Excellent reply Daniel, I appreciate your willingness to respond with such detail. Until a few years ago I would have agreed with you 100% but now, I have more gray areas in my theology, I’m not so quick to accept whatever the dogmaticians have declared.
Please accept my reply in the spirit in which it is offered; I’m not looking to correct you as your position is the majority view held by Reformed and Lutheran Christians, I’m also not saying what follow is something I’m tied to. It’s not a place of theological entrenchment but rather me working through ideas I have about ghosts and other things that go bump in the night. I don’t know if we can dismiss all of the spiritual world as demonic or demonic manifestations since Second Temple Jews had a category for ghosts. This category was referenced in scripture and used by the Apostles. I also wouldn’t be so quick to call people who have had strange experiences they perceive as ghosts as liars or deceived. Ever since I read the Church Father’s and fellas like Canadian Christian philosopher Charles Taylor, I’m far less of a materialist and more willing to embrace the so-called spirit “enchantment.”
I have to take a more broadly catholic position on the subject of ghosts.
A few scriptures to consider.
Matthew 14:25-27 Now in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went to them, walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out for fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid.”
Jesus didn’t correct the disciples when they thought He was a ghost. He instead told them to not be afraid. Jesus seems to be of the same mind as the disciple in acknowledging that ghosts are real but not something to fear. We should also recognize the word used for “ghost” is “phantasma” meaning appearance, apparition, ghost, spirit, phantom.
Luke 24:37-39 But they were terrified and frightened, and supposed they had seen a spirit. And He said to them, “Why are you troubled? And why do doubts arise in your hearts? Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.”
Again, Christ does not correct the disciples who thought they had seen a spirit and admits a spirit does not have flesh and bone.
Isa 29:4 And you will be brought low; from the earth you shall speak and from the dust your speech will be bowed down your voice shall come from the ground like the voice of a ghost, and from the dust your speech shall whisper.
In Isaiah we see “voice of a ghost” being mentioned, it’s a reference the Jews would have understood as a deceased disembodied human spirit.
Job 4:12-19 “Now a word was brought to me stealthily my ear received the whisper of it. Amid thoughts from visions of the night when deep sleep falls on men, dread came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones shake. A spirit glided past my face; the hair of my flesh stood up. It stood still, but I could not discern its appearance. A form was before my eyes; there was silence, then I heard a voice: ‘Can mortal man be in the right before God? Can a man be pure before his Maker? Even in his servants he puts no trust and his angels he charges with error; how much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed like the moth.”
In Job we read “a spirit glided past my face…” Not a demon but a spirit. This was visual. Of God or not it was a real spirit.
1 Sam 28 is a larger passage so I won’t quote it but let’s consider the passage briefly. We read that Samuel came to Saul, not a demon, and the message delivered to Saul a truthful message. The small “c” catholic position on ghosts was accepted until the time of the Puritans - even King James wrote a book discussing demons, ghosts, etc. As someone who spent 20 years in Reformed circles I can attest to the snobbery that exists in Reformed theology and their tendency to rationalize and use, “good and necessary consequence…” to arrive at theological conclusions. One cannot read 1 Samuel 28 and think there was no ghost of Samuel speaking with Saul. You have to import the idea that the ghost of Samuel was a demon. It’s simply not in the text and the current position held by Lutherans and Reformed is an overraction to the Roman idea of purgatory.
Not a slam dunk but something odd worth considering, Acts 12:11, They said to her, ‘You are out of your mind.’ But she kept insisting that it was so, and they kept saying, ‘It is his angel!’” Peter is in jail and thought to be dead. I’ve read that “angel” should be translated “ghost” OR accept the Jewish idea that a guardian angel looked like their charge.
As a fan of Lutheran scholastic orthodoxy (with caution) I’ll drop a few quotes from St. Thomas.
“. . . according to the disposition of Divine providence, separated souls sometimes come forth from their abode and appear to men . . . It is also credible that this may occur sometimes to the damned, and that for man’s instruction and intimidation they be permitted to appear to the living; or again in order to seek our suffrages, as to those who are detained in purgatory.”
"It does not follow, although the dead be able to appear to the living as they will, that they appear as often as when living in the flesh: because when they are separated from the flesh, they are either wholly conformed to the divine will, so that they may do nothing but what they see to be agreeable with the Divine disposition, or else they are so overwhelmed by their punishments that their grief for their unhappiness surpasses their desire to appear to others."
Anyway, thank you for your patience.
Yours in the Lord,
jm
