The implications of Angels

Faith & Science Conversation
1

In the scriptures one type of supernatural being mentioned are angels. They are a supernatural force that does not seem to have , nor do I think ever will, any scientific evidence for. I don’t even think it’s realistic to come up with a evolutionary argument for them as beings that evolved like we did. But it’s not surprising since we don’t believe God evolved from a primitive being either.

In scripture we see angels mentioned as a governing body called the Hosts of Heaven where they seem to debate among one another along with God in how to handle certain situations on earth. In 1 Kings 22:19-23 we read of them deciding to deceive Ahab through a false prophet by a lying spirit.

We also see angels mentioned as princes of the world acting as spiritual protectors and messengers over specific people or nations. Such as in Daniel 10 we read that an angel, most likely Gabriel from two chapters earlier, come to the prophet Daniel with a divine message and during the delivery he mentions that it took him a while to get there because the angelic princes of Persia and Greece stood against him and only the Prince of Israel ( or maybe the price concerned with just Daniel) was the arch angel Michael. Satan himself is potentially called the prince of the power of the air ( Ephesians 2:2)

We see angels involved in individuals lives and acts as well such as the angels that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah ( Gen. 19 ), wrestled with Jacob ( Gen. 32:22-32 & Hosea 12:4), the angel that warned Jospeh to flee Herod ( Matthew 2) and even angels carrying out the wrath of God throughout revelations. We even are told that we need to treat strangers well because it may be an angel in disguise. (Hebrews 13:2)

For a fact the true enemy of the world is a group of fallen angels. The same angel that use to test mankind like Satan did Job became our enemies and roam the earth like a devouring lion. They are the powers of darkness in heavenly places. ( Ephesians 6:10-17) A sort of evil Hosts of Hell. ( I don’t actually think angels have anything to do with hell but it’s a concept we use).

So my question is how does this fit into the naturalistic paradigms that we mostly all share in common. For me, I believe that the supernatural world exists. Same as for miracles such as the resurrection we place our hope in. But I’m curious how do others merge science and faith on this issue or is this one place where they simply don’t harmonize as far as evidence goes.

1 Like
2

I see angels as a natural intermediary step in God motivation to create others than Himself. They are the more straightforward effort of simply designing and creating spirits and simply giving them whatever knowledge and ability He chooses. In several discussions with atheists, they have complained that in the theistic worldview we don’t have much claim to responsibility or free will because we are simply what God made us to be and can never be other than this. But I think this argument only applies to the angels. We are not simply made to be what we are. We are the product of growth and learning and that means we are largely what we have made of ourselves. Thus I think we are a whole other level in God’s work to create others than Himself with far more free will and responsibility for ourselves than the angels.

I do not believe this at all. The true enemy and worst enemy of mankind and the Earth is mankind itself. It is not that I do not believe that the adversary exists or that a third of the angles went with Him and are under His leadership. But often portrayed as having goat like features I think the devil is little more than a scapegoat – someone whom we can blame in place of God in order to help keep God in the vital role of our guide and teacher.

I believe that the supernatural world exists also. And it simply consists of those things which are not a part of the mathematical space-time structure of the physical universe. And while I think interaction by such things with the physical universe is possible because of quantum physics, I also think it is by necessity an extremely narrow window not allowing anything regular or predictable. While I do not think this represents much of a handicap to an all-knowing all-powerful God, I do think it makes the impact of other spiritual entities upon the physical world to be practically insignificant.

So while I also believe in miracles, I think these are simply unexpected unlikely good things with a divine origin and not any kind of violation of natural law – things which skeptics/science dismiss as coincidence and statistical anomalies. As for the resurrection I go with Paul’s explanation in 1 Cor 15 of a bodily resurrection to a spiritual body not a physical body. In this way I have no problem fitting the supernatural with the natural and it fits perfectly with what we actually observe in religious experience. But for this reason I stand against dispensationalism which imagines an alteration of the way God does things in order to make the miracles told in the Bible more magical and unnatural.

2 Likes
3

I mostly agree. Though obviously we disagree on who the true enemy is. I get my first about our true enemy based off of the verses that our war is not against flesh and blood. As Christians, we are not at war with humanity. We are not trying to overcome other humans. We do have a internal war between flesh and spirit.

But it’s satan who is our enemy. Satan can not make us do anything. I don’t buy into the satanic goat images either.

I also think there is a lot more to what the resurrection is than what I think you may believe it. In 1 cor 15, the verses where the physical vs spiritual come into play many believe it means that we are something like disembodied souls. But that’s not what it is saying. It’s also not saying the physical body is just left behind but restored.

Take Jesus. It says we will be resurrected like him. His body vanished. It did not stay behind and than a physical manifestation appeared outside of that.

His body still carried the wounds. It says there are two types of flesh. A earthly flesh and a spiritual flesh and Adam became a living soul.
It’s never fully hammered out what it is. But it definitely shows it’s not as simple as our bodies are forever left in the earth and a new body is made that our disembodied souls enter.

But that’s a different topic, though very interesting one to have.

4

Yes! As long as we insist on blaming others. It is far far better for us to blame the devil and his servant than to blame either God or other people. I agree completely. I think this is essentially why they even exist. But an even better answer is to understand that we ourselves are our greatest enemy – not other people but ourselves. We are the problem because of our own bad habits (sins). The greatest danger and threat is inside ourselves. “The wage of sin is death.” Understanding and accepting this is the first step to salvation.

5

If they are more than once-upon-a-time then they raise more questions than answers.

If existence is rational then infinite, eternal creation is panentheistic. In God. Minimally it has two layers, the material and the glorious. Infinite. Eternal. Populated.

Angels have local chapters. Angels have to be once-upon-a-time. Time after eternal time. They have beginnings. Of which there is no beginning. Like universes. Worlds.

And some always go to the bad. In every local, world chapter.

Doesn’t fly does it?

I don’t know what would make it.

And in the no man’s land is the Lucan Annunciation.

6

@SkovandOfMitaze

Generally speaking, I take the Unitarian Universalist view that humanity’s greatest enemy are humans who think there is someone else other than Humanity that is our greatest enemy.

7

As a Christian when reading scripture I see this worldview taught. We are to love our neighbors and we are to hope and fight to lead them to salvation through Jesus Christ as shown in the gospel. That means humanity is not our enemy but our patient.

The devil and his fallen angels though are not our patient. They are our enemy. There is no better path for them. They can’t be lead to a christ. They are our enemy.

1 Like
8

Also none of that diminishes the threats of the flesh or other people. It also does not deflect personal choices to the devil. We can see where despite Adam and Eve trying to push the blame they were held responsible. Same with all sin.

But it does change the paradigm on the man down the street that you don’t like. He’s not the real enemy. He’s a person who needs to find salvation.

9

He needs to find incarnation, grace. In you. Jesus saves.

10

I have been thinking about the same thing as you in terms of how the presence of other spiritual beings fits in with a EC perspective. Where those angels around all that time when everything was evolving? Did they do the same things as they do now back then? Or did the show really start when mankind finally emerged?

Also, did God create the angels more or less instantaneously? What about ghosts and other weird spiritual things that are strongly apparent in the world? (just listen to a few of your friends stories let alone the enormous volume of the unexplainable and ‘spiritual’ out there).

To continue all the many questions in this area … what of aliens in all of this? Where they the various sighting of UFOs, some of which certainly appear extremely convincing, fit in?

It goes without saying that I don’t have the answers (like anyone would have them all, lol) but I share your general interest.

Here are some fairly interesting links I’ve found after a brief search (haven’t got heaps of time at the minute to delve deeper)

General discussion on angels - author makes an inconclusive outcome but content is interesting:

An examination of the sadly unphotographed strange comet like structure that zoomed past earth in 2017

Edit: on the issue of whether or not oumuamau was photographed … I’m not sure if I can believe humanity could be that foolish as to not have photographed it. I’ve looked into it and can see what maybe looks like visual concepts of it (the rocky cigar looking thing) and certainly paths of how it travelled etc … but no actual photos? My faith in humanity not being an ignoramos is such that I think it had to have been photographed but maybe it was genuinely missed such that when everything was set up it was too late? I don’t know … pretty sad and, well shameful really, if that’s true (makes me think of that moment at the end of Dennis the Menace when the long awaited flower opens and the guy misses it lol)

An interesting looking book on the issue (haven’t read, but might)

Also, on Audible there is a book called “Alien Theology”. It has no reviews and is a short one so not sure how good it is, but I’ll probably download it at some point

Anyway, hopefully others will post in and continue the conversation on this very interesting topic

11

This topic was automatically closed 6 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.