Weird Theology | Do Demons Hear Your Thoughts? Rethinking Spiritual Warfare

[00:00:00] You're listening to Thatll Preach. I'm here with Paul, and we're going to continue our series on Weird Theology, which is a series that we started looking at some speculative topics, but also very important topics. And we are enlisting the help of some great thinkers of the past to guide us on this journey.

[00:00:17] And today we're going to talk about whether angels and demons can read our thoughts. Can they look into our minds? And I think many Christians talk as though they can, which is a problem, especially when it comes to our theology of God. But it is an interesting question. You can think about spirits, this sort of supernatural, unseen world. How do they affect us? Demon possession, oppression. Do they plant thoughts in our minds?

[00:00:44] They know what we're thinking and planning, all these types of things. Or do they? Or do they, right. That's the question. And I think we're going to land on no, to give a little preview of the final answer. But we're going to list our good friend Thomas, Thomas Aquinas. Tommy A. Tommy A. To set us straight on some of our assumptions, maybe in pop culture regarding angels and demons, and help us to think clearly on this topic. So what strikes you about this conversation?

[00:01:13] Tommy A. Well, I feel like our view of demons makes itself known in pop culture. Well, we get our views of demons from pop culture, media, stuff like that. The boggart in Harry Potter. I'm saying this not because I'm a Harry Potter nerd, but because I just saw you. Tommy A. I don't even know what that is. Tommy A. It's the creature that manifests and knows what your deepest fear is, and then becomes your greatest fear. So Harry, for instance, the Dementor. Tommy A. What would that be for you? Tommy A. For me, it would be you. Tommy A. It would just become me?

[00:01:41] Tommy A. What if I am a Boggart right now? Boggart, whatever. Tommy A. That would be pretty scary. But the Boggart in Harry Potter basically knows your deepest fears. It reads your mind. It knows the thing that is going to distress you the most. And I think a lot of us have this view that demons can access our most personal desires, feelings, and can basically read our minds.

[00:02:10] And I don't know where we got that from. I don't know where we inherited this conception from. But it's basically giving kind of like a divine status, divine capabilities to demons. And scripture doesn't seem to teach that. Some of the church traditions seems to push back against that. But it is kind of like a hairy topic. And I think people go back and forth on how we should think about the powers that demons have, how they can affect us.

[00:02:34] And maybe even some of the church fathers, the way that they talked about demons kind of like seeped into the cultural milieu. But I think we should put demons in their place. Well, this is important to think through because we have a couple of things going against us. Today is a weird cross-section of an intense secularism where we are very disconnected from any sense of kind of an enchanted world.

[00:03:01] I know that's kind of a buzzword now. But that there's a world beyond what we see, beyond our senses, that nevertheless impacts the world. Right. And that we sort of close the world off to the supernatural. And in doing so, we've really cut ourselves off from wonder and beauty and all these types of things in any meaningful way.

[00:03:21] So there's that. And then there's also, I think, a perennial kind of superstition that pops up where people are getting new aging. People are talking to spirits. People are engaging in all kinds of strange practices.

[00:03:35] And that's also increasingly becoming prevalent among people. And so you have this interesting cross-section. But the church fathers, and you read some of the desert fathers, they both have this very strong sense of the supernatural in the sense of like the unseen world is real and affects this world.

[00:03:58] But they're also not, I guess, the best of them aren't superstitious. They also are grounded in deep, rootedness in orthodoxy, in doctrine, in what, you know, the centrality of the church and the scriptures and all these types of things. And yet they're still battling demons in the desert. And they're still battling demons in the desert, you know. So in some ways, we have kind of two hurdles to get over, even just thinking about this question.

[00:04:25] But help us start with that. How do we begin to think about this question of whether demons and or angels can read our thoughts? You want to start with God? Yeah, yeah. I think the first thing to know is that demons are angels. They're fallen angels. They're immaterial beings, but they're created by God. They're beings. They're part of the created order.

[00:04:48] Right. So they're not, they're not divine. They're not, they hold a place of, you know, special power, perhaps special glory close to God and their non-fallen state, but they're beings. They're created, they're finite. That's, I think that's the most important launching path that we recognize them and their proper place in the created order. And we don't want to be, we don't want to attribute to angels, right? And I think about what a demon is. We don't want to attribute to angels the power of God. Right.

[00:05:17] Like constantly you have in the Old and New Testaments, angels telling people, I'm not God. I'm not an object worthy of your worship. I'm just a messenger. That's all there is to be an angel. It's an immaterial messenger. They're not divine. They don't have like powers to leave your mind. They don't have access to you better than you know yourself. And we want to make sure that the divine capacities, we keep those in the divine nature. And we use that to help us understand the finitude of an angel.

[00:05:43] That's really important because the divide isn't between things you can see and things that you can't. Right. It's between what is uncreated. Yeah. God and not God. It's creator and creature. That's the distinction. Right. And creature encompasses animals, human beings, the visible world, and the invisible world. Right. Including angels and cherubim and all the heavenly hosts that you see. They're all contingent creatures. They all come into being because of God. And they're finite as well.

[00:06:13] And so what we don't want to do is think about invisible world is like God world and angels are like basically mini gods or something like that. Or God is just a really, really powerful angel. That's another way you can mistake it. That God is of a wholly different class. He's beyond class itself. He's totally other than the angelic host and all the creatures in heaven. And so the question is what distinguishes the creator from the creature? We sort of, I think, understand for us, it's like, well, you can't see God and he created all things.

[00:06:43] And okay, but you can't see angels. So what differentiates them? And it's only God creates. Angels can't create. And only God is all powerful. Angels are not all powerful. Only God is infinite. Angels are finite. Now, how does that relate to knowledge? So the first question we can ask is, can angels know our secret thoughts? Can they know our desires, our feelings, our aspirations? Can they know what we're thinking by reading our thoughts the way we do?

[00:07:13] And Thomas Aquinas says, no, because they're not God. You can know someone's thoughts by reading it off their behavior. Or if I communicate to you, this is what I'm thinking, this is what I'm feeling. Or you look at someone's countenance. Oh, they look sad today. They look happy. They look excited. Those are all ways that we read off people's thoughts and desires and intentions from their behavior or from their explicit speech.

[00:07:40] But barring those things, no one has access to anyone else's mind except God. And this is why when Jesus heals the paralytic and forgives him of his sins, the Pharisees that are standing there, in their hearts, they're thinking, how does this man have the power to forgive sins? They don't say it out loud, but Jesus knows their hearts. That's evidence of divinity. That's a divine act, to know what's in someone's heart without them saying it.

[00:08:05] But barring your saying it or behaving in a certain way, demons just don't have access to your thoughts. It's a protective class. And it's important to think about angels, the word, angelos, it means messenger. Right. It can even be spoken of human beings, human messengers. And I think that's instructive. The angels, if they do know into your thoughts, it's because it's been revealed to them from God. God has told them. And they are simply delivering a message. Right. The angel delivering a message to Mary.

[00:08:34] I mean, they're not generating that knowledge in and themselves. It has to be given to them. But there's a sense in which, again, you can't find a verse that says angels can't read your mind. And even in certain situations, it may not be clear. Do they know that by revelation or anything like that? But you have to kind of work through your doctrine of God that is very explicit. Only God knows the human hearts. Only God knows all things. Only God is transcendent above this created order. These are things that are unique to God.

[00:09:02] So you reason from that and you go, however this angel knows this, it can't be because he possesses the same knowledge as God. Right. So you sort of work through that logically and you go, all these other verses do tell us about what is unique about God and his omniscience and his ability to know the heart. And I think that's powerful. I mean, it's powerful to think that God, what is unique about God is he knows you before you express anything.

[00:09:30] You know, our father knows what we need before we even ask him. And that's his godness. That's what sets him apart. Yeah. And to ascribe that ability to any other creature would be to ascribe a rival God. Yeah. And I think it's kind of reassuring because I don't know, I think when I was younger, I did have this view that demons could read your thoughts and they can like try to undermine your future.

[00:09:56] And so you kind of have to play this game in your head of not thinking certain things so that you don't give the demons like fuel for. If Aquinas is right, and I think he is just using biblical principles here, demons don't know what you're thinking. But on the flip side, they can see what you do and they can read off your body. Right. What you're feeling, what you're distressed about. And maybe this is the way the Boggart works in Harry Potter. I don't know. But like he reads what your fear is and then takes that.

[00:10:24] You can communicate and give raw data to demons. And on that basis, they can use that to then tempt you, know what your struggles are. But it's always on the basis of information that you've given them, whether it's explicitly or implicitly. But it's not something they have access to directly in your own mind. And a couple of things come from this. On the flip side, it shows that prayer is like a secure line to God. You know, that there's this God knows your heart. Mental prayers. Yeah.

[00:10:53] Well, but even that, that God knows your heart. And think about that with even his, you know, Satan's condemnation of you. Hmm. He can only point to things externally that he sees or that you say, but God actually knows the depth of your heart. Yeah. He knows who you are intimately. And that's powerful because sometimes with prayer, you know, I think we've all felt this, where you're like, you really want this thing. But then, you know, it might become an idol. So you're afraid to ask God. So you like, you like leave the God room and go to your own little closet. And you're like working through it.

[00:11:22] Like, well, maybe if I say this, God. And the funny thing is like, God is like, you can't, you don't leave the God room. It's like, he knows you're deliberating all these things. And he just wants you to kind of drop it and just be like, just ask me. Yeah. Just, just talk to me. Yeah. Right. Because he already knows he doesn't seek information. Whereas for these demons and these angels, precisely because they're not God, they have to seduce and have you kind of open things up.

[00:11:47] And I wonder, even with just like when people talk about new age rituals, satanic rituals, just these kind of strange dabbling with some dark forces. If there's a sense in which you're opening your mind to these demons. Yeah. That they're very perceptive. Think about, again, screw tape letters, classic kind of work by C.S. Lewis about how demons think, written from the perspective. Of a demon trying to tempt this guy. And he can only kind of externally go in. He can't like coerce his will. Right.

[00:12:14] And he, and, and there's a sense in when you're reading the book that his mind is sort of still blocked off. Yeah. He's just kind of, but they're very, he's guessing, but he's very observant. Yeah. And he also knows people really well. Right. And so his guesses are really good and he understands human nature. I think that's part of the genius of the screw tape letters is that these demons really understand how humans tick. They've had a lot of time. They've had a lot of time to observe. And we don't. Right. We don't realize the ways that we are falling for temptations or the kinds of forms that temptation takes.

[00:12:42] But all I have to say is there's still not an access granted to them, to this man. They can only sort of intuit types of things and do pattern recognition, I guess. Yeah. But it is very interesting. You know, what, what are ways that we give our minds over to demons? What, when, when we were, you know, when we pursue evil things, are we revealing more of what seduces us? Yeah. And tempts us. Yeah.

[00:13:09] So demons observe that and they bring those kinds of temptations to us. Well, what makes you afraid? What makes you afraid? Yeah. What are the fears? What are the things that are actually going to stress you? Right. All of those things are, we talked about open doors. Yeah. It doesn't have to be anything metaphysically spooky, but you're giving demons like raw information. Right. To tempt you with, distress you with. And yeah.

[00:13:28] Think about, uh, in second Corinthians, you know, Paul talks about wanting to avoid division and bitterness and strife and rivalry because he, he wants to be, he doesn't want to be ignorant of Satan's schemes. Right. Interestingly, it's, it's Satan's schemes. He's plotting and planning, but the foothold he gets is in. So if you're consumed with resentment or bitterness, Satan is noticing that and he will try to stoke. Keep feeding it. Yeah. Those embers, right.

[00:13:57] To turn into a, into a fire. And that's why Paul says, we got to stop this. We got to nip this in the bud. Right. Because you, you are showing Satan that this is fertile soil for him to really do some damage. But he can't access that if you don't give into that kind of resentment. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Um, and I think that, you know, there, there, there, there's so much brewing behind that, but it's such an important thing.

[00:14:22] And Paul is not ashamed to get supernatural with it and say, yeah, Satan is prowling around like a lion, seeking to destroy your faith. And it's not this superstitious thing where you say these magic words and it does something. It's, it's again, it's giving yourself over to sin, allowing it to get a foothold in your life, allowing lies and deception to get into your mind. Um, you know, they may not be able to read your mind, but they can see if something's working. Yeah. Hmm.

[00:14:48] And it's almost like Lewis has this great little line where he says, the devil's won a victory when he convinces us that he's scary. When actually the devil's just really boring, like evil's boring. And we, maybe that's part of like the devil's strategy. It's get us to think that he's this really cool, awesome being with all these superpowers when actually, no, he's just, he's another angel and he can only do with what you've given him. And there's like a physicality to it.

[00:15:17] Like they're, they're looking at your physical body. They don't have access to the innermost thoughts. And maybe that's why Luther says like, when the devil tempts me, I chase him off with a fart. That's one way to do it. One way to, uh, to make light of the situation or like in the Harry Potter piece, like how do they chase away the Boggart? They like imagine him in something ridiculous, like make light of the situation, like treat it with a kind of levity. And the antidote is like kind of just deflate the thing, see it for what it is.

[00:15:45] And it's actually not, not that bad, not that cool, not that epic to begin with. James talks about this, you know, drawing near to God, resist the devil. He will flee. Yeah. If you, you know, and it's not to say that there isn't a real struggle in spiritual warfare. And I don't want people to get into this kind of superstitious mindset of like, you know, it's, it's very basic. Like if you, if you give in to sin, uh, the solution isn't, you know, something, you know, spooky or anything like that.

[00:16:15] It's, it's repentance. It's, it's going, it's, it's, you draw near to God. You get, you run right to God and go, you're more powerful than this demon. You're more powerful than any of these lies. They're nothing to you. You've promised to help me. Like, I don't have to be afraid, you know? And so it's not doing battle with these demons and going toe to toe. It's actually running and going, I'm going to God. And, and you're going to flee because you know, you can't, you can't square up with, with God on this.

[00:16:43] And, um, so there I think it's, it's, what is it? It's, it's basic. It's, it's repentance. It's prayer. It's confession. It's crying out to God and knowing that he is infinitely more powerful than any spirit that could come against you. So let's get a little spookier. How does this relate to the topic of demonic possession or oppression or, you know, distorting someone's reality?

[00:17:11] Any of these kinds of things that the more, the more visible kind of manifestations of demonic activity? Well, Aquinas talks about this in detail and he breaks it up into three categories. Can angels change our wills? Can they change our imagination? And can they change or affect our senses? Interesting.

[00:17:29] We can talk about those in turn, but the most important, I think the one that comes to mind when we think of demonic oppression or possession is kind of like this idea where like a spirit inhabits a body and then forcefully takes it over violently overthrows the will. Yeah. And then make somebody do things that they don't want. And so, I don't know, like, this is why you need exorcisms and this is why all the exorcist movies make a lot of money.

[00:17:53] And so, I mean, if Aquinas is right, Aquinas says, look, technically, the only one who can move the individual's will is the individual and God. You can't have another created being moving the will of another. So, if that's... What does it mean moving the will? So, I decide to raise my right hand. Right? That's me as an agent working. Aquinas thinks God...

[00:18:19] God is ultimately the explanation for all of that because all of creation has its being in God. Right. God is the author to the story. There's a real sense in which Frodo can't do anything but what Tolkien decides for him to do. Like, he's the mind of the world. Okay. And the world is the canvas. But, like, Aragorn can't go and make Frodo do something outside of Frodo's will from the inside. Like, you can coerce. Right. You can manipulate. You can persuade.

[00:18:48] But there's no way to, like, inhabit someone else's body from the inside. Right. And, like, move their will, take over their mind. None of this is possible on Aquinas' view. So, I could force you to raise your hand. Yeah. But that would not be coercing your will. That's right. It would be going against your will. That's like you taking a physical... That's right. I can't go into your brain and make you will it. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. But God can. Right. So, that's interesting.

[00:19:13] Aquinas, because he has a really strong doctrine of God, he's able to restrict the really high power capacities and just say, those are divine capacities. Nothing can do that except for God. And because angels and humans are not God, they can't just take over other creatures' wills. Now, he does say that demons can work by persuasion and manipulation. And they can try to convince you to do certain things the same way the serpent does in the garden. Right?

[00:19:41] He doesn't, like, sort of take over Eve's body. He convinces her using reason. That's interesting. It's interesting. It's interesting to be logic. Right. He's like, well, did God really say you can't eat from any tree? And doesn't this look good to the eye? And he's sort of presenting things in a way that... We'll talk about this in the next two questions that he raises, too. But the way that the devil works, the way that demons work, is by persuasion. They're really good persuaders. And they can do so using speech, rhetoric.

[00:20:10] They can do so by actually changing how you see the world. Or actually by making themselves appear like angels of light. And actually changing the contours of reality. So they can do all those things. But Aquinas says the one thing they can't do is... Well, two things, I guess. They can't read your thoughts. And they can't change your will from the inside to do something other than what you want it to do. So how do we think about possession then? Because there are some episodes... Yeah, that's a tough one.

[00:20:38] You think about in the Gospels, you have... I think there's a boy who keeps throwing himself in a fire. And the guy who chains himself and cuts himself with rocks. And casting out demons out of various folks. And how do we understand that? I think the intuitive way that we want to understand it, maybe because we're living in a dualist culture. The instinctive way... What is dualist culture? What does it mean? Like where there's like a spirit and then the spirit... Like spirits can go inside bodies and vice versa. Like, I don't know, Freaky Friday.

[00:21:08] Everyone's seen that. Yeah. Like Jamie Lee Curtis and whatever. Like the spirits leave the bodies. They switch the bodies. And I think what a lot of people think of demon possession, that's what they think of. Where a demon like goes into you, in a sense, where they're now like operating the brain. And they're changing your will. And I think what Aquinas wants to say is that's not possible. That version of demon possession is not possible. But what is possible is you can be so oppressed and blinded by demonic forces

[00:21:37] that reality actually looks different to you. And you're so consumed with the whispers in your ear that that just becomes the only voice. And yeah, that's... I think it's kind of creepy in one way, but it's a little more reassuring than the picture that we currently want to have. Okay. So because of our doctrine of God, only God knows minds and hearts. So a demon can't know your thoughts. Right.

[00:22:07] Directly. Right. Also, because only God can move the will internally, and only a person can move his own will, a demon does not have power over your will. Right. You know, and I forget where it says that even in the Bible. Like, no one knows the spirit of man except for that man. Mm-hmm. Or God. Or God. Right. Right. Right. So the possession is really a warping of reality. You've given just... Yeah.

[00:22:34] So does a demon cast a spell where you see the world differently? Or how does that work? Aquinas says there are a few different ways that this can happen. He's quoting scripture. He says the God of this age blinds the minds of unbelievers. Or the saint can disguise himself as an angel of light. And this can happen through a couple different mechanisms. He thinks demons can give dreams the same way angels can give dreams.

[00:23:03] So God gives dreams in the Old Testament, New Testament to people to get them to see things in a different light. Using the experiences that people have already had. So you can never dream up something that you haven't actually had a sense experience of before. Which is kind of an interesting philosophical thing. Try to think of something that you didn't visually see at any point. You can't.

[00:23:25] So again, the stuff that you, using your will, allow yourself to consume provides the kind of raw material from which your imagination, your dreams can be concocted. Okay. So Aquinas says, yeah, demons can, demons and angels can use your experiential data and kind of give you dreams in that way. And it makes sense because for it to be persuasive, it has to be from concepts and things that you recognize as real, that you're familiar with. That's right.

[00:23:56] They can also just change the way reality looks like. They can put a blind in front of your eyes so that you don't see certain things. In Screwtape, you almost have this picture where Screwtape is encouraging Wyrmwood to close the ears, close the eyes, shift the attention in ways that are not conducive to the person's flourishing. And those things, those are genuine sources of temptation.

[00:24:24] And I think when the Desert Fathers talk about battling demons, what they're really talking about is battling the directions that demons are trying to point their attention. Because they know these are areas that they're weak in. And so that's a source of blinding or confusion of reality or even making something appeal more beautiful than it actually is. This is the whole angel of light idea that angels do have superpowers.

[00:24:51] They're not God, but humans are a little less than the angels. And angels can dress themselves up to make themselves look more appealing. Well, they can be deceptive. We know that Satan uses lies and can disguise himself again, like you said, as an angel of light. Right. Which is not, again, it's not coercing the will. But don't they have to access your mind to know what you know to create these illusions? Well, they know what you're seeing. Oh, I see. Yeah. Right. So they know the kinds of situations you're putting yourself in.

[00:25:21] So they're watching. They're watching. Yeah. And we don't know how many there are. We don't know how often they're watching. But the way- Who's watching? That's so creepy to think about. I mean, it makes me think about Ephesians 6, about spiritual warfare and spiritual armor that he's put on. And there's a sense in which we are engaged in this invisible warfare. But what we have to guard is our minds and our hearts and our affections. And the things that we indulge in, that's where the battleground is.

[00:25:48] And again, the view of Satan as a prowling lion. I mean, he's on the hunt. Right. That takes on a new meaning when we start to think about this. Yeah. So they have their work cut out for them. Like, it's not just easy. And Aquinas also says that angels, because of this whole distinction between God and not God, they can't know the future either. Hmm. They can't know the secret things of God's will.

[00:26:15] Because he has such a high view of God's providence and transcendence, those things are untouchable by any created being. What about when they deliver prophecies? That's, God can reveal to them. Right. God can make them known to them. But they can't know that. Right, I see. That's right. So even when the angels are rejoicing at the incarnation, like God is becoming flesh. Yeah. And the angels appear in the sky, all this sort of stuff. That's only because God has revealed it to them.

[00:26:44] These are not things that they know from their own nature. It's not something they can deduce by pure reason. They can't predict the future with certainty. Why? Because God's the author of the story. And because God's the author, God has privileged access to what the ending is going to look like. Right. God can choose to reveal bits of them. He does all the time through prophecy, through direct messages through angels. But unless God makes that act, unless God makes that provision, angels can't know that.

[00:27:13] And so demons can't know that either. Demons can guess. And some things are fixed, right? Like the angels or the demons are like, have you come to judge us before the appointed time? So they know there's a judgment. But they don't know what's happening from now until that point. So there's a lot of open gray in the middle. And you think, okay, well, why is this important? Well, the reason it's important is I think it reveals a low view of God that we often have. Again, we think he's like a superpowered angel. Yeah. Rather than the transcendent creator.

[00:27:42] And it also, I think, reveals that when you're thinking doctrinally about this, you're thinking, how do I maintain the creator-creature distinction? That's the thing. Right. And you go, okay, what is only true of the creator? That sets him apart. It's his omniscience, his omnipotence, that he determines all things, which means that his access to the future is because he wills it. Right. And you can't say that of any other creature. Right. Right.

[00:28:12] And so their access to the future is only going to be derivative of him revealing it if he chooses to, to show them that's the future. So again, when you reason through it, you're like, oh, this is actually revealing my doctrine of God. Yeah. And how important that is to make that distinction. I want to go back to when you talked about those episodes about people being possessed. And you were saying that demons, what they can do is by observation on the things that you open your minds to.

[00:28:39] So they see you, they're seeing what populates your mind based upon your actions and who you're around and what you say. They can kind of craft these illusions and these deceptions. So in the instance of some of these demon possessed people, they're lashing out because they're under some kind of delusion crafted from their own context, their own mind. Yeah. But used by these demons to cause them to do crazy things, which is interesting because they're doing the crazy thing. Right.

[00:29:08] But they're doing it in reaction to something that's not reality. It's a distorted vision. I remember this is haunting. It's like an anti-drug commercial about like meth. Don't do meth. And it's this dude where he's like driving around this town and there's all these mannequins and they're really creepy. And he's freaked out by them. And as he's driving around, these mannequins keep getting closer and move around. They shift around him. He's freaking out even more.

[00:29:35] He takes a bat and he starts destroying these mannequins because he's afraid they're going to attack him because they're creepy and they're moving towards him. He's hitting them and whacking them. And then it zooms out and you realize they weren't mannequins. They were people. He thought they were mannequins and he was actually bludgeoning these people around. Because he was so inhibited. He was so inhibited. Right. Reality was distorted, but it was him genuinely acting. Yeah. But he had also opened himself up to that distortion because of his meth addiction. Right.

[00:30:12] These gospel episodes that maintains a creator-creature distinction, but also says, no, this was a supernatural. Like this was demonic oppression, temptation, however you want to call it. Yeah. Mingling with us. And that's a sobering thought. I also, I mean, in addition to the changing reality, I think one dimension of this that we don't talk as much about.

[00:30:40] Demons also have an ability to change. Since we've already said that they can change aspects of the physical world, they can also change aspects of your physiology. And Aquinas is writing before knowledge of how chemicals affect the brain and things like that. We know from the gospels that Jesus heals Peter's mother-in-law by rebuking a fever, like rebuking a spirit. Yeah. And the fever leaves. And sickness and demons are connected in a lot of these episodes.

[00:31:08] So you can also think like the demoniac and the garrison, like there's a kind of sickness there, right? The exertion of influence can be indirect through mental illness. Maybe that's one thing that we've under-theorized, under-explored. But yeah, maybe demons just knew how chemicals worked to cause certain behaviors better than we did. So they can manipulate those chemicals? In the same way that they can cause fevers, right?

[00:31:36] If they know I can, you know, do some kind of distorting effect in the body. Yeah. And maybe I don't know exactly what's going to happen, but I break something and hope that something goes wrong, like kind of sabotaging God's creation. Maybe they can do that in the brain and then that has effect in the mind. But notice that still leaves intact. They can't directly access your thoughts. Right. And they can't directly change your will. But indirectly by breaking things upstream, just trying to cause havoc.

[00:32:03] And it is in line with that kind of all that the devil knows how to do is derivative from what God has done. Like the devil never creates new things. The devil breaks things that are good. Like all sickness, all the devil's works are just breaking of the good thing. Like privation theory, we've talked about this before.

[00:32:26] So taking health and make it unhealth, taking sanity, making it insanity, breaking things, and then hoping for evil, for nothingness. And maybe some of the possession can be attributed to that. We just don't know. There's lots of different mechanisms that Aquinas' account leaves as possibilities. But maybe we just won't have the resources to say one way for sure. Well, it definitely brings a different angle on the Lord's prayer. You know, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

[00:32:55] And thinking about that in terms of, again, not in a superstitious kind of like, you know, you've got to put up your God force field all the time or something. But I think it is a sense of dependence of God. We can't, you know, keep us from sin, keep us from adversity overtaking us, keep us from opening our minds to these things. And the big thing is we shouldn't be afraid. You know, we stay close to Christ. God will be our helper.

[00:33:22] And all the demonic forces in the world can't hold a candle to God's power. That's why the creature, or sorry, that's why the creator, creature distinction is so important. Right. Because they're not equals. Right. Right? The creator is infinitely more powerful than the creature. And these demons and spirits, they're just creatures. They're just creatures. And so we have to be sober minded not to give a hold into them. But part of that is not viewing them as if they're rival gods. They're not.

[00:33:50] And I think that, again, that gives a new layer to the Lord's prayer. And it's worth considering, are there ways in which we are indulging in things in which we're giving demons a foothold? Whether that be bitterness, whether that be any kind of temptation, all these types of things. But also remembering that the answer is drawing near to God. He will draw near you. Resist the devil. He will flee from you. Yeah. And that's for every Christian.

[00:34:20] Well, think about, too, how the incarnation plays into this. That God becomes a human and takes humanity into himself and lives it and heals it. And to use Athanasius' language, he heals our broken humanity and then gifts it back to us. Like he weds us to that new version of humanity. And that's the thing that we have now in some sense and we're going to have forever.

[00:34:45] The body of Christ, there's a kind of new human that Jesus makes and is making now in the church. And I think that should be some cause for optimism and some cause for it's not. Obviously, we're still going to have the flesh and sin and the devil and ailments and sickness and non-ideal conditions and all this sort of stuff. But the body that's afflicted now is not the body that we're, I mean, it is, but we're going to have it glorified. We're going to have the new humanity.

[00:35:15] And that humanity is one that is not susceptible to the works of the devil. Like that's the thing that there's those outside the church, there's those inside the church. And there's a special kind of power or gifting or protection to those who are in Christ because we're literally sharing the body of Christ. It brings, again, I'm thinking about in baptisms, like we'll ask people, do you renounce Satan and all his works?

[00:35:39] And it sounds so like medieval, but it was important because it's saying that you are transferring from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. And I think one of the unappreciated aspects in the modern world of the New Testament, as part of the gospel is Jesus is like, I'm freeing you from dominion underneath these evil powers and principalities. Which he's talking about spiritual entities and beings and saying, I'm liberating you from them.

[00:36:01] This world in bondage to this, to this corrupting force, to these demonic entities that are oppressing people. I mean, you look at the gospels and you're like, part of his ministry was exorcism, casting out those demons. And that's a whole other episode on how that looks today. But all I have to say is, yeah, I mean, he's Jesus, his name's Yeshua, Joshua, entering Jerusalem, the promised land. What's he doing? He's casting out the spiritual Canaanites. Right, right.

[00:36:31] Like he's, it's been invaded. It's been populated by these evil spirits, these demons. And he's there to clean house and to liberate as God's champion, as God's demon slayer. I mean, and it's pretty crazy. But the resurrection, the cross, I mean, Colossians talk about the cross disarming the powers and principalities, disarming Satan, his condemnation. And there's all this language of our forgiveness of sins, our liberation from these dark forces.

[00:37:00] They're all tied together because condemnation, accusation, sin, guilt are all the hooks that these evil forces use. And so, again, it touches the cross, touches all these types of things. And all that to say, I think your point about the incarnation is right, though. Assuming our humanity, what's one of the first things that Jesus does? Overness, fighting, Satan, right?

[00:37:23] And so there is a battle, and I think it's important to be engaged in it, but not engaged in a panicky way of like, there's a demon around every corner. But staying close to Christ, asking him for his help and trusting in his victory and his deliverance and his power that no force can withstand.

[00:37:39] And I know this is just anecdotal, but I've heard story after story, read story after story of missionaries working in Global South, developing world places where there are witch doctors and people who practice dark arts and things like that. And those who work in these dark arts try to send curses on, use demons on, missionaries, local Christians. And the same reports come back over and over.

[00:38:06] Whether you hear these in South America or in Asia or in Africa, the witch doctors say, I cannot put the same kinds of curses that I want. You're protected by a hedge of fire. Some of them even report having burned hands, like their hands themselves are physically burned when trying to do the same kinds of curses. And maybe that's true. Maybe it's not. It's happened enough times across the globe, but maybe there's something there.

[00:38:30] And I think there is like we we should take it seriously that there's a distinction between God's children and those who are not. There's a special kind of protection. That doesn't mean perfect life and ideal conditions, but it means that the body of Christ is something qualitatively different in the works and powers of darkness. See that and try to wage war against it. But their power has been rendered ineffective. Like even if they can destroy the body here, that's all they can do. That's that's the utmost.

[00:39:00] The power of the devil is destroyed in the cross and he's just he knows his time is coming to an end. And that's that's a really reassuring thought. And so it kind of puts things in perspective. And like those two thoughts that you started out with, all of this, when we get our doctrine of God wrong, it affects also how we see the spiritual world. Sometimes there's a temptation to see angels and demons as if they're God.

[00:39:26] And in doing so, we enlargen the spiritual reality and we do disservice to the nature of God. And when we have a short view of God, a low view of God, where God's not omnipotent, he's not sovereign over everything, then we just demote him to the level of a superpowered angel. Both of those errors are ones that we want to avoid. And so in some sense, this is speculative theology, but it really helps us sharpen our concept of God and ourselves and what the world is. And like that creature God distinction.

[00:39:55] Arguably, that's the most important distinction for theology. And if you get God right, then so much else falls into place after that. Well said. Great episode. Thanks for joining me on this. You're welcome. And we didn't even mention K-pop demon hunters once. I don't even know what that is. What? Wow. You're so cultured. I know. All right. Thanks. Thanks for listening and appreciate your support. Make sure you leave a nice review on the podcast, Spotify. Make sure to subscribe and we'll catch you guys next time.