Since we are living in such evil times of value-inversion - why doesn't God intervene to stop it?

(This important question - or something like it - was posed by William Wildblood in the comments to the previous post on Screwtape and Wormwood - here is my attempt to answer it concisely.)

The difficulty I am having in responding to your question may be related to the several assumptions embedded in it - for example, about our nature as Men and God's potential powers, and the purpose of mortal life.

If we accept that these in The West are the most evil times in history - in the sense that more (numerically and proportionately) people would reject salvation than ever before, due to the prevalence of value-inversion; then the first thing that strikes me is exactly that Men do not want to be saved from their current situation - indeed they want more of the same.

The situation resembles that of loving parents whose child has left home to live with an exploitative brainwashing cult to which she has become devoted. The parents know where she is, and could go and get her - but they also know that she would strongly resist being rescued (let's say she is devoted to the cult leader who abuses and enslaves her), and if rescued would be utterly miserable and try to return to her captors.

The parents may write to her, may send all kinds of messages to assure their daughter of their continued love, but she will not read the messages.

God is in this situation with the added aspects that the cultists and their victims and the weeping parents are all equally his beloved children; and the children are able to deny God's existence and assume that they arise spontaneously and accidentally and have no responsibility to anybody else.

In such a situation God cannot do much more than stand ready to respond to individuals if and when he is acknowledged and asked. Or else the whole scenario can be wound-up - which is the end of this earth, and the trajectory of humanity in it arcing to a conclusion; the end of the 'experiment' of mortal life.

The prophecies are that - sooner or later - this point will be reached, and the earth and all the people on it will be ended (and a New Jerusalem arise) - and it seems that we are now in the End Times, or Latter Days as it becomes clear that the point approaches and can only be delayed but not averted.

But why does God allow the demons to work? Well, the demons are his children too; and the demons are at one end of a continuum of goodness and evil in which everyone is mixed (in Mormon theology, Satan and demons are pre-mortal spirit children who have chosen the wrong side, and are forbidden to incarnate).

I think that God's tolerance of the continued existence of demons indicates that they cannot be beyond hope of reform - across the vast timescale of eternity. God could not 'kill' demons, but they could be stripped of their powers or confined if or when they were beyond possibility of repentance - and perhaps this has indeed happened to some of them (we would not know) but the ones we do experience presumably have not reached that point.

(A microcosm of the problem God faces can be imagined if a loving Father had many children among whom there was one in particular of great ability who preyed upon, tormented and corrupted the other children; and others who were themselves similarly wicked and had chosen to side-with the one most-wicked child. There comes a point at which a loving Father will feel that he must 'write-off' (e.g. dis-able, exile, imprison, 'kill') the one worst, and perhaps some more of his more-wicked children - for the sake of the less-wicked ones. But that is a last resort, and would probably lead to an eternity of irreconcilable fear, resentment and hatred from the written-off children - and may also have a terrorizing and paralysing effect on the less-wicked children who are, after-all, themselves all somewhat wicked, and who have experienced in themselves exactly the same kind of wickedness as was more extreme in some of their siblings.)

Why are the demons not sequestered from good people? If we consider the problem from a spiritual level - I think that demons are like vampires, and can only spiritually-harm those who 'invite them in' - so the demons remain present and active in human affairs because humanity has invited them to stay and continues to want them as guests.

The earth and mortal life are partly what we need, and partly what we make of them - a mixed picture. The reasons why bad things happen are therefore manyfold and must be understood in an individualised way and from an eternal perspective of soul.

I don't think humans are cognitively capable of understanding why everything happens everywhere and to everyone, and how it all interacts. But I do believe that we can learn by revelation why this particular thing has happened to us here-and-now; if we are open to accepting the true answer when God gives it, which may not be the answer we wanted to hear.

What do demons want? What motivates them?

There are some fascinating and important reflections on this vital (literally vital) subject from William Wildblood, and following-up from WmJas Tychonievich. 

Wildblood states the basic idea:

It would be my contention that just as there is a divine plan for mankind so there is also a demonic plan... Their aim is to absorb the energy from human souls for their own benefit and use. They have cut themselves off from the source of life and need life energy to maintain their existence. So they seek to corrupt souls.

Tychonievich amplifies:

Pure spite just doesn't seem like enough of a reason for the devil to keep working tirelessly, millennium after millennium, for something that brings no benefit to him personally. It seems plausible that the devils must in some way need human damnation, that they must be soul-predators, vampires.

I comment:

This would be an extremely valuable addition to understanding positive demonic motivation. Perhaps we could look at our own evil acts and those of others - in this mortal life - to see whether an assumption of some kind of life-energy vampirism fits what we have observed. I think it does. 

Of course we can't actually perceive or physically measure what is going on - in terms of energy transfer - but it certainly seems as if this can happen. 

Furthermore, from what I have read of the dark side of the ritual magical societies of the late 19th, early 20th centuries (including what found its way into Charles Williams novels - who knew this world from experience) energy-vampirism seems to be almost exactly what dark ritual magicians were trying to do - and almost certainly sometimes did. 

This certainly supports the idea that it is what demons do; as does what I have read in (for example) David Icke and elsewhere about the kind of rituals that the Global Establishment engages in. A great advantage of knowing this is that it means we can get away from discussing 'demonic psychology' - what they like, what they want etc - which all sounds (as you say) too mushy and superficial to lead to the long-term planning and work They engage in. 

If demonic activity is seen as something more like a technological process or making a 'drug' maybe this models gets a bit closer. However I think we also need to guard against making it a one-sided 'materialist' thing as if human souls could really be treated as drugs or a fuel... 

Clearly, there must be some kind of 'consent' induced for this to happen - for the energy/ vitality transfer to occur. The victim must be induced to consent. 

 That, of course, is the Big spiritual problem of these times - the apparent large majority who consent to the evil vampiric operations being performed upon them.

How Not to be afraid of living inside the demonic electronic web

If we live in fear we have lost.

On the other hand, we already live inside an inescapable Global system of evil, administered by demonic powers and their servants and dupes - and the meshes of this web are tightening.

The good news is that we can win this battle, whatever the odds may be; and maybe even enjoy the process. 


The situation resembles one of those horror movies in which the vampires cannot enter unless invited. But this applies to our souls rather than our houses; which means we can live well in the midst of evil, so long as we don't invite it in...

Of course, sooner or later, we will invite-evil-in; given the pervasiveness of temptation. What then?

In the vampire movies, that would be the end of the matter; but in real life, people can fail and fall; but then repent and win.


We live in a spiritual war. That is the first and most important insight.

And the spiritual war is won in the end by repentance, not by indomitable strength in resistance. There is no limit to the number of defeats, of lost battles; so long as each loss is recognised, and repented the war will be won.

Repentance has unlimited power, and unlimited battery life...

So we should focus on what enables a person to repent. And that is having something better to live for.

To repent, the person must have within them (as a lived experience) something better than what is being pushed onto them from outside, by the demonic web.



The first and vital battle is over whether there really is a spiritual war.

The spiritual war was initiated by the demonic powers with the objective of denying that there is a war.

When a person becomes convinced that there is not a spiritual war, the demons have won a soul; because that person will not repent - because he regards himself as having nothing to repent.

The victory of evil will only be achieved when this outcome is regarded as a victory of Good


The point is therefore not to live a life of 100% successful resistance against overwhelming odds; but simply to know when we have been beaten.

The danger here - in the spiritual war - is not the matter of being beaten in a specific battle, but in not realising that there has-been a battle, not realising that one has-been defeated. Because on the one hand, defeats are inevitable; on the other hand, no defeat is decisive so long as it is repented. 

What is required to live in conditions of overwhelming adversity - under massively successful demonic influence - is to recognise Good and evil, and to take the side of Good. So long as that is the situation, then the individual can win any battle in an instant - and he will always be safe.

Indeed, so long as the individual knows Good from evil and recognises that it is easy to win any spiritual battle by repentance, then he is safe. He can get-on-with living, can appreciate life as best he may. He can enjoy the process of living, experiencing, learning...


Resisting evil is only the half of it, and without the other half it will fail. The other half is knowing and wanting Good.

And knowing Good is knowing God, as a person.  

Faith, Hope and Charity - these are the positive virtues; the essence of a joyful life. The life of Faith is one of Hope based upon total confidence in the power of repentance to win against any odds; and the Love of God expressed in the choice of Good.

There is no need to live in fear; and if we are living in fear - we need to think again; because our faith is defective... something needs repenting.