Do you possess enough knowledge of all the constituents of reality to say that such accounts are true?
Yes indeed, if we could just prove that demons exist in the first place. The argument you suggest here was used by historical Christians (who were demon believers), to try and answer the puzzling question “Where did all the demons go? Why did they seem so abundant in the first century but appear so absent from our own time”? This is such a good question that it really should be dwelt on at length.
Of course. But in the case of demons it’s a far more telling result; it casts significant doubt on their existence.
Actually I believe I’ve cited him no more than the others (I believe I’ve cited Löfstedt most frequently), but the number of times I’ve cited him is irrelevant; you need to look at all the authors I’ve cited, including the New Testament scholars and the Pentecostal who is a demon believer (John Christopher Thomas).
I realize it looks like that, but it’s connected to a broader argument. I’ll see if I can flesh it out. The fact is that people who don’t believe in demons never have a reason to believe in demons; their non-belief is never challenged by contra-indicatory evidence. If demons exist, then even people who didn’t believe in demons would still experience demonic activities.
But people in demons don’t just say “I don’t believe in demons”, or “I don’t believe demons did X”, they never experience the activities which demon believers report. They never report experiences like screaming people with spinning heads and continuous projectile vomiting, people exhibiting levitation and unnatural strength, people experiencing grotesque body contortions and speaking Latin or “unnatural” languages, people shape-changing or speaking with the identity of a demon with a funny name. They don’t say things like “My neighbour turned into a goat, how can you explain that?”.
They never experience anything for which demons are a necessary or even sufficient explanation. This would not be the case if demons existed and if these people experienced demonic affliction. Even if they didn’t believe in demons, they would need to find an explanation for the demonic behaviour. No one talks about “believing in cows”. But if you didn’t believe in cows, you’d need an incredibly good explanation for where all this milk, beef, and leather keeps coming from. This isn’t the case with demons.
That makes it all the more strange that Paul never even mentions demonic possession or exorcism in any of his letters. If he had experienced it personally, why does he never mention it?
Not at all. I don’t dismiss them, I just insist that we have to interpret them with care. Who is Luke writing to? When is he writing? Why would a demon generously give someone a gift of telling the future from which money could be made, instead of afflicting them with a disease or illness? Why isn’t the word for demon even used here, why does it refer to a “spirit of Python”? Why do Paul’s letters show no evidence of demonic possession or exorcism if it was something he had experienced for himself?
Thanks for that.
But this isn’t simply an argument from absence of evidence. This fits into a broader pattern of demonological terminology in the New Testament. Look at this distribution pattern.
- Paul’s letters, the earliest New Testament documents, show no knowledge of demonic possession or exorcism, despite him having apparently experienced it personally and despite him referring repeatedly to topics in which we would expect him to include talk of demons.
‘On the other hand, pressed by the lack of overt references to exorcism by Paul and the glaring and puzzling absence of reference to exorcism in the Fourth Gospel, it has been supposed that the early church showed a great reluctance to become involved in exorcism. Alternatively, noting particularly the contrasting perspectives of Mark and the Fourth Gospel, it could be that interest in exorcism among early Christians diminished over time.’, Twelftree, ‘In the Name of Jesus: Exorcism among Early Christians’, p. 279 (2007).
Paul’s surprisingly few references to satan (even when discussing temptation and sin), are also remarkable.
‘Several of Paul’s letters do not include the word “Satan” or any of these equivalents; these include Galatians, Philippians, Colossians, Titus, and Philemon.10 In his longest letter, the epistle to the Romans, Paul writes extensively about sin and human nature, but curiously he does not explicitly bring Satan into the equation at all. In fact he mentions Satan only once in this letter, in the closing section (16:20). If Paul had a worldview characterized by cosmological dualism, where God is engaged in a battle with his evil counterpart for human souls, we would expect him to emphasize the role Satan has in causing people to sin. This is what he does not do in Romans.’, Löfstedt, ‘Paul, Sin and Satan : The Root of Evil according to Romans’, Svensk Exegetisk Årsbok (75.111), 2010.
- Demonological terminology in the New Testament is confined almost exclusively to the Synoptics and Acts; demonic possession certainly is.
'Less striking, but also deserving some comment, is the relative silence regarding exorcism in the post-Easter church and its mission. In contrast to the commission given to his disciples when they shared in his pre-Easter mission (Mark 6:7/Matthew 10:1/Luke 9:1), Jesus’ final commission makes no mention of exorcism (Matthew 28:18-20; Luke 24:46-9; John 20:21-3; Acts 1:8). 35 Acts mentions exorcisms of the first Christian missionaries only twice (Acts 8:7, 16:16-18, cf.19: 11-20). And exorcisms are never given specific mention in any of the other New Testament documents - though it is by no means impossible, of course, that they are included in such passages as Romans 15:19,1 Corinthians 12:9f and Hebrews 2:4’, Dunn & Twelftree, ‘Demon-Possession and Exorcism in The New Testament’, Churchman (94.221), 1980.
‘It is a surprising fact that reference in the NT epistles to daimonia is limited to just four verses (1 Cor. 10.20-21; 1 Tim. 4.1; Jas. 2.19). The distinct impression from this is that although many problems confronted the earliest Christian congregations, a fear of demons or oppression by them was not one of them. In the Synoptic tradition the terminology is far from standardized. But among the other NT writers the situation only becomes more complicated and uncertain (see appendix 1).’, Whalen, ‘Jesus and the Impurity of Spirits in the Synoptic Gospels’, p. 5 (2004).
‘Our third conclusion from examining the New Testament data is that, over time, there appears to have been a diminution of interest in exorcism.’, Twelftree, ‘In the Name of Jesus: Exorcism among Early Christians’, p. 283 (2007).
- John’s gospel shows no evidence of demons or demonic possession.
‘If exorcisms were so important for Jesus, we should not ignore a rather puzzling fact on which we have not so far commented - the absence of exorcism from John’s Gospel. Why does the Fourth Evangelist disregard Jesus’ exorcisms so completely?’, Dunn & Twelftree, ‘Demon-Possession and Exorcism in The New Testament’, Churchman (94.220), 1980.
Meanwhile satan is marginalized to the point of near non-existence; in fact some scholars believe John has completely demythologized satan so it isn’t even a supernatural being anymore.
‘Nor does the devil enjoy the uncontested pomp he once enjoyed. He has been shown up and shoved out and should not figure any more as a central reality in believers’ lives (notice his even literary marginalization in John’s Gospel: He is not frequently mentioned).', Bruner, ‘The Gospel of John: A Commentary’, p. 718 (2012).
‘But even Satan merits only one mention (13:27) when John repeats Luke’s account of how Satan entered into Judas; John sets this event at the Last Supper and not before it as Luke does. And as with the other gospels, John treats demons (chs. 7. 8, and 10) in relation to exorcisms and claims by Jesus’ enemies that he has a demon. Thus “devil” would be the operative word in this gospel. But even that word John only uses three times and twice in referring to Judas.’, Kelly, ‘Who Is Satan?: According to the Scriptures’, p. 80 (2013).
‘To be sure there are traces of the older view, that the devil is a personified creature (e.g. 8:44), but one should expect such ideas because of the Weltanschauung of John’s day; however, the main thrust of this Gospel is that the devil has been demythologized.’, Brown, ‘John and Qumran’, p. 93 (1972).
- The earliest Christian texts outside the Bible (the Apostolic Fathers), show an almost complete lack of reference to demons and exorcism, and no mention at all even of Jesus’ experiences with demons.
‘In this chapter we have dealt with Clement of Rome, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Didache, Quadratus, Aristides, the Preaching of Peter, the Letter of Barnabas, and Ignatius of Antioch. In light of the view that exorcism was very important in the early church, it is remarkable that, so far, we have not come across any interest in exorcism.’, Twelftree, ‘In the Name of Jesus: Exorcism among Early Christians’, p. 229 (2007).
‘Yet, in that some of them make passing reference to Jesus’ ministry or mention demons, for example, and also especially since they were most probably aware of Synoptic traditions, it remains surprising, if not a little short of astounding, that the subject found no explicit treatment - sometimes where we could have expected it - in any of the Apostolic Fathers.’, Twelftree, ‘In the Name of Jesus: Exorcism among Early Christians’, p. 288 (2007).
I agree with Kelly.
“My own view is that demonology is deservedly vulnerable and that an insistence on it as an integral part of Christianity sets up an unnecessary stumbling block in the way of belief”. Kelly, ‘The Devil at Large’, The Journal of Religion (67.4.527), 1987.
Kelly also believes traditional views of Satan are completely unbiblical, viewing Satan as an obedient though irascible divinely appointed prosecuting angel.