7. Devils and Demons
Dr Thomas’ teaching
under this head may be summarised as follows:
(a) The
devil in the Bible is only an expression for flesh as a great seducer of men to
sin.
(b) Demons are simply a mode of language used to describe diseases
like madness and epilepsy.
The
proof advanced to support the first proposition was that the words ‘devil’ and
‘Satan’ in the original Greek (and ‘Satan’ in the original Hebrew) simply meant
false accuser or adversary. Comparisons
were made with the use of the word diabolos
in Titus 2:3 where the word is translated ‘false accusers’. There is a fallacy here though. The original words for ‘Devil’ and ‘Satan’
are nearly always in a grammatical form which makes them proper names and we
cannot therefore support the idea that they were intended to be only general references
to individual or national false accusation etc.
A parallel would be translating Peter by ‘stone’ and alleging there to
be no Peter, just a personified stone.
On the second
proposition, while it may be true that ‘lunatic’ is derived from a primitive
notion that the moon was the cause of the condition and in using it now, we do
so in innocence of the original meaning, the use of ‘demon’ in the New
Testament goes far beyond this. The demons speak, discuss their fate, ask not
to be sent to the ‘abyss’, the traditional ‘home’ of the demons (Luke 8:26-33)
and much more.
The origin of Dr
Thomas’ views here is not to be sought in the Bible primarily, but in the
rationalist spirit of the age in which he wrote.
Mede,
the prophetic expositor of the early seventeenth century, to whose writings Dr
Thomas refers with approval in the preface to Eureka Volume 3, was already of the same outlook on the demons. In
his discourse on John 10:20, he says:
I am
persuaded until I shall hear better reasons to the contrary that these
demoniacs were no other than such as we call madmen and lunatics.
On 1 Timothy 4:1 of ‘doctrines of devils’:
It is plain
from the context that the apostle did not mean the worship of departed human
souls but the doctrines that were advanced by very wicked and cunning men.
On 1 John 4:1 ‘Believe not every spirit...’ he
translates:
Believe not
every doctrine but try the doctrines whether they be of God.
By
1739 the controversy on the subject was hot. Dr Gregory Sharpe, Master of the
Temple, published A Review of the
Controversy about the Demoniacks in that year and concludes:
That the New
Testament, speaking of demons possessing men, speaks in words of common use and
in the vulgar notions not concerning itself in strict philosophical
speculations.
Hugh
Farmer in an Essay on the Demoniacs of
the New Testament (1775), has for his theme that ‘the demoniacs of the New
Testament are all either madmen or epileptics.’
In
1842 an anonymous pamphlet appeared in London pleading that belief in the devil
and demons was of pagan origin and the appearance of the Devil and Satan in the
New Testament was a result of mistranslation.
The subject was definitely in the air, so much so that Edward White in
his book Life in Christ (1875), which
challenged belief in the immortality of the soul, could comment in the preface
that his continued belief in the apostles’ ‘doctrines of Evil Spirits as an
essential part of Christianity, will deeply displease some as old-fashioned and
uncritical...’.
There seems little
doubt on this point. Dr Thomas was
carried forward on a wave of reasoned scepticism which he shared with many of
his contemporaries.
. . .
3. The
Devil and Demons
The few people who
believe in the Devil and demons today are all seriously religious people, and
hold their belief because of traditional Christian opinion or fundamentalist
conviction. A quotation from the
controversies of 1739 may bring out the attitude of such people. The writer is anonymous and is replying to
those who do not believe in demons.
For is it
probable that one of the evangelists should say that a spirit tare him; and
another that the devil threw him down and tare him, in writings designed for
the use of the world, if no more was in it than the effects of natural
disorder? Is it probable that all three
evangelists should tell us that Jesus rebuked the Devil or the unclean spirit?
and is it possible (for I really won’t ask whether it be probable) that our
Saviour should speak to one labouring under a mere disorder only, these words
‘Thou deaf and dumb spirit I charge thee etc.’
With regard to the
Devil, our contention that the Bible teaches this to be flesh or human nature
‘in its various manifestations’ will simply not match up to Eph. 6:11,12. ‘...
stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and
blood... but...spiritual wickedness in high places.’ The repeated references to the devil, the
power of demons, and their being exorcised without any statement that there is
no devil or even an ‘as is supposed’ in reference to a demon would carry
conviction to most people that the Bible writers believed in the devil and
demons. Supposing they did: would they have written any differently?
Yet it seems beyond
question that the phenomena once thought to be the work of demons etc. are more
rationally explicable on other grounds.
The only explanation of all this seems to be as already outlined under
‘Fundamentalism’ that the Bible contains references to contemporary beliefs on
many things incidental to the main intention of revelation. It would make our witness much more frank if
we could acknowledge this primitive element rather than endeavour to build up a
case to show that it is not actually in the Bible at all. This carries with it, also, the implication
that if anyone, out of conviction, believes in the devil and demons, he is
nevertheless acceptable to God providing his behaviour is otherwise Christian. (George
McHaffie, Christadelphia Redivivus [1959], 14-15, 22-23)
