Fighting Your Demons
"To keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong." (2nd Corinthians 12:7b-10)
The apostle Paul wrote these words in his second letter to the church in Corinth, Greece. Corinth was like a New Orleans of the ancient world. Sailors frequented the port city. There was a large temple to Aphrodite. the goddess of love in the Greek pantheon. Legend has it there were 1,000 temple prostitutes who served there. Their purpose was for sexual encounters with temple visitors. The theological idea here is like pornography for the gods. Sexual activity on earth, as an expression of worship, excites the gods to sexual activity themselves and may lead to the desired effect of the offering, namely fertility and prosperity.
Paul established a church community, in the midst of pagan shrines and temples, within a culture that knew nothing of his God, Jesus Christ. To say that demons are at work in such a place is certainly not a polite thing to say. It is true that Christianity has a long history of labeling anything beyond orthodox faith to be of demons. Paganism was certainly portrayed in this manner.
Painting pagan faith as demonic goes back to Old Testament roots. The book of Deuteronomy states that the Israelites who made sacrifices to idols, were actually worshiping demons, a point that Paul supports in his first letter to Corinth. Here are the passages.
During the exchange of Israel's leadership from Moses to Joshua, Moses delivers a song. The song celebrates God's deliverance of Israel from slavery in Egypt and God's providence and protection while wandering the wilderness. Yet even though God has acted so generously toward this fledgling nation, God's chosen, Israel rebelled in idolatry.
He abandoned God who made him,
and scoffed at the Rock of his salvation.
They made him jealous with strange gods,
with abhorrent things they provoked him.
They sacrificed to demons, not God,
to deities they had never known,
to new ones recently arrived,
You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you;
you forgot the God who gave you birth. (Deuteronomy 32:15b-18)
The interpreter recognizes this literature to be written during or after the exile in Babylon, when the full implications of Israel's downfall was linked to idol worship. Yet the redactors of Israel's sacred history, as recorded in the Old Testament, maintain that they were not worshiping others gods. They were worshiping demons.
The worship of these foreign gods had, at its most detestable expression, the sacrifice of children and the utilization of shrine prostitutes, including male prostitutes.
Paul wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians.
Consider the people of Israel; are not those who eat the sacrifices partners in the altar? What do I imply then? That food sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be partners with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Or are we provoking the Lord to jealousy? (1st Corinthians 10:18-22a)
In his appeal to turn former pagans to pure worship, demons are exposed as the object of false worship. The pagan shrines sold meat in the city market that had been sacrificed to various Greek deities. If you were going to eat meet in Corinth and didn't have your own source, you were going to eat meat that was likely sacrificed to an idol. This was problem for the early church in cities like Corinth. That is why that, in both the Corinthian correspondence and the letter to the Roman church, this topic is discussed by the apostle.
But what exactly are demons? We talk of fighting our own demons, even in casual conversation, as sort of a metaphor for personal struggles. Sometimes we mean mental health issues with which we struggle. Other times we mean resentment or anxiety or grief. But are these truly demons? Are demons simply an archaic idea of an ancient people without a scientific basis for understanding reality?
According to the Harper-Collins Bible Dictionary, demons are, in New Testament terms, "evil spirits opposed to God and God's people." The Greek term translated as demon is diabolos, meaning accuser, slanderer. The ancients thought of the world under the influence of a wide variety of spiritual beings, not all of them necessarily evil. New Testament authors even refer to them as ignorant of what God is doing. It's the church's witness to make it known to the "principalities and powers" or "rulers and authorities in the heavenly places." (See Ephesians 3:8-10)
The New Testament authors were all of Jewish decent, as far as we know. They would have been influenced by what was on the popular reading list for Jews of the day. There are several writings outside of the Bible that were being read as scripture. An example is The Testament of Moses which Jude refers to in his letter to the church. (Jude 1:9). These intertestamental writings are apocalyptic in nature, claiming to unveil hidden truths and giving secret knowledge to readers. These wrtiings were heavily influenced by a Persian worldview in which an anti-god is the source of all tragedy and suffering in the world. Since the Jews were exiled under Babylonian rule, and established as a vassal state under Persian rule, their religion and philosophy helped to shape Jewish thought.
In the first century Jewish mysticism told of many demons and angels, including categories of angelic and demonic beings, but all demons were led by Satan, the big bad devil, who is a Jewish expression of the Persian idea. See this video:
Angra Mainyu (also called Ahriman) is the name of the Zoroastrian deity that functions as the chief adversary to the creator Ahura Mazda. He is a destructive and chaotic spirit, with the purpose of destroying and frustrating the works of Ahura Mazda. He is the absolute antithesis of goodness and creativity. A principle task of of this evil deity is to deceive humanity. Angra Mainyu teaches humanity how to wage war. He brings pestilence and disease to earth. He brought death. He is the worst of thoughts.
You can see how Christianity has been influenced by these Persian and later Jewish ideas. Jesus speaks of the devil and Satan. In His ministry, Jesus drove out demons from the possessed. The early church, too, drove out demons as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. Jesus, in John's gospel, refers to Satan as the Father of Lies. Deceit is the devil's game.
Let's leave historical ideas about demons, unclean or evil spirits, and think about what talk of fighting our own demons might mean. The connection between the past and our present thinking lies in the idea of deceiving.
Our lives have an inner quality. We humans have a developed frontal cortex in our brain that gives us the ability to observe ourselves being ourselves. Modern ideas about our psyche break it down to three parts, ego, super-ego and id.
According to Sigmund Freud's model of the psyche, the id is the primitive and instinctual part of the mind that contains sexual and aggressive drives and hidden memories, the super-ego operates as a moral conscience, and the ego is the realistic part that mediates between the desires of the id and the super-ego. It's the angel on one shoulder urging good thoughts, words and actions, and a devil on the other shoulder urging just the opposite. We are caught between these voices in our own minds and must make our choice. The id is childlike, primitive and selfish, expecting immediate satisfaction of every pleasurable desire. It is fantasy oriented and illogical. Tantrums come from a dissatisfied id. The ego is concerned with devising a realistic strategy to obtain pleasure, considering realistic plans that won't cause too much social risk. The superego incorporates the values and morals of society which are learned from one's parents and others. The superego consists of two systems: The conscience and the ideal self. The conscience can punish the ego through causing feelings of guilt. For example, if the ego gives in to the id's demands, the superego may make the person feel bad through guilt. The ideal self (or ego-ideal) is an imaginary picture of how you ought to be, and represents career aspirations, how to treat other people, and how to behave as a member of society. (see https://www.simplypsychology.org/psyche.html)
Where do our personal demons wreak havoc in our lives? In the psyche for the most part, in this struggle between base animalistic impulses, the norms of society and religion, and our own ideals trying to work it out. Demons lie and deceive. Their purpose is to destroy you. Could we label the id as demonic, that selfish, irrational part of our psyche that wants what it wants now, damn the consequences? Perhaps, but evil has agency beyond our own minds. If it's all just in our heads then perhaps evil can be vanquished with a pill. We think we can keep the monsters in our heads sedate enough to manage.
I think that New Testament ideas about demons and devils are certainly archaic, but helpful. Psychology doesn't adequately explain evil in its fullness. Psychiatrist M.Scott Peck wrote in his book, The People of the Lie, that he had encountered what he considered to be true evil that transcends human agency. There was something inhuman in the people of the lie, something that is beyond ordinary human psychological conditions and maladies.
"Truly evil people, on the other hand, actively rather than passively avoid extending themselves. They will take any action in their power to protect their own laziness, to preserve the integrity of their sick self. Rather than nurturing others, they will actually destroy others in this cause. If necessary, they will even kill to escape the pain of their own spiritual growth. As the integrity of their sick self is threatened by the spiritual health of those around them, they will seek by all manner of means to crush and demolish the spiritual health that may exist near them.
I define evil, then, as the exercise of political power -- that is, the imposition of one’s will upon others by overt or covert coercion -- in order to avoid extending one’s self for the purpose of nurturing spiritual growth. Ordinary laziness is nonlove; evil is antilove." (M. Scott Peck)
Whether we embrace the biblical language that speaks of demonic powers tormenting people, or we find other ways of talking about our inner struggles, we must agree that we all have inner impulses that compel us toward evil, harm and selfishness. Suicide is the number two killer, behind accidental death, of young adults aged 10 to 35 years of age! These inner impulses vocalize lies, in our own heads, to get us to do what we know in our best selves we should not do. They belittle us and beat us down when we don't obey them. They remind us of our failures and our regrets. These inner voices delight in shame and guilt, anything that will break us down and make us their slaves. They rob us of hope to the point that we long for death as relief.
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| "Bad Day" by Eric Fairburn |
Paul established a church community, in the midst of pagan shrines and temples, within a culture that knew nothing of his God, Jesus Christ. To say that demons are at work in such a place is certainly not a polite thing to say. It is true that Christianity has a long history of labeling anything beyond orthodox faith to be of demons. Paganism was certainly portrayed in this manner.
Painting pagan faith as demonic goes back to Old Testament roots. The book of Deuteronomy states that the Israelites who made sacrifices to idols, were actually worshiping demons, a point that Paul supports in his first letter to Corinth. Here are the passages.
During the exchange of Israel's leadership from Moses to Joshua, Moses delivers a song. The song celebrates God's deliverance of Israel from slavery in Egypt and God's providence and protection while wandering the wilderness. Yet even though God has acted so generously toward this fledgling nation, God's chosen, Israel rebelled in idolatry.
He abandoned God who made him,
and scoffed at the Rock of his salvation.
They made him jealous with strange gods,
with abhorrent things they provoked him.
They sacrificed to demons, not God,
to deities they had never known,
to new ones recently arrived,
You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you;
you forgot the God who gave you birth. (Deuteronomy 32:15b-18)
The interpreter recognizes this literature to be written during or after the exile in Babylon, when the full implications of Israel's downfall was linked to idol worship. Yet the redactors of Israel's sacred history, as recorded in the Old Testament, maintain that they were not worshiping others gods. They were worshiping demons.
The worship of these foreign gods had, at its most detestable expression, the sacrifice of children and the utilization of shrine prostitutes, including male prostitutes.
Paul wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians.
Consider the people of Israel; are not those who eat the sacrifices partners in the altar? What do I imply then? That food sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be partners with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Or are we provoking the Lord to jealousy? (1st Corinthians 10:18-22a)
In his appeal to turn former pagans to pure worship, demons are exposed as the object of false worship. The pagan shrines sold meat in the city market that had been sacrificed to various Greek deities. If you were going to eat meet in Corinth and didn't have your own source, you were going to eat meat that was likely sacrificed to an idol. This was problem for the early church in cities like Corinth. That is why that, in both the Corinthian correspondence and the letter to the Roman church, this topic is discussed by the apostle.
But what exactly are demons? We talk of fighting our own demons, even in casual conversation, as sort of a metaphor for personal struggles. Sometimes we mean mental health issues with which we struggle. Other times we mean resentment or anxiety or grief. But are these truly demons? Are demons simply an archaic idea of an ancient people without a scientific basis for understanding reality?
According to the Harper-Collins Bible Dictionary, demons are, in New Testament terms, "evil spirits opposed to God and God's people." The Greek term translated as demon is diabolos, meaning accuser, slanderer. The ancients thought of the world under the influence of a wide variety of spiritual beings, not all of them necessarily evil. New Testament authors even refer to them as ignorant of what God is doing. It's the church's witness to make it known to the "principalities and powers" or "rulers and authorities in the heavenly places." (See Ephesians 3:8-10)
The New Testament authors were all of Jewish decent, as far as we know. They would have been influenced by what was on the popular reading list for Jews of the day. There are several writings outside of the Bible that were being read as scripture. An example is The Testament of Moses which Jude refers to in his letter to the church. (Jude 1:9). These intertestamental writings are apocalyptic in nature, claiming to unveil hidden truths and giving secret knowledge to readers. These wrtiings were heavily influenced by a Persian worldview in which an anti-god is the source of all tragedy and suffering in the world. Since the Jews were exiled under Babylonian rule, and established as a vassal state under Persian rule, their religion and philosophy helped to shape Jewish thought.
In the first century Jewish mysticism told of many demons and angels, including categories of angelic and demonic beings, but all demons were led by Satan, the big bad devil, who is a Jewish expression of the Persian idea. See this video:
Angra Mainyu (also called Ahriman) is the name of the Zoroastrian deity that functions as the chief adversary to the creator Ahura Mazda. He is a destructive and chaotic spirit, with the purpose of destroying and frustrating the works of Ahura Mazda. He is the absolute antithesis of goodness and creativity. A principle task of of this evil deity is to deceive humanity. Angra Mainyu teaches humanity how to wage war. He brings pestilence and disease to earth. He brought death. He is the worst of thoughts.
You can see how Christianity has been influenced by these Persian and later Jewish ideas. Jesus speaks of the devil and Satan. In His ministry, Jesus drove out demons from the possessed. The early church, too, drove out demons as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. Jesus, in John's gospel, refers to Satan as the Father of Lies. Deceit is the devil's game.
Let's leave historical ideas about demons, unclean or evil spirits, and think about what talk of fighting our own demons might mean. The connection between the past and our present thinking lies in the idea of deceiving.
Our lives have an inner quality. We humans have a developed frontal cortex in our brain that gives us the ability to observe ourselves being ourselves. Modern ideas about our psyche break it down to three parts, ego, super-ego and id.
Where do our personal demons wreak havoc in our lives? In the psyche for the most part, in this struggle between base animalistic impulses, the norms of society and religion, and our own ideals trying to work it out. Demons lie and deceive. Their purpose is to destroy you. Could we label the id as demonic, that selfish, irrational part of our psyche that wants what it wants now, damn the consequences? Perhaps, but evil has agency beyond our own minds. If it's all just in our heads then perhaps evil can be vanquished with a pill. We think we can keep the monsters in our heads sedate enough to manage.
I think that New Testament ideas about demons and devils are certainly archaic, but helpful. Psychology doesn't adequately explain evil in its fullness. Psychiatrist M.Scott Peck wrote in his book, The People of the Lie, that he had encountered what he considered to be true evil that transcends human agency. There was something inhuman in the people of the lie, something that is beyond ordinary human psychological conditions and maladies.
"Truly evil people, on the other hand, actively rather than passively avoid extending themselves. They will take any action in their power to protect their own laziness, to preserve the integrity of their sick self. Rather than nurturing others, they will actually destroy others in this cause. If necessary, they will even kill to escape the pain of their own spiritual growth. As the integrity of their sick self is threatened by the spiritual health of those around them, they will seek by all manner of means to crush and demolish the spiritual health that may exist near them.
I define evil, then, as the exercise of political power -- that is, the imposition of one’s will upon others by overt or covert coercion -- in order to avoid extending one’s self for the purpose of nurturing spiritual growth. Ordinary laziness is nonlove; evil is antilove." (M. Scott Peck)
Whether we embrace the biblical language that speaks of demonic powers tormenting people, or we find other ways of talking about our inner struggles, we must agree that we all have inner impulses that compel us toward evil, harm and selfishness. Suicide is the number two killer, behind accidental death, of young adults aged 10 to 35 years of age! These inner impulses vocalize lies, in our own heads, to get us to do what we know in our best selves we should not do. They belittle us and beat us down when we don't obey them. They remind us of our failures and our regrets. These inner voices delight in shame and guilt, anything that will break us down and make us their slaves. They rob us of hope to the point that we long for death as relief.
Demonic possession is still encountered today. Exorcists still work against the forces of darkness in humanity. We can write them off as crack pots, superstitious buffoons who do more harm than good, but we cannot easily do so if we respect the personal experience of others. When people speak of mental and spiritual torment as if it comes from outside of them, do we think simply that they have misinterpreted their own experience or do we try and understand? The Church has helped to free many enslaved and tormented souls through the power of faith in God, who is love.
The next time you are fighting your demons, however you understand them, know that the power of Christ is with you. He has all authority in heaven (the spiritual and unseen realm) and earth (the physical and observable realm) and shares His authority with believers who are aligned with Him in ministry. The devil has no power over you except that which you choose to yield to him.
Christianity, if anything, is about empowerment. The faith that says God loves you, and nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ, is victorious over all the liar and destroyer of lives could throw at you. Jesus took all that evil could throw at Him and survived, victorious over the grave! With Christ, so can you. It doesn't mean you won't experience pain or struggle. Faith in Christ doesn't give you a pass on falling to illness or tragedy. We are live in the real world, which is broken. Faith does connect you to the source of life. Faith gives us undying hope and anchors us to an unshakable kingdom. When you are in Christ, you are in the hands of the living God. He has promised to give you resurrection, new life, everlasting, immortal, and incorruptible. With full trust in God's ability to deliver on this promise, we face our demons with heavenly power. Be encouraged by the witness of the early church.
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. (James 4:7-8a)
Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you. Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in your faith, for you know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering. And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the power forever and ever. Amen. (1st Peter 5:6-11)
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