How did demons get so evil?

[Blade]

Allot is not written so will be speculation at best. We know Satan and his angels fell we know many of them left their 1st estate and took women and had children of great renown also giants. We know about Noah and all those on the earth that every thought was evil.. yeah think about that. What we don't know is was there just a few thousands or billions? No one knows. So when the flood happened where did they go? They were never meant to be.

Some say those are the demons that have no body.. this is why they are always looking for a home.. remember Christ talked about that house thats clean yet the spirit that left thought. ooh I will go back to where I was cast out of and he brings back 7 more worse then himself. Angels fallen or not still have the body God created them in. They do not go around possessing anyone. Demons have no body they need a host/home. This is why houses you know GHOSTS? Yeah not some fallen Angel No one on this earth is a match for a fallen angel. We are not but its CHRIST in us.

We wrestle not against flesh and blood....those fallen angels are " For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." <---there.

So what I learned and again so much is not written because if we could see all this.. most almost every one of us would be so scared powerless to do anything. Makes one wonder just how much FAITH we have in that name. As Peter and John said "its FAITH in that name" They had no power to make that man walk(Gate beautiful) they said.. its faith in that name. Its that NAME. False prophets and preachers... don't you ever wonder how can miracles and such happen when they are fake? They may be fake but people that don't know put faith in that name.. and that name will always do what He said. "In my name". why some when Christ comes (not us) will say "we did this and that in your name" no I never knew you. His name did this and that.. not them.. HE Christ never knew them

 

[Sophrosyne]

I'm pondering that demons differ in their hatred of God and their evilness just as some humans are more evil than others I am leaning towards not all demons truly hate God as much as others.
I cite the idea that if all demons are totally evil and there is no difference in how evil they are or how much that they hate God I don't see a reason for the scripture equating that we will be judging demons in the next life there is no need for us to judge a continuous stream of people who are identically guilty and evil as it becomes just a repetitive mundane keep you busy task. I do think that however this precludes that demons may be different in personality, and this is somewhat proven to be so by the idea if they all thought identically then there would not be a split os 1/3-2/3 falling it would be either all or none.
All of this said I don't see any sort of way for any demon to be "saved" in all of this as we know of no "cure" for someone who is not born of Adam to be saved. This doesn't however preclude God determining or making an exception but IMO one must not speculate nor teach based upon exceptions God has made because they are in no way guaranteed for everyone, possibly someone in the identical situation may fail to get the same exception by God.... possibly only that one person at that one time... ever to be given an exception.

If I were betting on demons being forgiven and saved I would not as the odds could be very high against them to begin with so high that even if God made an exception there may only be a single demon saved of them all which in reality would be statistically zero.

 

[apollosdtr]

What made them go from bad, to worse, to even worse?

Apparently Adam and Eve weren't the first beings to have been fed the serpent's lie. Having tried it out on his angels, the dragon took his show on the road.

 

[enoob57]

Church tradition is extremely important

God only allows His Scriptures that seat 2 Timothy 3:15-17

 

[Buzzard3]

The experience of the Church is that they are maximally deceitful and dangerous, that they will trick, lure or cajole humans into killing themselves or harming others, and hence all things demonic should be completely avoided.

Fr. Gabriele Amorth (1925 – 2016) was an Italian Catholic priest and exorcist of the Diocese of Rome who performed tens of thousands of exorcisms over his sixty plus years as a priest. He was the appointed exorcist for the diocese of Rome and the Chief Exorcist of the Vatican.

I read two of his books - "An Exorcist Tells His Story" and "An Exorcist: More Stories". Fr. Amorth wrote that demons are sadists who love inflicting pain on human beings, whom they hate.
He also wrote that they are particularly afraid of the Virgin Mary and can't stand anyone praying the Rosary.

Quite a few of the people he exorcised vomited up large nails and other foreign objects during the process, believe it or not. Truly freaky stuff.

I also read "Hostage to the devil" by ex-Jesuit, Malachi Martin (1921-1999), which relates five true stories of demonc possession. Creepy.

 

[The Liturgist]

Fr. Gabriele Amorth (1925 – 2016) was an Italian Catholic priest and exorcist of the Diocese of Rome who performed tens of thousands of exorcisms over his sixty plus years as a priest. He was the appointed exorcist for the diocese of Rome and the Chief Exorcist of the Vatican.

I read two of his books - "An Exorcist Tells His Story" and "An Exorcist: More Stories". Fr. Amorth wrote that demons are sadists who love inflicting pain on human beings, whom they hate.
He also wrote that they are particularly afraid of the Virgin Mary and can't stand anyone praying the Rosary.

Quite a few of the people he exorcised vomited up large nails and other foreign objects during the process, believe it or not. Truly freaky stuff.

I also read "Hostage to the devil" by ex-Jesuit, Malachi Martin (1921-1999), which relates five true stories of demonc possession. Creepy.

Indeed, I saw a documentary on Fr. Amorth. He was a gentleman and a very pious presbyter in the highest ecclesiastical tradition of service, who had the utmost respect for the dignity of those he was exorcising and no respect at all for the devil and his minions.

 

[ChetSinger]

What made them go from bad, to worse, to even worse?

This thread is now five pages long, and I haven't read the entire thing so I'll just jump in.

I subscribe to what appears to me to be the church's first opinion of demons, which is that they are the spirits of dead men, specifically dead Nephilim. They were denied the grave of other men because of their mixed parentage and their spirits have since wandered the earth, ever longing for bodies again.

That makes them remnants of the pre-Flood age, when "The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." In their evil we get a glimpse of what the world was like when God decided to flood it, because they were participants in it. Imo, anyway.

 

[TedT]

I'd imagine that the entire heavenly host would celebrate anything that God creates.

Since the actual words in Job 38:7 referring to the people singing HIS praise for this display of HIS eternal power and Divinity are kal bene `elohim, ie, all the sons of GOD, and does not actually reference angels (a job description, not a race or species), who are all these people anyway?

 

[Mark Quayle]

If a person does something evil, they may be doing it for purely selfish reasons and not because its how they express a hatred of God.

So, to your mind, sin is always conscious rebellion? Not simply natural act, self-interested, of a sinful nature that is at enmity with God?

 

[Mark Quayle]

I am not sure what verse you have in mind.

But generally, no. I even wonder why you think it does.

Funny; I wonder why you don't.

John 3:20 "Everyone who does evil hates the light..."

John 7:7 " The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that its works are evil."

Romans 1, particularly the last few verses, including 30, which mentions haters of God.

Psalm 83:2 "For behold, Your enemies make an uproar,
And those who hate You have exalted themselves."

Deuteronomy 7:10 "...but repays those who hate Him to their faces, to destroy them; He will not delay with him who hates Him, He will repay him to his face."

Exodus 20:5 "You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me"

Deuteronomy 32:41 "If I sharpen My flashing sword,
And My hand takes hold on justice,
I will render vengeance on My adversaries,
And I will repay those who hate Me"

These are not God's enemies?

 

[trophy33]

Funny; I wonder why you don't.

John 3:20 "Everyone who does evil hates the light..."

John 7:7 " The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that its works are evil."

Romans 1, particularly the last few verses, including 30, which mentions haters of God.

Psalm 83:2 "For behold, Your enemies make an uproar,
And those who hate You have exalted themselves."

Deuteronomy 7:10 "...but repays those who hate Him to their faces, to destroy them; He will not delay with him who hates Him, He will repay him to his face."

Exodus 20:5 "You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me"

Deuteronomy 32:41 "If I sharpen My flashing sword,
And My hand takes hold on justice,
I will render vengeance on My adversaries,
And I will repay those who hate Me"

These are not God's enemies?

I think you are using these texts to the point of a logical fallacy.

We all did/do/will do something evil, it does not automatically make us haters of God. You are stretching the verses to be about all possible situations and every possible individual, while in practical life its more complicated than black and white.

Do you propose that all atheists, agnostics or people of other religions live their live in a constant state of personal hatred towards God?


Or if your point is "if everybody who hates God is his enemy, then every enemy of God is his hater", then the logic is also wrong. Every mammal is an animal, but not every animal is a mammal.


But maybe you define "hatred" and "enemy" in some weaker meaning than I do, in the context of this discussion.

 

[Sorn]

So, to your mind, sin is always conscious rebellion? Not simply natural act, self-interested, of a sinful nature that is at enmity with God?

"So, to your mind, sin is always conscious rebellion?"
No, not at all. I never said any such thing. Clearly though, it is possible to sin by choosing to do something you know is wrong, and could choose not to do, but you still do it anyway.
Sin is always self interested, self interest is the motive more often than not, not a hatred of God
(though some sins may come from that). People can be motivated by many things.

 

[The Liturgist]

I think you are using these texts to the point of a logical fallacy.

I do not see a logical fallacy in @Mark Quayle ’s argument. I do see a logical fallacy however of appeal to false or questionable authority in your posts, in which you are using 1 Enoch, which most Christians reject as apocrypha, and which the only two major churches who accept it accept it using Alsxandrian non-literal interpretation, as a means of overriding 1 Matthew 25:41, which does establish a clear and unambiguous connection between the demons and Satan.

But furthermore, even that aside, your arguments don’t stand, because the demons are enemies of God, and to claim otherwise disproves all of the canonical Gospels and Acts:

Consider - Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is God Incarnate (John 1:1-17). As God Incarnate, the only begotten Son and Word of God having assumed our humanity of the Blessed Virgin Mary according to the Scriptures through miraculous conception by the Holy Spirit, what is the one miracle our Lord, and the Apostles, both before and after being indwelt by the Holy Spirit on Pentecost in Acts, and also at least one other (see Mark 9:38-41 and Luke 9:49-50) consistently worked?

Why, the exorcism of demons, of course, which our Lord and His apostles, and at least one, possibly two (if the incidents in Luke and Mark were different, which they perhaps were, perhaps not) did repeatedly. And the words of our Lord to the demons make clear that He was their enemy, even if they tried to pretend such enmity did not work. Indeed, how could “Our name is Legion, for we are many” be interpreted as anything other than a threat? And insofar as the

in one case that further demonstrates the enmity between God and the demons, his Apostles were unable to perform an exorcism due to the difficult manner in which the demon was entrenched, requiring our Lord to directly intervene, in at least one occasion, depicted in Luke 9:37-42, and I think what was quite possibly a separate occasion, depicted in Matthew 17:14-21 Mark 9:14-29 and Matthew because of the added statement of our Lord, “This kind does not come out but through prayer” in Mark, attested across all text types, and in Matthew, following the Byzantine or Majority Text/Textus Receptus which the KJV, Vulgate, Peshitta and the Greek Bibles in use in the Greek churches use, historically the main translation, “through fasting and prayer.”

 

[The Liturgist]

"So, to your mind, sin is always conscious rebellion?"
No, not at all. I never said any such thing. Clearly though, it is possible to sin by choosing to do something you know is wrong, and could choose not to do, but you still do it anyway.
Sin is always self interested, self interest is the motive more often than not, not a hatred of God
(though some sins may come from that). People can be motivated by many things.

That is true, but inapplicable to demons.

Ergo, further to my reply to @myst33 , the enmity of demons to God can be positively asserted by the Septuagint reading of Psalm 95:5 “The gods of the gentiles are demons,” which I think it clearly the correct reading, and @myst33 , I feel that if you want to include 1 Enoch in this discussion, I can cite the Septuagint Psalter, for like 1 Enoch, Septuagint lessons are also attest to in the Qumran Caves (the Dead Sea Scrolls), and I would not that hitherto you have not objected to my use of that reading (you did object to the Douai Rheims translation of the Latin Vulgate translation of the Septuagint Psalter, which is a translation thrice removed, reading Psalm 95:5 as “ the gods of the gentiles are devils,” which is fine, since you are specifically talking about what you argue are demons, and your perspective on them which is chiefly informed by 1 Enoch.

Be that at it may, the Coptic Bible, and the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Churches were historically part of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, uses the Septuagint Psalter (in Coptic translation).

So, in conclusion, I would argue that one of the clearest ways of declaring oneself an enemy of God is to assert yourself to be a deity and demand worship. And I think most Christians would agree with me, and I am willing to put that to the test with a poll. For indeed, how can asserting yourself to be a God, or indeed a false prophet, or for a demon to impersonate an angel?

As an example of the latter @myst33 I would ask you to consider the case of the case of Muhammed and Islam, for either he was tricked by a demon posing as Gabriel, “Jibreel”, which is indicated by the extreme physical discomfort and terror Muhammed alleged, and Muhammed’s repeated alleged attempts at suicide before he apparently capitulated and began to “reveal” the Quran, ergo he was either posessed, deceived or a deceiver, or all three, (most likely at a minimum both deceived and a deceiver, for certain Quranic verses are completely self serving, for example the verse instructing his followers not to bother him when invited to his house for dinner by appearing before it was ready, or lingering after it was finished, or communicating with his wives except through a partition, or daring to wed one after Muhammed’s death).

And given the millions and millions of Christians martyred by Islam over the centuries, for instance, all the North African Christians, all the Christians killed by Tamerlane in the 12th century including all the members of the Church of the East outside Mesopotamia or India, how could Muhammed, free of demonic influence, in directing people to worship a false god, or Jibreel, if in fact such a demon deceived Muhammed, be regarded as anything other than enemies of Jesus Christ, our Lord, God and Savior, who is also blasphemed in the Quran and other essential Islamic texts?

 

[The Liturgist]

Funny; I wonder why you don't.

John 3:20 "Everyone who does evil hates the light..."

John 7:7 " The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that its works are evil."

Romans 1, particularly the last few verses, including 30, which mentions haters of God.

Psalm 83:2 "For behold, Your enemies make an uproar,
And those who hate You have exalted themselves."

Deuteronomy 7:10 "...but repays those who hate Him to their faces, to destroy them; He will not delay with him who hates Him, He will repay him to his face."

Exodus 20:5 "You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me"

Deuteronomy 32:41 "If I sharpen My flashing sword,
And My hand takes hold on justice,
I will render vengeance on My adversaries,
And I will repay those who hate Me"

These are not God's enemies?

Indeed, it is clear they are. And even we accept the argument that they are not, we still have overwhelming scriptural proof of direct enmity of God from the demons as you and I have shown in my last three verses.

 

[Mark Quayle]

I think you are using these texts to the point of a logical fallacy.

We all did/do/will do something evil, it does not automatically make us haters of God. You are stretching the verses to be about all possible situations and every possible individual, while in practical life its more complicated than black and white.

Do you propose that all atheists, agnostics or people of other religions live their live in a constant state of personal hatred towards God?


Or if your point is "if everybody who hates God is his enemy, then every enemy of God is his hater", then the logic is also wrong. Every mammal is an animal, but not every animal is a mammal.


But maybe you define "hatred" and "enemy" in some weaker meaning than I do, in the context of this discussion.

You don't see the flesh as necessarily as opposed to God? You think that intelligence operates above the flesh? You think that man's mind is of integrity and perceives fact altogether clearly?

You seem to think man's view of things is necessarily truth. Like an atheist, who thinks he simply "fails to believe in a God or Gods", you don't see the antagonism of the flesh toward God. You probably acknowledge that the flesh opposes God, but you don't see that as hatred.

The fact that a person's conscious mind is not all there is to emotion eludes you. Likewise, the fact that a person's relational position in regards to another person or thing or fact, even if that person, thing or fact is not well understood —not well held in conscious perception by the mind— is one of emotion and is prejudicial.

But probably the most blatant, yet maybe even the most ignored fact you seem to miss, is that God always produces a reaction. There is no neutral position of his creatures towards him. Christ, the Word of God sent, will not return to him void. At the concept of 'God', the human may think he has simply shrugged him off, and doesn't even know that he has taken up a position on him, whether he even knows who God is, or whether he has an intellectually coherent concept of what God is.

We were made for God. The human is not born innocent, and not simply self-interested, as is any animal, but self-centered, self-important, hating submission. But even the mere concept, "God", instinctively produces in us a non-conscious result of opposition or submission. There is no neutrality concerning God.

FWIW, consider that the human is never in this temporal life a complete being, and will not be so until he sees God as He is. The flesh of some will be transformed into purity and beauty, and the person of others into destruction and Godlessness. Do you not think those residing in the Lake of Fire will hate God? And is that a sudden thing, or is it not, rather, who they have been all along, though in this life restrained by common grace?

 

[Mark Quayle]

"So, to your mind, sin is always conscious rebellion?"
No, not at all. I never said any such thing. Clearly though, it is possible to sin by choosing to do something you know is wrong, and could choose not to do, but you still do it anyway.
Sin is always self interested, self interest is the motive more often than not, not a hatred of God
(though some sins may come from that). People can be motivated by many things.

smh

 

[The Liturgist]

God only allows His Scriptures that seat 2 Timothy 3:15-17

It is a common misconception that Sola Scriptura is a scriptural doctrine, but this is not so, for 2 Timothy does not actually mention tradition let alone declare that “God only allows Scriptures that seat” as you contend.

On the contrary, the role of Sacred Tradition is positively asserted in 2 Corinthians 2:15 and again in Galatians 1:8-9, and indeed 1 Corinthians 11:2, in which St. Paul says “I praise you for remembering me in everything and for holding to the traditions just as I passed them on to you.” And the Greek word for Traditions in this context is Paradosis, which literally translates to Traditions. For this reason traditional Protestants such as Anglicans*, Lutherans, Methodists**, Moravians and others do maintain traditions in at least a secondary capacity, and note that Anglicanism and Lutheranism are the largest Protestant denominations and the third and fourth largest (Roman Catholicism being the largest and Eastern Orthodoxy being the second largest).

But even without the benefit of Holy Tradition*** I believe I have still definitively proven my point, and for that matter @Mark Quayle , who being Calvinist is much less concerned with Tradition than I am,**** have both proven, on Sola Scriptura grounds, indeed, arguably on Nuda Scriptura grounds (Nuda Scriptura and not Sola Scriptura entails an absolute rejection of tradition), our main premise, that demons are enemies of God.

So whether one accepts tradition or not is irrelevant, and the origins and nature of demons are of little relevance, for regardless of what they are, they are unquestionably enemies of God, and also by virtue of leading the Gentiles astray by posing as gods, allies of Satan.

* The Anglican maxim is “Scripture, Tradition, Reason,” as stated previously.

** Likewise the Wesleyan quadrilateral is “Scripture, Tradition, Reason, Experience.”

*** Among other things Holy Tradition, depending on which ancient church we are talking about, either dismisses 1 Enoch as unreliable apocrypha, or else relegates a literal interpretation of 1 Enoch to a secondary status, since the Coptic Orthodox Church, being based in Alexandria, is inclined towards Alexandrian interpretation, which is typological, metaphorical, prophetic and always Christological in focus, as opposed to the literal-historical approach of Antiochene interpretation (which has the effect of rendering some books of the Bible effectively irrelevant as either no literal-historical translation can be logically asserted, for example The Song of Solomon, and renders other parts such as the Masoretic version Esther, or the Book of Judith, or the historical books like Chronicles, Kings, Levites, and so on, of little or no relevance to the Christological narrative, which contradicts the ending of the Gospel According to Luke, in which our Lord opens the books of the Bible and shows the Apostles they are all about Him. This does not mean there is no place for literal-historical interpretation, for there always is, especially in the case of the New Testament, where an Antiochene approach reigns supreme, but also throughout the Old Testament, however, the most important Church Fathers ane theologians, like the fourth century St. Athanasius, John Chrysostom and the Cappadocians (St. Basil, St. Gregory of Naziansus, St. Gregory of Nyssa), always used both methods in a manner appropriate to the book of scripture they were interpreting.

**** On Calvinism however it must be stressed that the great Reformed theologians from John Calvin through Karl Barth denied a secondary function to Tradition, with John Calvin extremely interested in the consensus patrum and Karl Barth regarding it as a potential aid to the interpretation of Scripture,

 

[The Liturgist]

smh

Me too, but even then, it is still irrelevant, for we have conclusively proven through Scripture that the idea that demons are not enemies of God is completely wrong.

I would argue it is even dangerous to hold such a view, because I think it behooves us to regard demons with the same concern and vigilance with which we view the devil, because they are clearly out to get us.

 

[trophy33]

You don't see the flesh as necessarily as opposed to God? You think that intelligence operates above the flesh? You think that man's mind is of integrity and perceives fact altogether clearly?

You seem to think man's view of things is necessarily truth. Like an atheist, who thinks he simply "fails to believe in a God or Gods", you don't see the antagonism of the flesh toward God. You probably acknowledge that the flesh opposes God, but you don't see that as hatred.

The fact that a person's conscious mind is not all there is to emotion eludes you. Likewise, the fact that a person's relational position in regards to another person or thing or fact, even if that person, thing or fact is not well understood —not well held in conscious perception by the mind— is one of emotion and is prejudicial.

But probably the most blatant, yet maybe even the most ignored fact you seem to miss, is that God always produces a reaction. There is no neutral position of his creatures towards him. Christ, the Word of God sent, will not return to him void. At the concept of 'God', the human may think he has simply shrugged him off, and doesn't even know that he has taken up a position on him, whether he even knows who God is, or whether he has an intellectually coherent concept of what God is.

We were made for God. The human is not born innocent, and not simply self-interested, as is any animal, but self-centered, self-important, hating submission. But even the mere concept, "God", instinctively produces in us a non-conscious result of opposition or submission. There is no neutrality concerning God.

FWIW, consider that the human is never in this temporal life a complete being, and will not be so until he sees God as He is. The flesh of some will be transformed into purity and beauty, and the person of others into destruction and Godlessness. Do you not think those residing in the Lake of Fire will hate God? And is that a sudden thing, or is it not, rather, who they have been all along, though in this life restrained by common grace?

You wrote many philosophical ideas and connections between dots you personally find in it, but my point the whole time is that from Bible alone, there is not something like "all demons hate God".

I am not saying its not true, I am just saying its not explicitly said in the Bible.