I didn’t previously, because it didn’t address what I had written (two and a quarter solid pages on a topic irrelevant to the topic under discussion). But since you have asked, here you are.
As I have already pointed out, I’ve given you evidence of how Greek is taught in North America as well as the UK.
They don’t have to. The 1968 edition has been available online, free of charge, since at least 1995. Even better, the complete LSJ9 (with supplement), has been available online free of charge (and searchable), since 2007.
I bought my intermediate LSJ second hand. It didn’t cost me US$50. I don’t think it even cost me half that much.
I didn’t show you that, I showed you BDAG on lists of required texts. The Reformed Theological Seminary in Houston requires first year Greek students to use BDAG. It’s on the list of required texts, not “optional reference books”. Likewise, the Royal Holloway University of London first year Greek course has the intermediate LSJ9 on its list of required texts. To drive the point home, they describe the intermediate LSJ9 “the one we use in class and in the exam”. So I’m seeing clear evidence from both North America and the UK, of first year Greek students being required to purchase and use lexicons like BDAG and LSJ9.
I don’t have to. Evidence from actual university and seminary materials is more than sufficient.
Of course. In the Cambridge course I took, we spent probably the first half of the year with simplified texts modified from Aristophanes, Sophocles, and other original writers. But this doesn’t actually address what I’ve said, and most of your post doesn’t address it either.
I’m not deflecting attention from it. I still believe it’s true. I haven’t seen any evidence to the contrary yet. Maybe it is standard for first year Greek students to not be told that Greek word meanings changed over time. Maybe it is standard for first year Greek students to not be told how Greek word meanings are determined. Maybe it is standard for first year Greek stents to not use the standard lexicons in their field. But the evidence here shows your talk about what first year Greek students do or don’t need is clearly not in harmony with what schools are actually doing.
But you haven’t provided any evidence for this yet. All you’ve done is talk about your undocumented experiences in an unidentified educational institution.
I am not making the claim that my experience of taking Greek at an Australian school is the same as the experience of taking Greek everywhere else in the world. I have made a specific statement and provided evidence for that statement. To the extent that you’ve conceded at least in part to the truth of that statement, the matter is over as far as I am concerned.
I note yet again your habit of dragging a conversation off topic, starting up a meta-debate about who said what instead of addressing the subject at hand, and generally being combative instead of advancing the discussion. The moderators seem remarkably tolerant of this behaviour, so I assume you have some history with them, but I’m not the first person to have expressed objection to it.
@Jonathan_Burke, it seems we’re totally talking past one another.
This demand just does not make sense if you have understood for what position I have been arguing. The fact that such a list does not exist actually supports my view. It shows that it was not an issue for them. Maybe you are mistaken on my starting point? Please see my very first post on this topic where I describe that the Ancients didn’t have any problems with assigning spiritual relevance to a variety of natural phenomena. For them, illnesses were also intricately connected with the spiritual world. That doesn’t detract from the observation of direct manifestations in the Bible, but separation is impossible, even today. For example, I am pretty sure that addictions have very strong spiritual underpinnings, but they are also characterized as illnesses in psychotherapeutic settings.
Indeed, Jesus and the Apostles were perfectly open in addressing spiritual entities such as demons. They did not even once tell anyone a soothing story such as “don’t worry, spirits don’t actually possess people”. Why not? Because that would have been a lie.
As an aside, I find your inference that all those cases of demonic manifestations where “already diagnosed by others” unwarranted. For example, I don’t think all the Greeks had reached a consensus on whether the fortune-telling woman had a malevolent spirit. At the very least, it is not described in the text, but presupposed. The biblical authors did not correct anyone’s beliefs in the existence of demonic manifestation. Instead, they perpetuated such beliefs by showing the power of Jesus’ name over those entities. Why? Very simple, because demonic manifestations are real.
Really?? Seems like you just want to argue against anyone and anything here when things don’t completely agree with your claims… Now you are even arguing against the NIV Bible translation. I cite from Matthew 14:
25 Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. 26 When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear.
I’m not here to discuss your disagreements with the NIV.
I disagree. Your insistence on deciphering the methods of differentiation between the categories “supernatural” and “natural” clearly show that it is relevant to our discussion. I would say that a better way to look at it is to say that the Ancients viewed everything in everyday life as infused with spiritual relevance. Most things were ordinary in the spiritual sense, like sharing food and going to the Temple on Shabbat. Other things were extraordinary in the spiritual sense, like Jesus’ miracles. But all was spiritually relevant. I think this is also the proper way for Christians today to view our lives. It’s not like God and Satan leave the natural world to operate by itself while “infusing” some spiritual events now and then. No… Everything that happens every instant is part of a spiritual battlefield.
Interesting. So why is “distinguishing of spirits” a special gift of the Holy Spirit, if that ability is completely normal for everyone? I don’t see how you want to make sense of that…
So in your view, God gives you His “arm”, but He denies you the indwelling of full divinity, including personhood. That means the Holy Spirit would not be true personal guidance but some sort of “remote control”. In my view, that takes away from the personal relationship with God. Only a personal being can indwell another person without “controlling” that person. But anyway, the personhood of the Holy Spirit would be a tangent that would deserve it’s own thread.
I find that statement extremely unlikely based on the way the texts were transmitted, for reasons I have expressed many times by now. It really sounds like you’re reading your own opinion into it. Jesus and the Apostles would not perpetuate beliefs in demonic manifestations if these weren’t actually occurring. Also, it completely bypasses the relevance of the spiritual authority of Jesus’ name which is expressed in these passages. I don’t know how to be any clearer on that point.
The only thing on which I can agree with you on is that more recently invented, extravagant, and ritualistic methods of “exorcism” are not consistent with what Jesus and His disciples taught. They simply exerted the spiritual authority of Jesus’ name and the spirits would flee. Nothing of the rituals that have been introduced in later times. But I have never even tried to validate current practices of exorcism.
I’m addressing your claim that “it is quite evident from biblical accounts that most people were often mistaken” when they diagnosed demon possession. I am not denying the fact that “the Ancients didn’t have any problems with assigning spiritual relevance to a variety of natural phenomena”. We are both agreed on that.
Evidence please; “I am pretty sure” is not evidence.
[quote=“Casper_Hesp, post:175, topic:4581”]
As an aside, I find your inference that all those cases of demonic manifestations where “already diagnosed by others” unwarranted.[/quote]
I am talking about the fact that people in the text refer to other people in the text as demonically possessed. A father tells Jesus his son is possessed by a demon, and Jesus doesn’t stop to check if this is true. There is no evidence for your claim that in those days “most people were often mistaken” when they diagnosed demon possession.
They didn’t believe she had a malevolent spirit. They believed she had a benevolent spirit, a spirit of Python. For the Greeks, a demon wasn’t necessarily evil. But they definitely believed she was possessed.
What is described in the text is that she had a spirit of Python.
That’s your assumption.
Have you checked the Greek? Have you checked a standard translator’s guide such as the UBS Handbook for Translators?
Ghost (so most translations) translates a noun that occurs only here and in Mark 6:49 in the New Testament. It may be used of any apparition, particularly that of a spirit. Most cultures will have a word for a spirit people might see. It is not necessary to look for a word that specifically refers to the spirit of someone who died, although, as with the English ghost, that is the word often used.
Barclay Moon Newman and Philip C. Stine, A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew (UBS Handbook Series; New York: United Bible Societies, 1992), 468.
The fact is the disciples didn’t even recognise him at first. They didn’t think “Oh that’s the ghost of Jesus, he must have died, how scary”. They saw someone walking on the water at a distance, and since they knew this was physically impossible (making the kind of distinction between miracles and non-miracles which you are trying to tell me they never made), they thought it was an apparition or spirit being. Jesus had to calm them by identifying himself to them.
Given the conditions of the sea, and the “popular belief that the sea was the home of evil spirits,”12 it is possible that the disciples thought their lives were in mortal danger. Jesus must immediately identify himself in order to calm their fear.
Larry Chouinard, Matthew (The College Press NIV Commentary; Joplin, MO: College Press, 1997), Mt 14:25–27.
In such circumstances the superstitious reaction of the disciples is hardly surprising. A disembodied spirit could appear where a physical body would sink. The term used here and in the Marcan parallel for a ghost or “apparition” does not occur elsewhere in the NT. It represents instinctive superstition rather than a theologically formulated belief, and may reflect the popular belief that evil spirits lived in the sea or that those who had drowned haunted the water.
R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew (The New International Commentary on the New Testament; Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publication Co., 2007), 569.
No it isn’t. I agree that “the Ancients viewed everything in everyday life as infused with spiritual relevance”. That doesn’t address what I wrote. Do you think they believed everyone could raise the dead and heal people, that curses are just a thing people can do, that walking on water and controlling storms are abilities common to all human beings?
I will say it again. In Second Temple Judaism people differentiated between people who were demonically possessed and people who were not demonically possessed, and they treated them differently. They did not believe these were equivalent states. They differentiated between illness resulting from supernatural causes, and illness which didn’t result from supernatural causes, where “supernatural causes” included demons, evils spirits, angels, satan and God. They differentiated between divine and non-divine (perhaps you don’t?), demonic and non-demonic (perhaps you don’t?), and had a differentiation of “natural” and “supra-natural” which was functionally equivalent to ours. They knew there were true miracles and false miracles (perhaps you don’t believe this?).
The “distinguishing of spirits” there does not mean “being able to tell if someone is demonically possessed”.
No. God is with us.
I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. Only God is divine. That’s why He’s God. I don’t believe God turns people into extra gods.
This makes no sense. Do you believe your friend can’t guide you unless they’re physically inside your body?
If you read the relevant scholarly literature you will find that this isn’t simply my opinion. If you do a little historical research you will find that this isn’t simply my opinion either. If you would really like a challenge you can try to explain why demonic possession and exorcism vanish from the New Testament outside the Synoptics and Acts, and you can try to explain why it is completely absent from the Apostolic Fathers. Rivers of ink have been spilled in scholarly debate on this subject; it’s a well known conundrum, “Why do the demons disappear if early Christians believed they not only existed but possessed people and needed to be exorcised?”. I’ve written a contribution on this subject and submitted it for professional review. I invite you to do the same.
It’s not just that. You yourself don’t approach the subject the way we find it approached in the New Testament.
Please notice that you have “filled in the dots” on the last part of my sentence, but actually it’s not what I meant to say. Reading back my post, I can understand why you have interpreted it like that. However, when I made the claim that “most people were often mistaken”, I meant this statement with regard to the more general ability of spiritual discernment. Therefore, allow me to further specify my sentence:
[quote=“Casper_Hesp, post:140, topic:4581”]
That’s what some of them believed, but I think that it is quite evident from biblical accounts that most people were often mistaken [on matters that require spiritual discernment].[/quote]
That clears up some of the mess in our discussion. I did not make such a strong statement regarding the discernment of demonic possession precisely because Scripture does not have very much to say about people’s accuracy. However, I do believe there is at least one specific example of that kind of judgment error, namely when the Pharisees accused Jesus of driving out spirits by the power of Beelzebub.
However, I believed there was more to say about the topic. So I named examples where people failed in spiritual discernment to show that their differentiations often failed.
This was exactly why I brought up that point, to support my claim that their differentiations were inaccurate. They misidentified Jesus for being a spirit and became afraid, because they lacked spiritual discernment. I don’t know where you got the idea that I claimed they thought they were seeing “the ghost of Jesus” (and neither did the NIV)… Please just read what I’m saying before you start quoting some theologians or acting fancy about checking the Greek.
Referring back to the demons and Greek deities, I think you didn’t get (or didn’t want to get) my point. I was just referring to Paul’s way of thinking, as shown in, for example: 1 Corinthians 10:20 “No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons.” Evidently, the Greek did not identify their gods as being evil demonic entities. That means they were systematically mistaken in their identification of these demons. This was my point there.
Given the state of confusion on matters of spiritual discernment among people in Ancient times, I surely don’t find it a stretch to say that people were quite fallible in recognizing demonic manifestations. The same goes for the other things you summed up, most notably divinity and miracles.
It seems very much like you aren’t speaking to me at this moment, but to your self-created straw man. I never said that the people of Jesus’ time didn’t try to do any differentiation. I said that they often failed at such differentiation. I said that you need spiritual discernment to perform such differentiation accurately. I said that there are no strictly defined methods to define such differentiation and therefore such methods are a non-issue. It seems like you’re trying very hard to not understand me.
I never stated that differentiation did not take place. But when you asked me for methods, I said that it’s limited by one’s spiritual discernment. Without the Holy Spirit’s guidance, you’re basically bound to fail at some point. That’s it.
From your explanation, I would conclude that God is not truly with you, but instead His impersonal power is with you. More like the “Force” in Star Wars. Doesn’t that seem a bit… detached?
I didn’t say that God turns people into extra gods in any way. There is only one God. I meant to convey that I believe that God’s Holy Spirit indwells the hearts of followers of Christ. His Holy Spirit possesses the fullness of God’s identity, including His divinity. It doesn’t make us gods. However, it is the reason why Paul says my body is a Temple, because the Holy Spirit, God Himself, is indwelling me.
I don’t believe my friend will guide me by controlling me from a distance with some impersonal power. In my view, the Bible teaches the indwelling of the Holy Spirit as a fully personal entity, namely God.
There is a whole zoo of opinions on theology and biblical interpretation in the scholarly literature. You can find whole academic treatises expounding, e.g., why Jesus did not truly die on the cross and was only symbolically resurrected. Obviously, that doesn’t mean those writings have any authority that stands above the teachings of the Apostles…
We all have our own lenses of interpretation, I suppose ;). At least I am happy for you that you have such “supernatural” confidence in the absolute truth of your own lense.
I hope you have found our discussion at least a little bit useful. But currently it seems we’re walking in circles together. I wish you a blessed journey in truth-seeking, I just hope you aren’t completely convinced that you have reached the final destination of truth already. One day, things could turn out to be completely different than you thought they would be .
"people were quite fallible in recognizing demonic manifestations:
“they often failed at such differentiation”
That is explicitly re-stating your original claim that “it is quite evident from biblical accounts that most people were often mistaken” when they diagnosed demon possession. So if this is not what you actually believe, you need to stop saying it. Additionally, you have not provided any examples of people telling Jesus and the disciples that someone was demonically possessed, and Jesus or the disciples saying “No, your spiritual discernment is wrong, you don’t have the Holy Spirit, that person isn’t demonically possessed”. You have not provided any evidence at all for your claim.
But you haven’t provided any evidence for this claim. If you accept that they differentiated between miracles and non-miracles, between people who were demonically possessed and people who were not demonically possessed, between people who were ill as a result of demonic oppression and people who were ill for non-demonic or divine reasons, then you are accepting that they made a distinction between supernatural and non-supernatural events.
Where is the evidence for this claim? They thought he was a spirit because they saw an indistinct person walking on water. That’s not a matter of lack of spiritual discernment, that’s simply a combination of bad lighting and superstition. It’s certainly not evidence that people in those days didn’t have the ability to tell if someone was demonically possessed or not.
I did read what you said. I wrote “Well not a ghost exactly, because they didn’t believe he had died”, and you flatly disagreed with me, insisting I was wrong and objecting that I was contradicting the NIV. Here are your words.
Are you now claiming that you were agreeing me?
You’re misreading Paul. He is not saying “The Greeks think they’re worshipping gods, because they lack spiritual discernment, but what they’re actually worshipping is evil demonic entities”. He is quoting the Septuagint, which does not use the term to mean “evil demonic entities”, it uses the term to mean “foreign gods”. Paul is saying the Greeks worship foreign gods, and he does not want Christians fellowshipping with foreign gods. And again you are failing to provide any evidence of people (Greek or otherwise), wrongly diagnosing people as demonically possessed and being corrected by Christ or the apostles.
I didn’t claim you did. I pointed out you said they tried to make such differentiation but often failed. I even quoted you saying this.
I know. I quoted you saying this.
But you haven’t provided any evidence for this.
No, this makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. When God is present with me, how can you say He is detached? I don’t say “God isn’t with me, just His impersonal power”. I don’t separate God’s Holy Spirit from God.
Ok well I’ll go with the Bible on this one, thanks all the same.
Nor do I. I don’t believe God controls us from a distance at all, let alone with some impersonal power. Nor do I believe He possesses us the way you think demons do, and controls us from the inside. But back to my question, do you believe your friend can’t guide you unless they’re physically inside your body?
That doesn’t address the point I was making. I said if you read the relevant scholarly literature you will find that this isn’t simply my opinion. If you do a little historical research you will find that this isn’t simply my opinion either. This doesn’t necessarily mean it’s right, but it does mean this isn’t simply my opinion. And unlike views such as “Jesus did not truly die on the cross and was only symbolically resurrected”, this is a view not only found in mainstream theological scholarly literature, but taken seriously in modern scholarship. It is not a fringe view.
What I see is Christians claiming to believe in demons, but being unable to tell the difference between people who are demonically possessed and people who are not demonically possessed, and treating people who are demonically possessed in the same way they treat people who are not demonically possessed. This makes the entire doctrine a complete waste of time. If you believe in it, then start acting like it.
You might not be arguing for the position that demonic possession should somehow be used to “fill the explanatory gaps,” however, you are filling in the explanatory gaps of observable phenomena just the same, because you don’t yet possess the scientific evidence to prove otherwise, therefore, you are filling in the gaps with a superstitious fallacy—demonic possession—the “Satan of the Gaps” argument.
Exactly. But, IT IS YOU who is filling in the gaps of scientific evidence with a superstitious fallacy!
The question regarding the [symptoms] of demonization precisely refer to the [description] of the phenomenon, but while we’re at it, [prediction] can be used to [predict] the phenomenon. With reference to the intention of the language of the Ancients regarding the spiritual world [prediction] was an important part of their everyday lives—as is also plainly evident today.
But who’s complaining—it is you and the others who are failing at defending demonic possession—the spiritual realities described by the biblical writers and our modern conceptions work perfectly fine with our predictions.
However, your argument [demon possession] IS a bad spider because it can’t spin any more silk to catch prey.
The separation here is for distinguishing the different phenomena and for explanatory purposes. The spiritual, mental and physical dimensions do have extension into each other. I contend that the spiritual dimension can influence the mental and physical dimensions, whereby, the reverse is true as well—the mental and physical dimensions can influence the spiritual dimension in turn.
Nothing of the sort—you wish buddy! My questions and your inability to answer them, accurately confirm my convictions—DEMONS DO NOT EXIST. Mental illness, neurological disease, and criminality are explained by natural causal processes. The [spiritual dimension] is the location of the thought processes themselves.
Demonic influences are morally repugnant—are they not? Therefore, there should be symptoms of “demonic influence.” Guess what? You got it! There are symptoms! Accordingly, the semantic categories are appropriate.
Again, the exegetical lens is very appropriate. And the strict differentiation between natural and spiritual phenomena is as I have explained above—for distinguishing the different phenomena and for explanatory purposes. The relationship between the natural and the spiritual is already understood and kept in line with the Ancients.
You and the others who hold this position claim that demons exist. What is your evidence for the existence of demons?
My evidence for people with multiple personality disorder, for example, is that they have adopted the personality—or character if you will—of a number of different personalities and are able to, depending on different defense mechanisms, in different situations, and under different circumstances to take on those different personalities.
The following mental illnesses and personality disorders, as an example, have extension into the spiritual dimension, however, THEY DO NOT INVOLVE ANY DEMONIC POSSESSION.
Schizophrenia
Bipolar Disorder
Manic Depression
Borderline Personality Disorder
Narcissistic Personality Disorder
Antisocial Personality Disorder
Sociopathy
Psychopathy (yes there is a difference)
Talking of demonic possession @Eddie comes to mind. He said;
My point goes to the heart of Eddie’s reasoning (and others like him — for example, @Find_My_Way) in that Eddie has confidence in the Roman Catholic Church to investigate such phenomena by—AVAILABLE TRAINED CLERGY—but is reluctant to accept the evidence and conclusions of trained parapsychologists [who are scientists] nonetheless.
I’m sorry but I don’t believe that “scientific evidence” for demonic possession can exist due to the spiritual nature of this phenomenon.
It’s nice to scream repeatedly that it’s a “superstitious fallacy”, but there isn’t any scientific evidence for that position either.
I think you may be confused about how prediction works. Prediction only makes sense when you can exert direct control over the important factors for the phenomenon that you are studying or measure them very accurately. Both of these run into problems if you try applying them to demonic possession. Spiritual entities aren’t measurable and couldn’t care less about any experimental setups.
Nice list. I think all of them have strong relationships with the spiritual world. Just like you say:
I have studied the DSM5 in detail during my studies as well as hypothesized mechanisms underlying these different categories. I didn’t find any evidence in it for the position that these phenomena occur without direct spiritual influences. For example, people with major depressive disorder often report hearing voices in their head telling them to commit suicide. I’m pretty sure that such influences are demonic (if you still want evidence for that, please read the first paragraph of this post). If you contend that there is an “extension into the spiritual dimension”, then I find it very peculiar that you still claim that these cases “do not involve any demonic possession”.
It seems that it also boils down to our conception of the spiritual world. I believe that every spiritual entity is a personal entity. Purely spiritual beings like angels and demons have a higher order of existence than us to a certain extent. Since their “order” is higher than our human existence, they must be personal at the very least. The same reasoning applies to God, who is Spirit. An impersonal being cannot create a personal being. Therefore, I find your idea of an impersonal “eternal animating force” an unrealistic conception of God.
In my view, as soon as you have “something evil extended into the spiritual dimension”, you are speaking about direct demonic influences. Spiritual influences would not exist without demons, angels, or God. All spiritual forces are due to personal entities.
Sadly but not unexpectedly, there are many modern scholars who take the symbolic interpretation of the Resurrection very seriously. (As an aside, I think a general “mainstream” does not exist in theology, because there are so many different streams of thought.) So I don’t see what difference you want to indicate here. You say that the position “demonic possession doesn’t exist” has support in modern scholarly literature. The same goes for other interpretations that say goodbye to the authenticity of the testimonies of the Apostles…
I still find the overall approach that you have presented to be quite ad hoc. It feels like you don’t like the idea of demonic possession so you try to explain away the fact that Jesus and the Apostles directly interacted with demons many times. Let me just repeat what I said earlier… “They did not even once tell anyone a soothing story such as “don’t worry, spirits don’t actually possess people”. Why not? Because that would have been a lie.” I really don’t see how you can possibly circumvent this point. Now, instead, let’s go along with your position for a moment and suppose you’re right that demonic possession does not exist. Then I don’t see any explanation for the fact that Jesus and the Apostles effectively strengthened the belief in such a naive and harmful superstition and even used it to gain credence. Frankly speaking, this would render them a deceitful and manipulative bunch of charlatans.
On the Holy Spirit, I said:
You answered:
I would be very happy if you just went with the Bible on this one, but it seems to me you don’t. I believe my position is well supported by the Scriptures. But maybe you have a different Bible than me… You sure seem to be looking for alternative translations every time when texts don’t fit your framework.
The personhood of the Holy Spirit is indicated in many parts of the New Testament. See for example the passage I quoted earlier about the gifts of the Spirit. It says in 1 Corinthians 12:
“All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.” There are other passages where people even “lied to” and “sinned against” the Holy Spirit… Also, the Holy Spirit is referred to with the personal pronoun “he”, even though the Greek word for spirit (pneuma) is neuter. If the Apostles meant to teach that the Holy Spirit is an “impersonal, creative power”, they could have simply used neuter pronouns in referring to “it”.
The indwelling of believers by the Holy Spirit is such a basic teaching that I hope we can at least agree on that. Do you agree that the Holy Spirit inhabits the hearts of believers? If not, how do you treat the occurrence of Pentecost? How do you treat the descriptions of people coming to faith and being “baptized in the Holy Spirit”? How do you interpret Paul saying that one’s body is a Temple of the Holy Spirit?
If you do not separate God’s Holy Spirit from God at all, it would not be so difficult to accept that the Holy Spirit is God… You do make a separation if you compare the Holy Spirit to a body part. “I” am not the same as “my arm”. There is a difference.
In my post directed at Tony, I described that every spiritual entity is a personal being. In the Bible it is even described that God IS spirit. If you do concur that the Holy Spirit indwells us, then this leads to the understanding that God Himself indwells us.
There is an important difference between demonic possession and indwelling by the Holy Spirit. The difference is that God is with us in a true, loving relationship, in which He respects the freedom of His children. So the Holy Spirit will not “possess” us, even though He fills us and we desire to be guided by Him. Contrastingly, the Satan always tries to gain ground in your soul, basically making you a slave to evil…
I don’t believe that the indwelling of the Holy Spirit should be reduced to the physical level, so I don’t know why you say “physically inside”. I am sure that there would be other, less direct ways to guide us than through filling us with His Spirit. But this is simply the teaching of the Apostles and it seems to be the best explanation of how the gifts and fruits of the Spirits are conferred on us. Apparently, God has chosen the most intimate way possible to guide us, empower us, comfort us, convict us et cetera. This is fellowship on the deepest level imaginable. I think that it suits God’s character that His Spirit indwells us without Him being possessive of us like demonic entities.
I’m trying to imagine your view and see whether you manage to make sense out of all of it. However, so far I don’t really see how your rejection of the reality of demonic possession can be placed in a coherent understanding of the Scriptures as a whole and the experiential knowledge of believers and non-believers worldwide.
.