I believe in possession for the same reason I believe in the resurrection and I don't believe that Jesus threw mental illness into swine. So, what am I left with? An approach born of two particular certainties. First, that God exists and that His context is the means by which the world and our lives are properly understood and second, that within that context science is a remarkably helpful tool for addressing mechanism and particular, to the extent of its limitations.
Does it follow that I don't believe in mental illness? Of course not. I've seen its impact on friends, one of whom was committed and another who has struggled with bipolar disorder and managed to find peace with the help of medical assistance. He runs a mission. Does it follow that the existence of mental illness precludes the existence of possession? Of course not. Should we pursue the known first? Of course we should.
There was a time when men thought physical deformity and sickness itself was a spiritual matter. Some still do, but science has given us a deeper understanding of our biological mechanism and psychiatry has attempted and is attempting to do the same with our understanding of how that biology impacts and is impacted in terms of behavior/cognition. Much of it is to the good and helpful.
Beyond scripture I think of M. Scott Peck, the late and famous author of The Road Less Traveled. He was an atheist then Buddhist (including the time when this first and likely most famous was written) and then became a Christian by his early 40s and remained so until his death. Peck was a Harvard trained physician and a psychiatrist who, as so many among either set will, held the notion that demonic possession was simply and entirely a misdiagnosis by the superstitious of a fractured mind, even after his conversion.
"I had come to believe in the reality of benign spirit or God, as well as the reality of human goodness. I'd come to believe distinctly in the reality of human evil, and that left me an obvious hole in my thinking. Namely was there such a thing as evil spirit, or the devil specifically? In common with 99.99 percent of psychiatrists and with 80 percent of Catholic priests--as confidentially polled back in 1960, the figure would be much higher now--I did not believe in the devil."
He held that view for some time. Then he had experiences that his training could not, to his mind, account for. He wrote briefly about them in People of the Lie, an excellent book itself, but followed with Glimpses of the Devil, which dealt directly with the topic at hand. I think it might help you widen the net.
Does it follow that I don't believe in mental illness? Of course not. I've seen its impact on friends, one of whom was committed and another who has struggled with bipolar disorder and managed to find peace with the help of medical assistance. He runs a mission. Does it follow that the existence of mental illness precludes the existence of possession? Of course not. Should we pursue the known first? Of course we should.
There was a time when men thought physical deformity and sickness itself was a spiritual matter. Some still do, but science has given us a deeper understanding of our biological mechanism and psychiatry has attempted and is attempting to do the same with our understanding of how that biology impacts and is impacted in terms of behavior/cognition. Much of it is to the good and helpful.
Beyond scripture I think of M. Scott Peck, the late and famous author of The Road Less Traveled. He was an atheist then Buddhist (including the time when this first and likely most famous was written) and then became a Christian by his early 40s and remained so until his death. Peck was a Harvard trained physician and a psychiatrist who, as so many among either set will, held the notion that demonic possession was simply and entirely a misdiagnosis by the superstitious of a fractured mind, even after his conversion.
"I had come to believe in the reality of benign spirit or God, as well as the reality of human goodness. I'd come to believe distinctly in the reality of human evil, and that left me an obvious hole in my thinking. Namely was there such a thing as evil spirit, or the devil specifically? In common with 99.99 percent of psychiatrists and with 80 percent of Catholic priests--as confidentially polled back in 1960, the figure would be much higher now--I did not believe in the devil."
He held that view for some time. Then he had experiences that his training could not, to his mind, account for. He wrote briefly about them in People of the Lie, an excellent book itself, but followed with Glimpses of the Devil, which dealt directly with the topic at hand. I think it might help you widen the net.
