Interacting With The Dead

Greg Koukl addressed the issue of interacting with the dead on a recent podcast. Start listening at 50:16 here. He was responding to a Christian caller whose parents have recently been having some allegedly paranormal experiences that they've interpreted as contact from their deceased daughter. I suspect ninety-some percent of the Evangelicals who would typically listen to a program like Greg's would agree with the answer he provides. But I want to address some problems with it. In addition to addressing what Greg and the caller said, I want to talk about some other misconceptions I suspect many people have about these issues.

- These are important topics in multiple contexts. They're relevant to how we interpret certain Biblical passages, what we make of some extrabiblical events (e.g., apparitions of the dead, which many people experience), the nature of the afterlife, paranormal research, etc. Think of a widow who experiences an apparition of her deceased husband, for example. Do you dismiss all such experiences as delusional or demonic, or do you consider other explanatory options? What are the implications of your approach for that widow and others involved?

- We shouldn't expect the Bible to exhaustively address every issue involved here, nor should we reject good reasoning and evidence on these issues just because the reasoning and evidence are extrabiblical. Similarly, the Bible gives us some information about God's work as creator without telling us everything he created, why he created what he did, and so forth. We often accept reasoning and evidence about God's creation from extrabiblical sources (e.g., a video of an animal we previously didn't know about). To cite another example, we take what the Bible says about prayer into account, but we don't expect the Bible to answer every conceivable question about prayer, and we frequently reach conclusions about the subject based on extrabiblical evidence (e.g., evidence for an answer to one of our prayers). Sola scriptura is about public and special revelation. It's not a claim that all religious information is found in scripture or anything like that.

- We've addressed issues pertaining to interacting with the dead in other posts, like mine here that provides an overview of the afterlife and the paranormal from a Christian perspective. Go here for a discussion of the circumstances in which interaction with the deceased would be acceptable. For some examples of the harm that can be done by attributing too much to demons, see here.

- Greg mentions some of the relevant Biblical material, but leaves a lot out. He doesn't address the passages supporting the existence of ghosts in the gospels and Acts. As I explained in one of my posts linked earlier, "Scripture suggests that there are ghosts. Translations like the New King James and the New American Standard render Matthew 14:26 and Mark 6:49 with the term 'ghost'. I think they're right. The Greek term in question isn't used elsewhere in the New Testament. Different terminology is used to describe demons in both gospels. And when somebody sees a spirit who looks like a human, the most likely interpretation is that a ghost is being seen. It could be a demon making itself look like a human, but that's a more complicated and, thus, inferior interpretation. The most straightforward interpretation of Matthew 14:26, Mark 6:49, and Luke 24:37-39 is that ghosts are in mind. The same is true of Acts 12:15. On that passage, see here and here. Notice how widespread and persistent the early Christians' belief in ghosts is in these passages. Apparently, Jesus never corrected that belief in any of the contexts in question or in any other context. In the Luke 24 passage, he even seems to go along with the belief, focusing on proving that he isn't a ghost without attempting to disprove the disciples' belief in ghosts." Greg mentions the Mount of Transfiguration, but then doesn't bring it up again when it's relevant later in the discussion. He mentions the appearance of Samuel to Saul in 1 Samuel 28, but doesn't address some of the relevant details. As I discuss in one of my posts linked earlier, Samuel's expecting Saul to listen to him and asking questions of Saul after Samuel had returned to life on earth suggest that it would have been acceptable for Saul to listen and to respond. So, we not only have somewhat widespread Biblical support for the appearance of the dead on earth, but also have some reason to think being around the dead and listening and speaking to them is acceptable.

- What, then, do we make of the Biblical passages condemning attempts to contact the deceased? I've discussed that material many times, especially in the context of addressing prayer to saints and angels. I just mentioned angels, who aren't among the dead, but there is some overlap between trying to contact angels and trying to contact the dead. You can see my page just linked on prayer to saints and angels for more about prayer in particular. But the point I want to make here is that one area of overlap between contact with the deceased and contact with angels is that who initiates the contact is likely significant in both contexts. I agree with the distinction one of the earliest church fathers, Hermas, made when discussing angels. He said that we're not to try to initiate contact with them, but that we can respond to them if they initiate the contact (e.g., Gabriel's appearances to Zechariah and Mary in Luke 1). You can read my post on Hermas here for further details. So, in the 1 Samuel 28 context, Saul was wrong to initiate contact with Samuel, but it was permissible for him to interact with Samuel once Samuel had reentered the earthly realm.

- One of the words I just used, "permissible", is important. I see no reason to think we're obligated to speak to the deceased, seek to be around them, remain around them when they come near, etc. Rather, doing such things is allowed, but not required. Whether it makes sense to do such things depends on the context. And sometimes the most sensible approach is to be agnostic on the subject. Sometimes we don't have enough information to go by. The individual who called Greg's podcast knew more about his situation than Greg did. And the caller's parents presumably knew more than the caller did. Given how little information the caller provided and how ambiguous the information he did provide is, it seems likely that either agnosticism or only leaning a little in one direction or another would be the best approach under those circumstances.

- The caller cited the thief on the cross, who would be with Jesus in heaven on the day of his death, and the caller referred to that situation as if it's universal. But there can be general rules that allow exceptions (e.g., Hebrews 9:27 refers to how "it is appointed for men to die once", but allows for exceptions who didn't die, like Enoch, Elijah, and people alive at the time of the second coming, and people who died more than once, like the Lazarus of John 11). This is an area where the Bible and paranormal research align well. In both contexts, there's evidence for some people appearing on earth after death, but only a minority of people. The most sensible way to interpret the Biblical evidence seems to be that most people, perhaps even the large majority, go to heaven or hell after death without returning to earth in any relevant way, but that some minority do return to earth. I don't know of any Biblical passage that would disallow a return to earth by a minority of the deceased, and Biblical passages like the ones I discussed earlier (1 Samuel 28, the ghost passages in the gospels, etc.) provide evidence for some degree of a return to earth by the deceased.

- While Greg is right that an alleged deceased individual could be a demon, there are problems with concluding that demons are involved where they aren't, as one of my articles linked earlier discusses. Some apparitions are of a trivial, repetitive, and noninteractive nature, for example, so that they seem more likely to be a place memory than a demon, deceased individual, or any other sort of personal agent. Or God could give a grieving widow an apparition of her deceased husband to comfort and encourage her. Suggesting to her that she was deceived by a demon without evidence that warrants that conclusion would be problematic. And so on. We do need to try to avoid assigning too little to demons, but we also need to try to avoid assigning too much to them.