I sometimes doubt the existence of angels, demons, and a God or gods.
I’ve also spoken to a lot of Mormons who believe in angels, demons, and gods, but who don’t seem to believe in any One Independent Fact, Fundamental Reality, or Ground and Source of all being.
But we’re all just men.
What is James 2:19 telling us about what demons know or believe?
Do they know that there’s One God, and that He’s the Ground and Source of all being, and that (in the end) He must be right and they must be wrong, He must win and they must lose?
Or do they know little more than you and I, and the Mormons down the street?
And if they do know there’s one God (whose the ground and source of all being), why would they waste their time opposing what He’s trying to do in the lives of individuals with the kind of machinations depicted in the screwtape letters?
I read that.
But how does your view differs from that of Aquinas?
I don’t know exactly what James meant. But I can certainly draw a parallel here. Why do you think it possible for you to know that God exists and yet still sin against him but angels cannot?
I’m not sure what you mean by Aquinas’ view. I’m saying that you’re begging the question of determinism by implying that the type of knowledge angels have of God is such that it makes it impossible for them to sin. But suppose they did not have this sort of knowledge? If we have free will, we must have a kind of knowledge that does not determine us to be good. Hence our intellects do not determine our wills, and so the whole idea about having a certain IQ and sinning is beside the point.
I know Mormons who say that God has somehow reached down into their brains and given them the personal knowledge that He exists, but to them He’s an exalted man, and part of some Fundamental Reality (if there is such a thing.)
He’s not the Ground and Source of all being (which is what I’ve always taken “God” to be, and what I take James to mean.)
As a mortal man, can you honestly say you know there’s a God, even when you sin (or even when you don’t)?
As I said, Aquinas viewed angels as purely spiritual beings, and as such he believed that they weren’t subject to change in the same way we are.
He believed that once they made moral choices (as the fallen angels, and the angels who remained faithful did) their wills were set and they couldn’t change.
No, I can’t say that I know that. But I can say I have sinned while simultaneously mentally affirming the existence of God or a higher power. Indeed I believe having such an awareness is necessary for the act of sin to occur.
But I’m not sure you can take the one sentence from James and go on to argue that the angels had the type of knowledge which would make sinning impossible. In fact, if you take him as inspired, they must not have had that kind of knowledge. Who can say in what sense and how strictly he was using the word “know” anyway?
I don’t know. But I can imagine the more one freely chooses to turn away from the good, the more one creates for himself a false notion of reality. I can well imagine that, through doing evil acts, their minds are darkened such that they may have all sorts of wrong notions about God (e.g. perhaps he exists but he cannot stop me, perhaps he is not good, perhaps I can defeat him, etc.)
I don’t believe a being can be irredeemably evil. I know that a lot of free will believers - like Lewis and Aquinas (though I don’t think Aquinas really believed in FW, despite what he says) and Boyd - think that it is a necessary corollary of our freedom that we be able to irrevocably build, so to speak, ourselves. But I do not think one can build themselves into a state in which evil is their permanent character. Metaphysically speaking I think it impossible for a thing to be sheer evil. There must always be some core of good for evil to grow on. And as MacDonald said - where there is the existence of a rational being, there is also God holding it there, and where is God, there is hope.
That wouldn’t necessarilly be true unless God is the Fundamental Reality that most Christians have always believed Him to be.
If the Fundamental Reality is some impersonal thing (or there is no Fundamental Reality), and God is an exalted man who at His core is just one of an infinite number of uncreated intelligences (which are themselves co-eternal with the uncreated, impersonal elements of matter, as all or most Mormons believe), God wouldn’t necessarily be the ground and source of every rational beings very existence.
From a Mormon point of view, James was only saying that the demons know there’s one high God assigned to this particular cosmos (organized system of things), and not that they knew anything of there being only one personal ground and source of all being.
In fact, from the Mormon point of view, they could not know this, as it’s not true.
Fallen angels think they can win because they know that God (at His core) is no more the ground and source of all being then they are.
I’m not saying that any of that makes sense to me, but does the idea of fallen angels, who have a higher knowledge of God (His nature, and the nature of things) than man does, and who yet actively oppose God and His purposes make more sense from a Mormon point of view than from the classic Christian Theist’s point of view?
If classic Christian Monotheism is true, and there is one God who is the Fundamental Reality (the One Independent Fact, the Ground and Source of all being), and James 2:19 is saying that the demons know this, shouldn’t Screwtape have known that his twenty years work, and any additional effort he put in, could only be a waste of time in the end?
In investigating Mormonism, I tried to proof text passages that supported my belief in a personal God who is the One ground and source of all being, and James 2:19 was one of the passages I highlighted and underlined.
But what does James mean by “One God,” what is he saying the demons know (or believe) about Him, and does it make any sense to believe he’s saying they know Him to be the God we believe Him to be, and at the same time oppose His purposes in the way Screwtape and Wormwood are depicted opposing His purposes?
I started some of the more recent threads about rejection and free-will, which I think are germane to your question. What do you think about William Lane Craig and Peter Kreeft’s contention that we sin, not because we are ignorant of the outcome of our sin, but more as a matter of the will? Kierkegaard, I think In the Sickness Unto Death argued that sin in its early stages might be thought of as ignorance, where we just live for the pleasures in life or even adhere to a religion or a moral code, but do so without faith. Ultimately, K. contended that despair becomes “demonic”, or that we sin at root simply to say no to God, an assertion of pride.
None of this is to say, however, that God can’t save us from this (tho WLC and Lewis think some might hold out for eternity), for maybe God reaches us, and fallen angels, in a way that speaks to wounded pride. Jesus Christ, the Incarnation, is a prospective answer - God abasing Himself to show that He isn’t on a cosmic power trip, as those deluded with pride tend to think…
Thomas Talbott and Craig have an exchange on this issue, which can be downloaded from their websites… I think it is called “Talbott’s Universalism” (Craig) and “Craig on Eternal Damnation” (Talbott), which is a great resource, other than all the respondents here, on this topic.
I think the rest of the posts are pretty accurate. “One” God probably means that they know that God is triune, and not multiple Gods as some hearing about trinity first time might have accused early Christians of polytheism.) Also, a lot of commentaries claim that, though demons/fallen angels have perfect knowledge of God, they aren’t saved because they lack faith and love for God.
I think demons can’t ultimately stop universalism if universalism is T, though they can temporarily thwart us with despair and doubt. (Although this isn’t to be learned from James 2:19).
And if they know that it’s God’s purpose to save all of us, and that He’s the one Triune ground and source of all being, shouldn’t they know that they “can’t ultimately stop universalism”?
Shouldn’t they know that they can’t even temporarily defeat you with despair and doubt if you’re truly predestined to be among the ellect (i.e. the first fruits)?
And if they know that they’re really powerless (which seems part and parcel of there being only One God), why would they keep trying to do that which they’re powerless to do.
That’s my real question here.
And I think DaveB, on another thread, came closest to answering it.
I think that could be it - there is another recent thread about WLC and Talbott’s exchange on free will; essentially, WLC argued that Satan (in Paradise Lost), and people who ultimately reject God do it from a stubbornness that does not want to bend the knee to God. I don’t know if he thought people who ultimately refuse God are “really” insane, more like filled with pride. But it seems that many use “insane” that way.
I think James was saying his readers held to doctrine he understood as correct, but that wasn’t enough, because assuming it’s true, even demons [probably] would know that and be terrified.
he was using it to build a point that belief on its own is useless…that actions grounded in that faith proved it and brought it to life.
comparing believers who don’t act to demons does not prove demons exist or that they have special knowledge. it’s a form of hyperbole employed to prove a point: Don’t just believe: ACT.
When James says “Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble,” is he saying that they “know” that there’s one God?
I’ve been out for ice and various other reasons, so it’ll be a while before I can catch up on the thread:
Only as a secondary consideration. Their problem (which I understand to be a key root of all sin) is that they believe the power to cause effects is fundamental reality, not the love of fair-togetherness between persons; but any such power wouldn’t allow rebellion per se. Consequently the inference would be that God must not really be the fundamental reality; but even if they still accepted that, someone with that kind of misunderstanding might still think they can win a rebellion if any rebellion is proven to be actually possible, the inference being that God must not actually care about rebellion despite appearances. God punishes the losers for being losers, or something along that line, in a sort of evolutionary weeding program.
The Mormons believe there is one chief created god, too; as did many (other) pagans. But even demons who believe God is a single multi-personal entity might still believe (as even many trinitarian Christians in effect believe) that this characteristic makes no difference to the concept of ultimate reality being the power to cause effects. James’ own context is definitely about the problem of Christians not acting in charity even though they believe the Lord their God is One (whatever James meant by “One”). And naturally enough, rebels who believe most in effective power will tremble if they ever regard ultimate Power. But they’re still rebels, so far: respect for power is pragmatically proper and prudent, and might even be the beginning of wisdom, but it isn’t inherently loyalty.
It occurs to me that belief isn’t certainty, and there may be degrees of belief.
The same word used in James 2:19 seems to be used in Acts 8:37.
**And Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.” And he answered and said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”
**
Perhaps demons believe there’s one God, but not with all their hearts, and are still capable of deceiving themselves (at least some of the time) into thinking that they’re gods (i.e. that in opposing God’s will, and actively working against His plans and purposes, they can win small battles, if not the war.)
I know you know Greek; is there anything in the Greek text that would mitigate against this interpretation?