Thursday, May 14, 2026

Should we expect demonic and other paranormal activities today to be the same as they are in the Biblical record?

No, since there are significant contextual differences. Not all historical contexts are the same. They involve different individuals, with different things at stake, etc. The Bible is Divine revelation that's meant to address some topics and not others and to address the topics it does cover to different degrees. Just as it doesn't tell us everything about astronomy or prayer, for example, it also doesn't tell us everything about the paranormal. There are reasons for the Bible to give a lot of attention to one thing and little or no attention to something else, even if the thing that gets little or no attention is more common, is more relevant to people in some contexts, etc. The fact that illness X was more common than illness Y in Biblical times, and therefore gets discussed more in scripture, doesn't change the fact that we should be giving much more attention, money, and other resources to Y if it's far more common than X in the modern world, does more harm than X, and so forth. Similarly, there's a different rate of literacy today than in Biblical times, so we expect more from people accordingly (e.g., how much we expect them to read scripture). Or when something like transgenderism becomes more popular at a certain point in history than it was at another point, we make adjustments to accommodate that. The same is true with paranormal matters. If near-death experiences are being discussed much more today than in past generations, including during the Biblical era, then we should make adjustments accordingly, living in the way appropriate to our context, not the Biblical one.

The activities of demons, like the demons Jesus came across during his public ministry and Satan's influence on Judas (Luke 22:3), are more likely to be discussed by scripture than something like out-of-body experiences or apparitions of the dead, even if those paranormal phenomena that get mentioned less happened more often, more people had firsthand experience with them, and so on. To return to my astronomy example above, it would be ridiculous to expect the Bible to say as much about astronomical issues as it does about demons, even though both are part of God's creation, there probably are more astronomical entities than there are demons, people tend to notice and think about astronomical objects more in their everyday life, and so on. You can't determine much from the Bible about, say, the frequency of comets, and we shouldn't expect the Bible to say much about it. It doesn't follow that we should have no interest in the frequency of comets, that no research should be done on the subject, that we can't have any significant level of knowledge of the subject because our knowledge is of such an extrabiblical nature, etc. Something like near-death experiences or precognitive dreams could happen many times over the centuries of history covered by the Bible, yet rarely or never get discussed by the Biblical authors. Still, we can and should have interest in such things, research them, and have a significant amount of knowledge about them.

The Bible sometimes tells us about something like Rachel's soul departing from her body (Genesis 35:18), Lazarus' soul in a transitional state (Luke 16:22), or ghosts (Luke 24:37-39), but often only briefly and in passing. Similarly, many aspects of science, music, food, and other areas of life aren't discussed much by the Bible. Yet, they get a lot of attention, money, and other resources.

Biblical research involves extrabiblical knowledge (information from extrabiblical documents relevant to how to interpret the Biblical languages, archeological artifacts, etc.). Demonology involves going into more depth about demons than scripture does, as do other fields of theology (thinking through the implications of the relevant Biblical passages, researching the historical backgrounds to those passages, thinking through how one passage may or probably does relate to another, etc.). It's true that modern paranormal research on matters like ghosts and telepathy goes beyond what scripture tells us. So does modern demonology.

It makes sense for the Bible to give a lot of attention to prominent religious figures like David, Jesus, and Paul. And demons had a lot of motivation to interact with such figures in ways that show up in the historical record. But you're not an equivalent of David, Jesus, or Paul. It's unlikely that there's some equivalent in your life of Judas and Satan's efforts to influence him (Luke 22:3), for example. You're probably not going to get the sort of demonic opposition somebody like Jesus, Peter, or Paul experienced. The discernible paranormal activity in your life could easily come far more from non-demonic sources than from demons. The demonic activity could still be more significant in some ways (more powerful, more evil, more dangerous, etc.). You should take what the Bible says about these issues into account, but you shouldn't expect your life to be equivalent to Jesus' or Paul's life in this context, nor should you expect the post-Biblical era to be identical to the Biblical era in every relevant context. Your life and life in the modern world in general will be less than what we see in the Bible in some ways, the same in some ways, and more in other ways. It's a mix. It's simplistic to say, "X percent of paranormal activity in the Bible is demonic. Therefore, X percent of paranormal activity in the modern world must be demonic."

There's also the issue of how much attention something has already gotten. An illness that only a small percentage of the population gets could warrant more attention than an illness a much bigger percentage of the population gets if the latter has already gotten a disproportionately large amount of attention. That sort of context matters. Evangelicals (and others) have been far too focused on demons in paranormal contexts.

No comments:

Post a Comment