Most Christians believe in the existence of evil spirits, and to deny their existence you’d have to regard a great deal of the New Testament (Mark 1:23-27; Matt. 8:28-34; Acts 16:16-18) as purely mythalogical.
Thomas Aqiunas regarded these demons as pure spirit, and maintained that (because they are pure spirit) once they’ve made a choice between good and evil their choice is permanent.
He believed they couldn’t repent, and that’s probably what most Christians believe.
My question here is for Christian universalists who believe in the existence of the devil and demons.
After falling from heaven, and being cast down to earth–after seeing Christ’s earthly ministry, and witnessing His death and resurrection–why would they still oppose God and His plan?
What could they hope to gain?
If they can repent, why haven’t they?
A bigger question for all Christians might be what any of them (including their leader) could have hoped to gain by opposing God to begin with.
They’re usually described as more intelligent than we are, but if they had even human intelligence, wouldn’t they have had to know that no creature (or combination of creatures) could overthrow the Creator and ground of all being?
I’d greatly appreciate any thoughts on these questions.
Hi Michael, I find this an intersting subject. Having studied the various positions about whether devils are fallen spirit beings, agents made that way by God to get evil things done or humans, I am none the wiser. I have never come across a devil (as far as I know) and so I don’t really give them much thought. Sorry I can’t be of much help.
The only human thinkers I mentioned were Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas, but there have also been thinkers like Buddha.
I think he could best be characterized as a pantheist, who definitely believed in spiritual realities (karma, souls, a cycle of death and reincarnation, and nirvana), but who was more or less agnostic when it came to the existence of a personal God (or gods.)
The devil certainly knows that he’s not God, he and his angels certainly know they’re outnumbered by other angels who (together) are more powerful than they are, and they certainly know that there’s a Great King over those angels that they once served–but what if they never really understood that this personal being is the ground of all being?
Is it possible that the devil and his angels are pantheists or agnostics?
I don’t mean in the way a purely materialistic human might be, but in the sense of believing (or deceiving themselves into believing) that God is less than the Great I AM.
Could that explain the war in heaven, and their continued oposition?
If all of us were special creations, who were brought into existence at the same time (like the angels), how much would we really know about the creation of space/time, and about it’s Creator.
Would it all be obvious to us, or would we still have to be told certain things.
If we weren’t told, would we still have to think some things out (the way human thinkers like Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, and Buddha did)?
And if we were told, would we still have to accept some things on faith?
Would it be possible for a powerful angel to convince himself (and perhaps others) that the entity calling Himself God was of the same nature he was?
Could they have really thought that if they all got together, overcame the angels who were loyal to Him, and overthrew this personal Monarch, that “the force” would be with them?
If the devil really knows and understands who and what God is, how could he think that he knew Job better than God did (“But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face,” “Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life. But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face”), and if he didn’t really think he knew Job better than God did, how could he hope to deceive God into thinking he thought that he did?
Hmm, I really am not sure. It is possible that devils or satans are actually humans who are behaving in an adversarial role or even angels who God is using in this way. ( I suppose I don’t like the idea that EVERTHING turned bad, that God made. Even the angels who are present with God and ‘see’ not through a glass darkly etc, manage to rebel? I prefer the idea that angels are messengers and do exactly what they’re meant to do, but I’m not completely against the idea that they have free will too. I just think the idea of angels getting together to try to overthrow God’s rule, sounds weird to me. Like I said, I’ve never seen or experienced a spirit, or seen someone who is supposedly demon possessed, so I am very skeptical of fallen angels and a personal devil. I’ve got enough on my plate with my own rebelliousness . A scripture that always springs to mind, when discussing these things is: ‘‘We also know that the Son did not come to help angels; he came to help the descendants of Abraham.’’ Heb 2:16. There is a verse in the Bible that says that God creates ‘satans’. I can’t find it, but will post it when I do.
I don’t see how that’s possible, if you believe in the Bible.
How would you interpret Mark 1:23-27; Matt. 8:28-34; Acts 16:16-18 and Acts 19:13-19?
I’ll just quote the last one here.
Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth. And there were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, and chief of the priests, which did so. And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye? And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. And this was known to all the Jews and Greeks also dwelling at Ephesus; and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. And many that believed came, and confessed, and shewed their deeds. Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver.
If you take the Bible seriously, I don’t see how you can avoid the conclusion that there are evil spirits (who will be judged and punished for what they’re now doing, regardless of whether or not it serves God’s purpose, and who aren’t therefore just knowingly and obediently doing a good job at what they were intended to do.)
That’s why I think the question here is an important one for universalists.
It might be that our understanding of ‘evil spirits’ is wrong- just as our understanding of hell was wrong. I can read lots of verses in the bible that seem to teach a literal place of fire and torment, and yet we know that it isn’t literal (not including Gehenna the local rubbish dump back then). Is it possible that the ‘evil spirits’ in the verses you quote are not fallen angels that possess people, but something else? I’m open to it being spirit beings, because the texts do seem quite clear but I’m also open to the idea that people didn’t know about certain medical conditions back then and so might have attributed strange behaviours to spirits. I’m bang in the middle. I can see merit in both positions. The good thing about UR, is that it covers all these discrepancies- and so really I don’t need to be too concerned with the possibility of fallen angels. ‘All things’ in heaven and earth are going to be reconciled to God through Jesus, so that is the only thing I can be sure of.
Then you don’t really take Matt. 8:28-34 very seriously, do you?
I mean you don’t really believe that Jesus cast a legion of unclean spirits out of these men, that the expelled demons entered a nearby herd of swine, that the shock of this caused the herd to stampede off a cliff and drown, or that those tending the heard ran into town and told everyone what they saw, do you?
Do you think it possible that some internal medical condition people didn’t understand back then effected the external environment (the nearby herd of swine) to the extent discribed in this text?
It says that Jesus transfered the ‘problem’ from the man to the swine. If the problem was a form of madness (ie his brain was malformed or malfunctioning) then it appears the swine were given this illness. Jesus does not appear to mind destroying the swine, as these animals shouldn’t have been in Israel at all, as they were unclean. I agree that this text sure does sound like real spirit beings talking. I have argued this point myself many times, and it is because of verses like these, that I’m open to the reality of demons but as they are not a tangible part of my life, I tend to forget about them very quickly. Some people I know seem to ‘see’ demons in every corner and attribute problems to ‘the enemy’. I blaim myself or other humans or chance or whatever, never ‘the enemy’. I don’t tend to blame or think of invisible beings that I’ve never seen or heard or had any evidence to suggest they are real. But the Matt 8 example is very compelling… I have to remain on the fence though, which isn’t the best place to be, but as I’m not fully decided, that is where I’ll have to stay until the holy spirit sorts it out.
So assuming there are evil spirits, do you think their choice is permenant (as Thomas Aquinas said it was), or do you think they can repent?
If they can, why haven’t they already?
Did they ever think they could defeat God?
Do they still think so.
I would think the first two questions are important for evangelical universalists to answer, and I would think the last two are important for all evangelical Christians to answer (because if it’s logically incoherent for them to have ever thought they could defeat God, and to continue to oppose Him, and the Bible really teaches the existence of beings who once tried to defeat God, and who still oppose Him, Biblical Christianity itself could be viewed as logically incoherent.)
So assuming demons do exist (which you’ve said seems to be the teaching of scripture, and which is a possibility that you say you’re open to), do you have any thoughts on these questions?
If they exist, then it seems logical they can repent. We assume angels are more intelligent than us and so they can see how things are panning out down here. (Unless they are angels that have ‘dirty jobs’ to do, and so are acting exactly as God wants them to. ).
Maybe some have ‘repented’ and have refrained from doing any more harm. I don’t think the Bible says anything about angels repenting or not repenting does it?? I assume they can repent because of the verses that talk of God reconciling all things.
I don’t get the idea that they set out to defeat God. If the ‘sons of God’ in Genesis 6:2 are spirit beings (there is debate about this), then it seems they wanted what humans had: physical relationships and offspring maybe?? They wanted to do what they chose to do, like Adam and Eve. I don’t get the impression that Adam and Eve wanted to defeat God.
The first two questions can be explained by UR: Col 1:20: ‘‘and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.’’ and Ephesians 1:10: ‘to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment--to bring **all things in heaven **and on earth together under one head, even Christ.’’
The second two questions are not really logical to me. I don’t view disobedience as trying to ‘defeat’ God, but about us choosing to do what we want. There may be some men who think they can defeat God because men’s brains can be malfunctioning, but I don’t think angels, who have been in the presence of God and who therefore know the power and holiness of God, could really consider such a possibility. This is why I’m suspicious of ‘fallen angels’. But if there are such beings, then maybe their intelligence can become warped and they can be mistaken. It seems illogical that God prevents puny humans from ‘living indefinately’ (barring their way to the tree of life) after they disobey Him but lets powerful spirit beings run amock in the universe. The cards are stacked badly for us as it is. Do we really need invisible tempters watching our every move, and goading us to sin even more than we would on our own? It all sounds illogical to me. It’s much more logical to believe that Satan or the devil, is our own inner temptations or those of people we interact with. We all have our own demons and urges that we have to fight. Here’s an example of being tempted by a ‘spirit’. I associate ‘night clubs’ with pick up joints. The last time I went to one (a few years ago now), the ‘spirit’ or energy of the place was almost tangible. The power of the music, the leering looks of men, the dancing. I could feel the ‘pull’ of sin, in the air. I don’t plan on going to one any time soon. That’s the ‘spirit of the air’ I sense. (Eph 2:2). If I’m wrong and there are invisible, powerful, intelligent beings watching my every move and trying to tempt me, I hope God shows me I’m wrong.
It may appear more logical to the carnal mind, but you yourself have admitted it’s less scriptural.
Here’s the part I left out.
Does it really seem more logical to you that Jesus healed the Gadarenes of some kind of brain maledy and simultaneously zapped the brains of the swine, causing them to malfunction, after the disciples overheard what sure sounded like a conversation between Jesus and real spirits possesing the men?
If He did this, it would seem He wanted to give us the impression that such entities were real, wouldn’t it?
Maybe we’d better best just believe it.
So it seems logical to you that Satan and his angels are consciously and obediently doing exactly what God wants them to do?
And that’s why an aionian fire has been prepaired for them (Matt. 25:41)?
The devil’s just doing a dirty job that was given to him, and that’s why he will be tormented unto the ages of ages (Rev. 20:10)?
I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, but there’s something about your post here that reminds me of something I once posted to an agnostic on this board.
I think his user name was Jeff, and he asked me a question I really couldn’t answer.
I don’t remember exactly what it was, but he shared some heart wrenching experiences he had as a child.
I think he lost both his parents fron a car accident, saw family members praying for their recovery, and never really saw any evidence of God in his life.
I guess his question was why, and the best answer I had at the time was that maybe he just wasn’t one of the elect–but not to worry, if UR is true God will get around to you sooner or later.
I don’t think I actually used those words, but that was the gist of what I said, and for over two years now I’ve had real reason to regret it.
There is such a thing as karma.
I’m sorry Jeff, and I ask for your forgiveness.
Now getting back to your post Catherine.
Does it really seem logical to you that Satan and his angels are consciously and obediently doing exactly what God wants them to do?
Do you think that’s why an aionian fire has been prepaired for them (Matt. 25:41)?
If the devil’s just doing a dirty job that was given to him, is that why he will be tormented unto the ages of ages (Rev. 20:10)?
Does it really seem more logical to you that Jesus healed the Gadarenes of some brain maledy and simultaneously gave a brain maledy to the swine, after the disciples overheard what (by your own estimation) sure sounded like a conversation between Jesus and real spirits possesing the men?
Why?
To create the illusion that real spirts left the men and entered the swine?
To pepetuate some cultural myth?
These are serious questions, and nothing to laugh at.
Because I have a mental illness, I am very cautious in what I say about demon possession but it does seem to me the two may have been demon possessed because they recognized who and what Jesus was on first sight of Him. There is no reason to think two mentally ill humans, or any humans other than John the Baptist, would have known this. The pigs are not evidence for me, Jesus transferring the messed up brain chemistry, electricity and inner malformations that cause mental illness which is a disease of the brain NOT caused by demon possession would have messed up those pigs but good.
I was taught in the fundamentalist religion I first belonged to that demons are indeed fallen angels who rebelled against God because they did not want to help humans, which is what God created them for. Now they try and keep as many humans as possible from believing in God. I do not know how Biblical this teaching is and I certainly don’t know of any Bible verses specifically stating these so I am not sure what I believe about how demons came to exsist.
If the above is accurate, they will loose, God WILL have everyone back in His Love ultimately.
If they are fallen angels, their redemption, I think is between them and God. I don’t think God will allow any kind of sin to exist in the New Heaven and the New Earth, but until we are told otherwise, fallen angels are not our problem----other than ignoring their lies in this life that is.
And I don’t believe any spririt beings are running around doing evil on God’s orders, because I don’t believe God is evil in any way. And I don’t believe evil is equal to or stronger than good either. I don’t buy the whole you have to have evil in order to have good thing.
And why would He do that unless He wanted to deceive the disciples (and any other bystanders) into believing that the delusional men’s imaginary demons were real?
Is it rational to believe that Christ tranfered messed up brain chemestry, electrical malfunctions, or structural malformations from human to animal brains?
Weren’t the Jews and Romans of the first century culturally and sociologically predisposed to believe in external spiritual entities?
If the poor, ignorant yocals were wrong, why would the Son of God go out of His way to perpetuate their superstitons?
Perhaps that’s because you haven’t thought this through rationally, and I would urge you to try.
You realize that Thomas Aquinas said that there is no redemption for fallen angels, because they’re purre spirits, and as pure spirits knew exactly what they were doing when they chose to be evil, so their choice is permenant, and they can’t repent.
One purpose of this thread was to explore whether there’s any other logical explination as to why they seem bent on playing out a game they must lose (if Aquinas was wrong, and they can repent.)
I don’t know if it qualifies as a mental ilness, but some of us are naturally disinclined to believe in anything we can’t see (including God, spirits, an afterlife, or any meaning or purpose in this life), and have seen how this world will surely end for each of us if there’s no God (with a wimper, not a bang.)
Months ago, I complained of insomnia and depression to my doctor, and I was proscribed Temazepam (for sleep) and Zoloft (for depression.)
I sometimes skip the Temazepam because you can become dependant on it if you take it every night, and the doctor took me off Zoloft because it didn’t really do anything for me, except maybe kinda numb my feelings, and give me a headach when I had to stop cold turkey.
You see, I had to accompany my Father in the ambulance whenn he went to the hospital one night, I stayed there with him there until he was discharged to a rehab, and I stayed with him there until he was discharged (and I forgot those pills.)
I also went through thev ER when I was staying at the hospital with dad, and found out I have emphazima.
Anyway, I told the doctor that I didn’t really think those pills were doing anything for me, and had already stopped them when I left them in the house that night, and she was fine with that.
Situational depression isn’t due to any chemical imballance, or malfunctions, or malformations.
And if I were suicidal–if I didn’t believe that there are states of existence that are better than non-existence–it would be easy enough to take all the sleeping pills at once.
But something a Priest said to me about depriving my Mom of my prayers, and it being a mortal sin (and God giving us the grace not to sin mortally) has been far more effective in detering such thoughts than any pill or secular counsellor could be.
I also try to hope in things I can’t see, and to believe that existence has value.
BTW: I have a Bachelor’s degree in Behavioral Science, and was partial to Carl Roger’s active listening when I led Group Counselling sessions in school.
It’s difficult for me to believe that God lacked the foreknowledge to see that they’d fall, or that He’d create any beings He knew would suffer unendingly, and I’m afraid my priest can’t help me much in thinking this one out (I was hoping some “Evangelical Universalists” could.)
Anything that causes me to doubt the Christian faith, or the love and mercy of God is somewhat of a problem for me.
The one thing that I know, and I’ve seen, is that all earthly happiness is fleeting, and there are no happy endings here.
If you doubt that, visit an ICU, or a Nursing Home, and contemplate how the world ends.
P.S. I would appreciate any contributions to this thread that actually offer some alternative to Aquinas’ theory, and address the questions asked in the OP.
In the OT, there are angels that have ‘dirty’ jobs e.g Num 22:21-21 ‘‘So Balaam rose in the morning, and saddled his ass, and went with the princes of Moab. But God’s anger was kindled because he went; and the angel of the Lord took his stand in the way as his adversary [satan]. Now he was riding on the ass, and his two servants were with him.’’ God used one of His angels as a satan, or adversary to accomplish His purpose. Here’s another example: ''And the Lord raised up an adversary [Satan] against Solomon, Hadad the Edomite; he was of the royal house in Edom. (1 Kings 11:14).
Here’s another angel with a ‘dirty’ job: ‘‘For the Lord will pass through to slay the Egyptians; and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door, and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to slay you.’’ (Ex. 12:23)
So, in the OT, satan is a title of office and can apply to angels or men, rather than the name of one angel who is the arch enemy of God. There is no mention of demon possession in the OT, as far as I can remember. Please correct me if I’m wrong. Saul’s ‘evil spirit’ can be explained as a depressive mood, otherwise, why would David’s music soothe it??
I stayed awake for a few hours last night, thinking and thinking about the Gadarene and the swine. I must agree that the text seems to be clearly saying that Jesus had an intelligent conversation with beings who knew who He was and knew about a future punishment AND gave credit to God:‘Son of the Most High God’. Interestingly, they acknowledge God as the Most High, so they don’t think they have outsmarted God. They’re scared of Jesus. I’ll have to reluctantly conclude that there are demons, but I’m still not sure if they’re fallen angels.
The aionion fire is symbolic of the purifying of anything courrupted. In the book of Revelation ‘things’ or concepts are put into the Great Lake of Fire, not just persons. So if the devil or Satan are representative of sin in a person, then persons being thrown in, will have that sin purified out of them. If the devil is a fallen angel, then I hope the evil will be burned out too. Thomas Aquinas seems to make sense about pure spirit beings not being able to be redeemed, but a similar argument could be made that says pure spirits should not be able to sin in the first place. It’s all conjecture. The UR verses in the Bible say ‘ALL things’ in creation will be reconciled, so I’m going to keep focusing on that.
I didn’t say evil spirits, demons, fallen angels–whatever you want to call them could not be redeemed, just that this redemption is between them and God and we humans don’t have much to do with it, as far as we know now anyway.
Jesus and the pigs: Jesus consistently kept his teachings within the understanding of the people he was speaking to. He even said there were some things He knew that He could just not tell people yet. For instance, he never explained any science that I am aware of, He did not talk about the earth revolving around the sun or that the earth was round. For a long time mental illness was believed to by caused by demon possession (Which is why I am so cautious in posting about demons. Some people on my Mental Health support board have been badly damaged by forced ‘exorcisms’ performed by people who still believe this.) Jesus was mostly concerned with our relationships to other people and to Him and to the Father–not the whats and whyfores of the physical world. His time in our world was too limited to cover everything.
I believe the two men we were talking about were demon possessed and NOT mentally ill. Their symptoms were caused by the demons.
It was only in the late 19th and thru the 20th to the present that we are beginning to understand the problems in the brain that cause mental illness. This is a new field and we have a long way to go in it.
Michael, I worked as an RN for about 15 years in both a medical/oncology field and in some nursing homes before the anxiety–which is a symptom of BP2(which is what I have) became bad enough that I was afraid I would make a mistake and hurt a patient. At which point I left nursing. The hospital floor I worked on also did in hospital hospice care. There is very little of the ugly parts of death that I have not seen, including participating in a Code Blue on a baby that died.
The testimony I can give is more from personal experience than a result of intense theological study. Sometimes, when I nursed a hospice patient I could practically feel all of heaven waiting to welcome that person home. God has and is walking with me thru this whole BP2 thing, and I feel Him even more so since I became aware of Christian Universalism.
This world can be a very ugly place, I believe that is because it is a sinful place. But this world is not all there is. I do believe in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and that Jesus has made a better place for us with the Father. He also died an ugly death for us—and He was Resurected and because of this everything changed. I think sometimes we Christians focus too much on the Death and not enough on the Resurection.
If you are still having problems with Depression (even if it started due to a specific situation) and insomnia, I really, really urge you to see a psychiatrist if you have not already done so. At present there are no effective lab tests to measure how well antidepressants and other psych meds are working and it sometakes takes trials of more than one to find what works for a person. Most medical docs are just not trained to get a person thru to an effective medication.
I am very sorry your family has been thru so many painful things lately.
Thomas Aquinas is NOT God. Now, I will grant you he has studied a lot more theology than I ever will and knew enough languages to study texts in their original form plus was centuries closer to the writing and/or transcribing of said texts but that does not automatically make him correct. If God decides to redeem all who turned against him, men and demon He can do so. To say otherwise is to make God less than God.
Catherine: I have a hard time understanding about God’s foreknowledge of events too. I can only say by faith that maybe somethings have to happen the way they did/will for His plans to ultimately work out. And again, God works on an eternal stage as it were, death is not an end or an obstacle to Him in dealing with the firstborn Egyptians.
I have never come across a devil (as far as I know) and so I don’t really give them much thought. Sorry I can’t be of much help.
. A scripture that always springs to mind, when discussing these things is: ‘‘We also know that the Son did not come to help angels; he came to help the descendants of Abraham.’’ Heb 2:16. There is a verse in the Bible that says that God creates ‘satans’. I can’t find it, but will post it when I do. 
).