Some people are fascinated by the idea of spiritual forces at work, and others find the idea outlandish and weird. No doubt some people are too fascinated by the spiritual forces at work, or too quick to blame things on demons that are really human sinful choices. But people who grew up in Western culture are more likely to think that demons are pure fantasy.
Since the Bible clearly teaches that there are spiritual forces, both good and evil, at work in the world, if I want to uphold the Bible as a book giving truth about the world, I need to be able to explain demons to a Western atheist. Here’s one attempt at that.
Many of us will have experienced the way that a human community or institution starts to develop a distinct flavour. This school or football club has a different set of ways of doing things, and a different flavour, to this other school or football club. And this culture, shaped by people and events in the past, often persists through time as people join who don’t remember the events or people, and yet are shaped by and join this culture. Some people talk about the school spirit or club spirit to describe this unique culture which draws people in and shapes them as they join.
Sometimes this shaping power has negative effects, and it is these that are particularly unsettling. Human institutions and cultures end up shaping behaviours in way no one originally intended or wanted. But the institution or culture shapes people so that they feel they have no choice but to go along with the rules and expectations that no one individually wanted. Atheist Scott Alexander writes eloquently on this in Meditations On Moloch (slatestarcodexabridged.com)
So far, what has been described are either emergent properties of complex human interactions, or of human interaction with their environment. Though some theologians have argued that the “powers and principalities” of the Bible are simply these emergent properties, I am not persuaded. But for those who fear using language of demons or spiritual forces influencing the world is simply crazy talk, there is a helpful analogy . The emergent properties spoken of here do not remove personal responsibility for our own choices, nor do they necessarily mean that we discard other forms of analysis of the situation. But there is value in considering a situation at the level of these emergent properties. Speaking of a “spiritual influence” does not mean we have to switch off our brain to economic, social and other tools of analysis, but gives us another facet to consider.
If the “spirit” of a community is a factor we can consider in understanding it and the individuals interacting with it, then we might understand the true spiritual forces interacting with this “spirit”. The “powers and principalities” are the true spiritual realm interacting with the emergent properties of human cultures and institutions.
I won’t spend much time arguing for them here. If there is a supreme spiritual being (God) then it is certainly not impossible for there to be lesser spiritual beings (angels, demons etc). Most cultures have believed in them. And if we observe collective phenomena that make no sense, we might wonder if spiritual forces are at work. For me, the most striking example of this is pervasive irrational antisemitism.
If there is a spiritual realm that intersects with the emergent properties of human institutions and cultures, there are some big implications.
1) We cannot fully explain human society and human history by merely human level analysis. We cannot come up with a Seldon Psychohistory* because there is a component to human society which we cannot study scientifically. There are spiritual forces which influence society.
2) There are spiritual forces corrupting humanity and promoting evil, which at points will lead to irrational and destructive hatred. No society is immune from this. We cannot fight this purely on the human level, and are often outmatched.
3) There are spiritual forces of good, which may turn around situations which seem hopeless. We are not on our own in the fight against evil. The spiritual forces of good may give fresh heart and will to overcome evil. Perhaps we might think of Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement as an example of this. Tolkien understood this dynamic, and so in Lord of the Rings Gandalf is an angel putting heart into men to fight evil.
4) Prayer is really important. It is not merely a ritual to calm ourselves down. It is not merely a way of talking to each other. When we pray “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one”, we are engaged in warfare to align ourselves with the spiritual good not the spiritual evil. When we pray “Your kingdom come”, we are praying for the spiritual good to spread and win in the world around us.
*See Asimov’s Foundation series
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