Demons and emergence theory

[ivar]

I recently wrote this post, but I think it was drowned in the other comments.

Witchcraft and sorcery is Biblically evidenced, but does it still occur in current times and is quantum physics a component?

Dr. David Bradnick wrote a book on “demons”. He argues that demons are actually non-personal emergent forces. I don’t know whether there is a relationship between quantum physics and emergence theory. But it is a scientific explanation nonetheless. (Whether correct or not.) From the book: [image] [image] [image] The author does not fully agree with Yong, but the main idea is the same. I myself suppose that some people are able to tap into this malevolent force through different means. T…

What do you think of this theory?

Especially in connection with Dr. John Walton’s book on demons, Demons and Spirits in Biblical Theology, where Walton argues that every time the Bible describes demons and Satan, it does not affirm any of the details that are given, but that these were part of the Biblical worldview. (Just like the cosmology of Genesis 1 is part of that worldview.)

I myself think Dr. Bradnick’s theory is a good synthetis of science, the Bible and people’s supernatural experiences.

[ivar]

I have a paper copy of the book. So if you have a specific question, I can look it up.

[St.Roymond]

This made me think of a novel where a major plot element is “demons”–

“Then the one called Raltariki is really a demon?" asked Tak.

“Yes—and no,” said Yama, “If by ‘demon’ you mean a malefic, supernatural creature, possessed of great powers, life span and the ability to temporarily assume virtually any shape—then the answer is no. This is the generally accepted definition, but it is untrue in one respect.”

“Oh? And what may that be?”

“It is not a supernatural creature.”

“But it is all those other things?”

“Yes.”

“Then I fail to see what difference it makes whether it be supernatural or not—so long as it is malefic, possesses great powers and life span and has the ability to change its shape at will.”

The question is about an energy being that emerged on a planet due to the great energies in the atmosphere due to magnetic fields – an emergent being with most of the properties normally associated with demons.

But as for emergent supernatural entities . . . I don’t know enough about the supernatural realm to even guess.

[St.Roymond]

Hmmm . . . given that angels are described by the scriptures as members of the heavenly realm, I can’t agree that they evolved. OTOH, there may be entities that have emerged from basic forces of the supernatural and/or natural realm whose classification might align with that of angels.

[mitchellmckain (Scientist and Christian)]

@Witchcraft and sorcery is Biblically evidenced

Dr. David Bradnick wrote a book on “demons”. He argues that demons are actually non-personal emergent forces.

If they have emerged from anything, it would be from the imagination and subjective experiences and beliefs of human beings (along with gods, ghosts, and other supernatural beings in the myths and religions of different cultures). We do not see anything of the kind in nature examined with objective methods.

@ivar

part of the Biblical worldview. (Just like the cosmology of Genesis 1 is part of that worldview.)

Possible – especially in the case of demons. Doesn’t mean they cannot be quite real in the experiences of those who believe in them.

But angels are different. These are sent by God, and very rarely an experience of people. Though… when people do believe in angles then some of their more common experience of angels might be of similar nature and a product of their own imagination and subjective experience of reality.

@St.Roymond

given that angels are described by the scriptures as members of the heavenly realm, I can’t agree that they evolved. OTOH, there may be entities that have emerged from basic forces of the supernatural

No angels don’t evolve (not the ones created by God). Emergence as a phenomenon of natural law not spiritual would only apply to those created by human imagination. Evolution (life) requires a system of natural law which is what the physical universe is all about. But the subjective angels might evolve as human culture evolves.

[T_aquaticus]

@ivar

What do you think of this theory?

It seems to jump to “quantum” with no reasoning. Emergence can occur well above the quantum level within the classical domain.

Could demons be an emergent quality of our big squishy, wet brains that isn’t directly tied to our sense of self? Sure, that seems possible.

[Clovis_Merovingian]

I’m not very adept at science which seems strange for someone on this forum but bear with me. In order to evolve things need to have a biology like terrestrial life has, they need to be able to mutate, and they need to be able to die for natural selection to work. Likewise, they need to reproduce in order to pass on their genes. I don’t think that any of that applies to angels at least in the heavenly realm (there were Nephilim but that was from rebellious angels). I don’t think the spirit world, which is what we’re talking about has the same qualities as the biological realm. The Bible does imply that spirits have bodies of some kind and are made of a substance of some kind (1 Corinthians 15:35-58). But that doesn’t mean they have biology and rules for that biology anywhere similar to us.

[Terry_Sampson]

Science and Spirit: A Critical Examination of Amos Yong’s Pneumatological Theology of Emergence

• A quick review of the above 2015 research article confirms, IMO, that there are very few, if any, folks around here who have anything to contribute to a discussion of Yong’s Pneumatological Theory of Emergence.
• Immediately out of the starting gate, the Leidenhags write in the opening abstract:
  • “We will argue for the following: 1) the supernaturalism of Yong’s Pentecostal theology renders the concept of emergence obsolete; 2) the ontological independence of various types of spirits in Yong’s theology breaks his commitment to supervenience theory; and 3) Yong’s transference of scientific concepts into the normative discourse of theology is potentially problematic. These criticisms should be seen as a call for Yong to depart from emergence theory (and supervenience) in his admirable ambition to harmonize the spirit-filled imagination of Pentecostalism with the scientific culture of the 21 st century.”

[Terry_Sampson]

Emergence from Physics to Theology - by Philip Clayton

[SkovandOfMitaze (Mi)]

As some others have stated I personally don’t believe that spiritual beings evolved as something from this planet. I also typically don’t try to rationalize anything that has to do with faith in the supernatural because I already know it’s pointless. I can either leave it in a box wrapped up in faith or I can poke it until it’s dead. That’s just my reality. The more I try to rationalize god as something natural instead of leaving it as a mystery the more I find it as just stupid. I can then look at that stupidity as being dumbfounded by things outside of my circle of concern and control or i can see it as someone desperately trying to rationalize imaginary scenarios and beings.

I tell people this often and sometimes it’s confusing to them, sometimes it makes perfect sense to them. I guess it depends on your paradigm.

Do I think there is a god? No. Most likely not.
Do I have faith there is a god? Yeah I choose too.

As mentioned before and this goes for gods, demons, angels, fallen angels, jinns, and so on. Even a supernatural soul/spirit that survives the death of the physical.

I don’t know what God is. I don’t know if it’s a being. If it’s a conscious thought that exists without a body. I don’t know if it’s from another dimension or if it’s from whatever is outside of our universe but not in another universe. I don’t know if it’s some kind of thing that existed before the universe , or from a previous universe or from a multiverse. I don’t know if it evolved within this universe or another and found a way here. I don’t know if it’s all just imagination or if this or that.

So do I think that demons could be entities from another dimension? Sure. Do I think that demons could have evolved as a life so completely different than us that we can’t even conceive it right now? Sure. Do I think demons could be supernaturally created beings that did not evolve but was made by god magically? Yeah. Could demons just be metaphors for us collectively. Like when a bunch of people riot and it gets more and more violent could that “atmosphere” be a demon? Sure.

But more than anything what I do is this.
Can I see or hear demons? No.
Can you? No and if you can you can’t prove it and so it’s the same as no on my end.
Can we currently scientifically prove they exist? No.

So instead I confine them to the pages of the Bible. That’s their prison. Never to be freed.

Do I think that demons are angels that mutated badly and became evil? Most likely not.

[St.Roymond]

@SkovandOfMitaze

Do I think that demons are angels that mutated badly

The image that came to mind was a Geiger counter for “spiritual radiation”. Knox wondered why I was giggling.
(Just don’t mention “spiritual radiation” anywhere near some of today’s Pentecostal types, it would end up as a new doctrine.)

[SkovandOfMitaze (Mi)]

One thought I sometime have came out of reading various things in mineral evolution and the various arguments for abiogenesis.

So we don’t really know how abiogenesis occurred. There are several different theories ranging from rna, to clay mineral hypothesis.

Additionally before abiogenesis happens there is the argument over how inorganic material developed. I’m too busy to go deep into this atm.

So one thought I have is that god evolved. Thst maybe instead of evolving how we did, self replication happened with elements in a grand scale. Like cosmic dust becoming planets and moons and developing a gravitation pull. That maybe somehow chemicals , electricity and elements begin self replicating in a way that allowed conscious to develop that evolved more like a giant brain made up of that kind of stuff. That it’s so big it’s not fathomable. A conscious that’s larger than galaxies. Maybe even voices itself through several of them. That somehow this signal is what we call “spirit” and sort of Bluetooth links up to some of us or all of us and into the animal world and so in.
Maybe this thing can even transverse universes. Maybe so many it’s essentially infinite.

[ivar]

@mitchellmckain

We do not see anything of the kind in nature examined with objective methods.

I agree that we do not have scientific proof for demons. Psychiatrist M. Scott Peck said that he came to affirm the existence of demons through personal experience. Same with me.

That’s why I try to find an explanation for the demonic. But if you don’t affirm the demonic, It is of course not necessary to understand how it works.

[mitchellmckain (Scientist and Christian)]

@ivar

I agree that we do not have scientific proof for demons. Psychiatrist M. Scott Peck said that he came to affirm the existence of demons through personal experience.

Exactly!

So I do not deny the reality of devil and demons any more than I deny the reality of God and the angels.

But…

We only have an objective reality because of the laws of nature which care nothing about what we want or believe. I believe in the spiritual because life requires subjective participation, where you must impose what you want and believe on things. Thus I identify the spiritual with the subjective aspect of reality, where what you want and believe is its very essence.

So then God and the angels do not objectively exist?

There are no laws of nature forcing these to be a part of our experiences nor will there ever be. So how can they be said to objectively exist?

The point is that they CAN be a part of our experience if we want them to be and the advantages of this are fantastic. After all this includes eternal life.

Obviously if I think this is the case with God and the angels, then clearly I would think the devil and demons are subjective existences also. But why would we want these to be a part of our experience? In that case there is no advantage at all. And I think they are very much a product of bad habits of thought, beginning with Adam and Eve blaming the devil for their own mistakes. With blame goes responsibility and thus giving the devil power over them.

And THAT is my explanation for them. It is not to deny anybody’s experience of them at all – quite the contrary. On the other hand, we have every good reason to disbelieve in them if we can. And an understanding of reality which sees the phenomenon in the Bible attributed to demons as diseases of the body and mind, is very much a good idea – for then we affirm our own responsibility for ourselves and give no power to devil and demons over us.

I am not discounting the reality of God and demons by calling them subjective. Rather I am affirming the reality of the subjective. In fact, I would say that while we have good evidence for the existence of an objective reality, we have no evidence to support the idea that reality is exclusively objective. In other words, reality is not the same for everyone. There is only some overlap in these things we call objective. The pragmatic philosophical advantages of this way of thinking are tremendous.

Ah, but doesn’t saying God and the angels are subjective mean they are creations of human belief and imagination? And wouldn’t that contradict the Christian belief that God created everything? That is the usual way of thinking, but I do not believe so. To be sure, things which are the creation of human belief and imagination are subjective (at least to begin with). But that is not the only way in which things can be subjective. All it requires is for there to be no system of laws forcing them into a relationship with you irrespective of your belief and desire. And since the creator of the universe is not subject to any law outside of Himself, then He can be as subjective to us as He desires. All that I have seen and experienced tells me that God has chosen this to be so.

[ivar]

@T_aquaticus

It seems to jump to “quantum” with no reasoning. Emergence can occur well above the quantum level within the classical domain.

The original thread asked about the relationship between witchcraft and quantum physics. Yet I gave a different theory with which there could be a relationship.

As far as I understand Dr. Bradnick’s theory, he doesn’t jump to quantum. If I understand his reasoning correctly, in his book he only uses quantum physics as an example of the problems with reductive physicalism.

[ivar]

@Clovis_Merovingian

I’m not very adept at science which seems strange for someone on this forum but bear with me.

Same with me.

@Clovis_Merovingian

In order to evolve things need to have a biology like terrestrial life has, they need to be able to mutate, and they need to be able to die for natural selection to work. Likewise, they need to reproduce in order to pass on their genes. I don’t think that any of that applies to angels at least in the heavenly realm

I’ll try to explain Dr. Bradnick’s theory. He argues that “demonic properties supervene upon their constituent parts.” Just like our mind supervenes upon it’s constituent parts (our brain). Our mind is a non-physical reality, but it cannot exist without physical properties.

The demonic emerges from (or supervenes upon ) human personalities and social structures.

(Which sounds a bit like this:)

@T_aquaticus

Could demons be an emergent quality of our big squishy, wet brains that isn’t directly tied to our sense of self? Sure, that seems possible.

And he argues that those demonic properties “issue forth downward causation upon their lower-level substrates.” Just like with our mind we issue forth causation upon our body.

Opressive systems give rise to the demonic. And then the demonic centralised in those social systems can cause demonic oppression.

An example
Aihwa Ong analysed several cases of collective possession in Malay factories, sometimes involving as many as 120 persons.

Opressive system:
“The factory management harassed the women to the point that they could not go to the restroom without being interrogated or even followed.”

Demonic:
“In these instances [of colective possesion] women “seized by vengeful spirits exploded into demonic screaming and rage” on the factory floor.”

[ivar]

@Terry_Sampson

“We will argue for the following: 1) the supernaturalism of Yong’s Pentecostal theology renders the concept of emergence obsolete; 2) the ontological independence of various types of spirits in Yong’s theology breaks his commitment to supervenience theory; and 3) Yong’s transference of scientific concepts into the normative discourse of theology is potentially problematic. These criticisms should be seen as a call for Yong to depart from emergence theory (and supervenience) in his admirable ambition to harmonize the spirit-filled imagination of Pentecostalism with the scientific culture of the 21 st century.”

Thank you for sharing!

I found that Dr. Bradnick addresses this artice in a footnote in his book:

So it seems Dr. Bradnick used Dr. Yong’s theory as a starting point. But because of the differences, the Leidenhags’ critique does not apply to his particular application of emergence theory.

[DeaconKenNY (Kenneth David Swenson)]

First of all, whenever we delve into anything that is of a specific nature in the biblical text; we must first understand that what we have is an interpretation or a consensus of what is directly written, as well as a hunt or examination of what supportive text we have at our disposal.

There is, I believe, much more evidence for the apparent physicality of Angels and Demons; than trying to lump them into a broader definition of “Spirit”, such as “poltergeists”.

Right now, that’s pretty much all we have unless we get an Angel or Demon appearing on popular media like Steven Colbert in an “exclusive” interview.

[St.Roymond]

@ivar

I agree that we do not have scientific proof for demons. Psychiatrist M. Scott Peck said that he came to affirm the existence of demons through personal experience.

So did a psychiatrist I encountered who was otherwise an atheist.

@ivar

Same with me.

I affirmed it prior to that, but as an intellectual proposition; it took personal experience to make it more than theoretical.

[St.Roymond]

@mitchellmckain

And an understanding of reality which sees the phenomenon in the Bible attributed to demons as diseases of the body and mind, is very much a good idea

Yet it fails to account for things that demons are noted to have done, such as revealing knowledge a person could not have had.

@ivar

And he argues that those demonic properties “issue forth downward causation upon their lower-level substrates.”

This ignores some of the things associated with demons that cannot be explained by psychological factors, e.g. knowledge that no one involved could have had.