual nature of all types of demons.
Apologies I just can't help being more interested in what is true than who believes what! I do realise you're going beyond that and I am interested to know what your idea of demons is and how it arises out of your schema.
ReplyDeleteI think the traditional view is that demons are fallen angels. Mine, which I haven't really thought through, is that demons are mental parasites that arise out of a lack of love.
We aren't normally consciously aware of them but they operate through us, having no bodies of their own. They sometimes control our behaviour so in that sense they are incarnated I suppose. They hate existence and creation and so God is giving them what they truly desire when they are extinguished. I suppose what they are repenting of is corrupting a human being and thereby trying to corrupt further human beings. They operate in the dark, cooperating neither with us nor with each other much and this is what hell is: everything grinding against everything else in a big waste of energy.
Perhaps mine is a limited conception corresponding roughly to the nephilim of the Old Testament.
@Ron - I have written about demons before, including in recent years, if you do a word search.
ReplyDeleteYou may not be so interested as you expect by the forthcoming post! - I have nothing different to say about what demons are (i.e. wholly evil spirits) or the kind of things they do; which are what really matters. It's just a matter of trying to answer a few nagging questions of my own, and explaining them in very general metaphysical terms.
I think it was Chesterton who pointed out that a strong person cannot be brave; it takes a weak person to be brave. If God had created only strong persons, there would not be any room for the virtue of bravery.
ReplyDeleteThe larger point is that any blemish on Creation (including demons) is an opportunity for greater virtues to arise. A point more beautifully pictured in the Ainulindale. The whole concern with the Problem of Evil (of which your post, as you say, is a subset) is predicated on a conceptualization of Good and Evil (at least when written in caps) as context-independent. Tsunamis create enormous amounts of suffering, but they are also opportunities for enormous displays of heroism and virtue.
I always thought it was Lucifer’s evil that was hardest to explain in an Omni-Good framework, although I could give it a try: it benefits mankind to observe wholly-evil beings as we choose between the evil and good in ourselves. That is, if we are able to see total evil we are less likely to excuse, tolerate, and justify partial evil. Our rejection of evil can be more total. The demons are contained in this life by the need to be invited in: those oriented toward the good are sufficiently protected. For those not oriented toward good, perhaps becoming a victim of an evil parasite is sometimes the best medicine for repentance.
ReplyDelete@Mariner - NOt a personally-directed comment; but I'm afraid that attitude you describe strikes me as explaining-away, rather than explaining - making light of very serious and terrible things. IMO it (rightly) discredits Christianity to talk of evil in such an abstract fashion. We Must Do Better.
ReplyDelete@Mia - As I tried to clarify, I am not trying (here) to focus on the existence or occurrence of demons, or Lucifer; but that they are (on the Omni model) allowed to operate in Mens' lives on earth.
ReplyDelete"The demons are contained in this life by the need to be invited in: those oriented toward the good are sufficiently protected. "
But (in traditional orthodox theology, and also for me) we are all sinners, even the greatest saints (who often describe being plagued by demons); and we all invite evil and demons - this must be regarded as inevitable for human beings as we actually are.
With demons we are talking about demons that are regarded as nothing-but evil, and immortal, and unrelenting - there is *plenty* of evil and hardship in life, without adding these to the mix.
Bruce,
ReplyDeleteI was criticizing the treatment of evil as an abstract concept. "Why God allows the evil of X" is such a treatment. There is no hint of minimization ("making light of") in a stance that looks at evil as part of the story rather than as an independent entity.
Melkor has not yet learned, but he will learn (at the end) that all attempts to disrupt Eru's plan result in the greater glory of Arda. That does not make Melkor less evil; and we can be pretty sure that Melkor will hate and Creation even more after understanding this crucial (important word) point. But it does address your OP question (why does God allow the evil of demons, or of any X in effect).
Tolkien's "solution" to the conundrum is still (as far as I see) the best presentation of it.
@Mariner - I don't find Tolkien's (orthodox traditional Christian) explanation at all convincing - for exactly the same reasons.
ReplyDeleteEru made Melkor such that he was the most powerful Valar, and also such that he almost immediately tried to take-over creation. Thus Eru was responsible for Melkor's evil - as of course he must be responsible for every-thing, given that he created every-thing (from nothing).
When God is made by-definition responsible for everything, then God just is responsible for everything - and interposing some intervening steps makes no substantive difference.
It was a foolish error when early (self-identified, but not necessarily genuinely) Christian theologians* absolutely insisted on the omni-definition and enforced it - because the problems of contradiction it causes - for *Christianity*, specifically - are insuperable (except by confusion or deceit).
*Orthodox Christians make much of rejecting Gnosticism, but I regard mainstream orthodox Christian theologians as "poisoned" from the same well - i.e. the pre-Christian Neoplatonic mystery religions - as were the Gnostics.
True. And I’m realizing I am ignorant of a lot of the traditional claims about demons. I’ve only read a few accounts from major saints but they include things like having physical wounds inflicted or hitting demons with frying pans, in which case if demons are 100% incorporeal it suggests it is in fact pretty trivial for them to possess people and animals. And then don’t you have to question about Jesus putting a demon into a pig, as in why not just eradicate it or send it to hell? It does imply a sort of non-negotiable power (or else a hard-to-explain permissiveness by God).
ReplyDelete@Chent. Discussion is welcome, but you do first need to demonstrate that you actually understand the point being made, for comments to be worth engaging with.
ReplyDeleteIn doing (real) science it has always been the case that anyone making new observations or hypotheses will do so against the background of "everybody always" having believed something else - a great weight of tradition versus, at first, one person.
This is just the way it is, always has been - and if someone is uncomfortable thinking for oneself and being in a minority of one (a minority that may be permanent); then it has *nearly* always been more profitable and prestigious to stick with the majority line, and be guided by some or another established external "authority" (an authority which you get to pick for yourself!).
Either someone wants to be a real scientist/ philosopher/ theologian, and strives to do that - or more usually somebody does not want to do this; and as compensation he gets to be part of a gang.
The angels were given great power and free will. Both were essential to God's plan. If the angels were made so that they lost their own power if they sinned (as opposed to God's sanctifying grace within them, which they could lose), then it wouldn't really have been their power at all, but merely God's. God wanted the angels to cooperate in and help perfect His Creation freely, much as Man is meant to do the same.
ReplyDeleteI think God is like a referee/coach. He has authority to punish breaches of His Law, and He eventually does so, but He tries to do so by helping those who choose to serve on His team to defeat the enemy. If He ejected everyone who broke the rules immediately, playing on His team (those who follow the rules) would be the only way to have any power at all. And God doesn't want that. He wants the people on His team to follow His rules out of love, if possible.
It goes further than that. There is some distinction between the laws that cannot be broken (like the laws of nature for us, and the 'laws of supernature' for the angels), and the laws that can, at least temporarily (the moral law). Part of our very being is that we have certain powers and operate according to certain laws, and I expect that angels are similar in that regard. If God did not accept the reality of human and angelic bad decisions, He would be negating the rules of the game that He Himself set in motion.
There would be a good in God vanquishing the demons now, as He could, but there may be a greater good in His letting Creation run for another minute. Neither one nor the other is the highest good by itself - the highest good is that either is possible, according to God's own Freedom.
@BenS - Well, I take it that yours is (pretty much) an encapsulation of the orthodox explanation I regard as incompatible with God's Goodness.
ReplyDeleteWhat I think happens with that species of explanation, is that God's Goodness and the discussion of Goodness; becomes extremely abstract, generalized, and remote from actual human experiences.
In this instance, the problem is an actual evil-spirit; whose nature is evil, who is incapable of love, whose life is devoted to harm, whose pleasure is the doing of harm, who "roams the world" 24/7 in pursuit of such goals. And then, how to square the existence and continuance of such a creature and such a situation with the Omni-God concept of a Good God.
What comes across from the explanation you provide quite simple in essence; is that "Good" has been redefined - in order to preserve the assumption of God's Omni nature. Its description of God's behaviour, evaluations, and implicit intent is not what a good human would call good, not *loving* - Not how the ideal Father (who we can nearly all of us imagine), would behave in relation to his family.
In sum - if taken seriously - this explanation of God points away from Jesus, out of Christianity; and towards Judaism, or Islam, or a similar monotheism.