Science and the problem of demon-possession

Faith & Science Conversation
86

Another good example of “ we almost all know of someone who has seen one or knows of someone who has seen one, is ghosts .

Paranormal reality TV shows are doing good. Many historical places are beginning to make profit by allowing “ ghost hunters “ into their buildings. Almost every town has a haunted place.

So it’s not just these miracle workers lurking in the word and it’s not just our “missing link” Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Yeti ( abominable snowman ) found throughout the world, and it’s not just the aliens abducting people but ghosts too. Humans just like the unknown, and if it’s made up.

87

It’s not pedantic, Joshua assumed the sun really and truly did move, and had to be told to stop moving.

We’d never use Joshua 10 as a description of the sun’s actual movement.

88

Satan in the OT is a servant of God, and the evil spirit is explicitly said to come from the Lord.

As for the point about the resurrrection, I already explained that in my article. I wouldn’t ‘expect’ the Bible in historical context to mention it. I ‘would’ expect the healing stories of Elijah, Elisha and other prophets to mention demons.

89

I’ve watched an interesting TV series: “Evil”.
Season 2, Episode 13, “C is for Cannibalism” [Time: @13:03]

  • Exchange between Dr. Kurt Boggs, a psychiatrist, and Sister Andrea, a Catholic nun.
    • Boggs: “I examined every second of that moment. It, it was … There was no hallucination, no trick of the light. There was something there."
    • Sister Andrea: “Do you believe in God the Father?"
    • Boggs: “I believe in what I see.”
    • Sister Andrea: “So what you saw was a thing, a scary figure, but part of your mind wanted to say it was, what? a trick of the light, or your overactive mind creating fears?”
    • Boggs: “Yeah, uh-huh.”
    • Sister Andrea: “Because you’ve devoted your life to the empirical, and when the empirical confuses you, you have to create psychologically or scientifically-approved explanations for it. But what if there was no psychological explanation?”
    • Boggs: “That’s why I’m asking you.”
    • Sister Andrea: “No, you’re asking me because you want me to say what I’m about to say. Stop creating fictions to avoid God! That’s the bottom line. So this demon walked up to you, and your mind wants to make it anything but a demon, because if there were a demon, life would be terrifying. Everything you based your life on would be wrong. You asked me what to do. If you’re serious, you see that man over there (pointing to the Monsignor)? That’s Monsignor Korecki. You go up to him right now, and you say: ‘I want to be baptized. I want God to forgive me.’ Because if you don’t, that demon that you saw, will drag you into hell when you die.”
1 Like
90

Your article appears to make God directly responsible for murdering the Shunnamite woman’s son with apoplexy, in the unspoken mind of the Hebrews? Because demons didn’t explicitly do it?

91

That’s probably how ‘they’ understood it. (We don’t have to)

92

Why would they?

93

Because that’s how the ancient world understood illness.

94

C9th BCE Jewish intelligentsia included? They really believed YHWH murdered their kids with agonizing brain haemorrhages?

95

i have to respectfully differ. Hypothetically, if either some kind of sciency-fictiony method, or a modern-day miracle, succeeded in freezing the rotation of the earth for some 12 hours… You really think that not a single educated modern soul on facebook would post something about how cool it was that “I saw the sun stay in the same place all day”?

Of course we talk that way. that is what we observe from our perspective, just as Joshua did, the sun “moving”, and that is just how we talk. No one takes issue when someone uses such language in any other context…

(Perhaps my favorite example is the inimitable Scott Adams…)

the sun “rose”, has a “long haul across the sky”, “the sun sank”, “started on up the sky”… This is how we talk. there are multitudinous examples. No one suggests we ought not talk this way in any other context.

You are welcome to disagree of course, but i and plenty of others do find such claims pedantic… no one seems to take issue with the Weather Channel talking about the sun rising and setting, or astronomers talking about how our sun moves across the sky, but if Joshua uses the same language, then he is clearly guilty of an unscientific error. It isn’t erroneous when anyone else uses such language… only biblical writers, apparently. And this to me appears special pleading, a pedantic reading that is looking for fault rather than just recognizing the way (all) people speak.

1 Like
96

But why? hypothetically, we might say for the sake of argument they may have been entirely ignorant of any demonic influence in such cases. If Jesus revealed, or was aware of, a greater knowledge about such things - a knowledge which Elijah and Elisha had lacked, why would that be in any way problematic or surprising?

And Paul’s “messenger from Satan” was similarly given by God’s purpose to accomplish Paul’s humility, and was to remain with Paul by God’s explicit decision. I don’t think the divergence between OT & NT on this topic is quite as massive as is sometimes believed.

97

Because the ancient Near East already had this knowledge.

1 Like
98

And YHWH was directly responsible for randomly sending these insane parasites? Except non-randomly in Paul’s case of course.

99

That was the only explanation they had.

100

OK, but i still fail to see the relevance? Accounts of elijah and elisha’s healings don’t reference demonic. neither do most of Jesus miracles of healing. throughout the bible, OT and NT both, there is unquestionably a “both/and” perspective… in Job 1, Satan was given permission to test Job, yet the actual description of the death of his children and most of his other his other losses was described without any reference to demonic/satanic/angelic/supernatural forces whatsoever. would you similarly expect the account of the death of Job’s children to explicitly reference the demonic, (or at least satanic) cause? the author clearly believed such was the case, but also apparently felt no need to explicitly reference it in the actual description of their demise. And although the author explicitly recognized the behind-the-scenes demonic/satanic influence/cause of Job’s trials, (unless im mistaken and forgot), those factors are not referenced again throughout the rest of the book.

hence, I’m failing to understand the relevance? Even if the authors of the accounts knew and recognized demonic/satanic influence in disease, etc., why would we necessarily expect them to make it explicit every time they referenced any such thing?

101

Can you show that in Hebrew writings? That YWHW was Chthulu? That He tortured innocent children of innocent parents to death?

102

The gods, alongside demons were invoked as the main causes of disease all the time, they didn’t know any better. It’s implicit in how the Biblical writers don’t even bother explaining the causes behind illness, they already knew the cause. As for explicit statements, see Exodus 4:11.

103

I’m wary of seeing the Book of Job as being representative of real life, I don’t think it was ever intended to be read as real events.

104

Context? Was the Shunamite woman’s son just another rough cookie cutter imprint or did YHWH torture him to death?

105

Fair enough, but the point still remains… even if presenting a fictional or literary account, the author explicitly identified Satan as the one who would be doing the painful things to Job, but when he described the events themselves, he left out any reference to Satan’s activity.

hence why I don’t find it odd that a biblical author may himself recognize or believe supernatural or demonic influence behind an event or disease or the like, yet may or may not choose to explicitly describe the supernatural or demonic aspect in his narrative., whether we are talking historic events or parables or whatever other other genres. so i’m still not following why we would “expect” references to Elijah or Elisha’s healing to reference the demonic, i think we might “expect” only a that a biblical author has wide latitude, and may or may not reference demonic or supernatural causes he himself recognizes behind otherwise natural events.

a similar example, not proving anything especially, but it is at least instructive… in Mark’s gospel, Mark explicitly describes the healing of the woman’s daughter as involving exorcism:

And he said to her, “For this statement you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter.” And she went home and found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.

But Matthew, presumably borrowing the account directly from Mark, leaves this exorcism aspect out, describing it only as the daughter being “healed”:

Then Jesus answered her, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

I wouldn’t make much of it, just observing that language is fluid… it isn’t like Matthew is shy elsewhere about describing demon possession, demonic affliction, Jesus casting out demons, etc, as is trying to “correct” Mark or something. I think it merely reflects the fluid way the writers communicated… that just because someone may indeed recognize demonic activity behind something, they don’t always feel the need to reference that explicitly. hence i would be cautious about making too big a case based on what we would or wouldn’t expect someone to say about demonic involvement in events.

1 Like