TimCallahan
Philosopher
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2009
- Messages
- 6,293
The evangelical Christian concept of spiritual warfare can be traced almost entirely to the sixth chapter of Paul's epistle to the Ephesians, an epistle whose validity as genuinely from the pen of the apostle Paul has been disputed. The section on spiritual warfare begins at Eph. 6:10 with an exhortation to put on "the whole armor of God." This carries through a description of each piece of the metaphorical armor - each of which is good for a weekly sermon - ending with the "sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God" (Eph. 6:17). Paul, or whoever else might have written Ephesians, seems to have adapted the believer's armor from a description of God's metaphorical armor from the apocryphal book, the Wisdom of Solomon, actually thought to have been written in the first century BCE (Wis. 5:17 - 20).
However, within these eight verses, the concept of spiritual warfare is contained in just one (Eph. 6:12):
For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
It's interesting that "this present darkness" would logically refer to the Roman Empire in the first century, if actually written by Paul, under the reign of Nero (CE 54 - 68). Yet, modern fundamentalist ministers have no problem adapting "this present darkness" to our time, nearly 2,000 years later.
Believers in the concept of spiritual warfare do indeed live in what the late Carl Sagan referred to as a "demon haunted world." I remember attending a party decades ago in which a woman was relating how Satan tried to stop her from going to work that morning, making her feel sick and discouraged and tempting her to call in sick; but God helped her to persevere. Translation: She worked at a dismal dead-end job and woke up feeling miserable at the thought of another day's drudgery, and tempted to call in sick and go back to bed. However, she did the responsible thing anyway and went to work. Her view that God and Satan were battling over whether or not she'd go to work that day isn't rational, but her demon haunted world was much more dramatic and meaningful than the reality that in the words of MacBeth's soliloquy, "creeps in this petty pace, from day to day."
I don't know if Islam has, perhaps in the hadiths, a corresponding doctrine of spiritual warfare, or if there is anything in the demonology of Judaism that would compare. It would seem likely that Hindu belief would have a multiplicity of evil and good spirits tugging one's soul this way and that. However, I'm willing to bet that this demon haunted world is a rather universal characteristic of primitive religion. What is remarkable is that in the sophistication of the twenty-first century. This single verse, Eph. 6:12, carries such weight.
However, within these eight verses, the concept of spiritual warfare is contained in just one (Eph. 6:12):
For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
It's interesting that "this present darkness" would logically refer to the Roman Empire in the first century, if actually written by Paul, under the reign of Nero (CE 54 - 68). Yet, modern fundamentalist ministers have no problem adapting "this present darkness" to our time, nearly 2,000 years later.
Believers in the concept of spiritual warfare do indeed live in what the late Carl Sagan referred to as a "demon haunted world." I remember attending a party decades ago in which a woman was relating how Satan tried to stop her from going to work that morning, making her feel sick and discouraged and tempting her to call in sick; but God helped her to persevere. Translation: She worked at a dismal dead-end job and woke up feeling miserable at the thought of another day's drudgery, and tempted to call in sick and go back to bed. However, she did the responsible thing anyway and went to work. Her view that God and Satan were battling over whether or not she'd go to work that day isn't rational, but her demon haunted world was much more dramatic and meaningful than the reality that in the words of MacBeth's soliloquy, "creeps in this petty pace, from day to day."
I don't know if Islam has, perhaps in the hadiths, a corresponding doctrine of spiritual warfare, or if there is anything in the demonology of Judaism that would compare. It would seem likely that Hindu belief would have a multiplicity of evil and good spirits tugging one's soul this way and that. However, I'm willing to bet that this demon haunted world is a rather universal characteristic of primitive religion. What is remarkable is that in the sophistication of the twenty-first century. This single verse, Eph. 6:12, carries such weight.
