I have the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I know I do cos I can make every Scripture back me up. Really?
I have always believed in God starting out because I was told so, then experientialy, but over the years I have become an ‘atheist’ concerning a certain presentation of ‘God’, aligning myself with those who say ‘I cannot believe in a God who…’ In other words my faith in who God is has evolved – with Scripture, experience and observation needing to line up in what I consider a more coherent way.
Proof texting – taking a text in one place and lining it up with a text elsewhere (and often from two different authors writing into two different contexts) – is popular in many circles. I do not mind when someone is writing a theology and then quoting verses that illustrate what they have written, but at times other blatant texts that would disagree with what has been written are ignored (I , of course, never would do such a thing).
I consider that there is an evolution of understanding we can find within Scripture – hence at the two important areas of ‘who is God?’ and ‘who is humanity?’ we have to have a Jesus-lens. He alone, in visible human form was God, and alone was ‘truly’ human (like us fully human; unlike us truly human).
On other issues there will always be room for the ‘agnostic’ to find space. I believe in a personal devil and demons, or maybe I should write I think I believe in that direction – but am really open to it being a different reality. One could suggest that the world of the New Testament was somehow naive, but we do read in Matthew a clear distinction with those who were demonised from those who suffered from seizures (Matt. 4:24). Maybe they knew better than us – where everything is demonic or nothing is demonic! (My colleague, Johnny Barr, who some thought saw demons behind every bush, worked with a psychiatrist – both recognising their distinctive giftings.)
An evolution. The serpent in the garden seems to be equated to the devil (Rev. 12:9), but in Genesis we see traces of the serpent as wisdom which was a common persepctive in the ancient world, so much so that Jesus instructed the disciples to be as ‘wise’ as serpents. The snake on the pole to be looked at also pulls on that tradition of wisdom and healing.
We read that God is attributed as the one who ‘incited David’ to count the people,
Again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, “Go, count the people of Israel and Judah.” (2 Sam. 24:1)
Oh no says the later writers / editors as by then they all knew that God was not the God who tempts. They attribute the temptation elsewhere:
Satan stood up against Israel and incited David to count the people of Israel. 2 So David said to Joab and the commanders of the army, “Go, number Israel, from Beer-sheba to Dan, and bring me a report, so that I may know their number.” (2 Chron. 21:1,2).
Early writers had Satan in heaven as the accuser (e.g. Job) and as part of the counsel of the sons of God. That might well be a description of ‘reality’ and maybe it changed with the devil falling from heaven when the disciples went out proclaiming the kingdom of God (or maybe when there was warfare in heaven between Michael and his angels and the devil and his angels). Maybe reality or the story-telling way of seeking to explain the reality that we all experience.
The devil led Jesus… and yet, we are told, God cannot look on sin! (In this situation I think it is the latter assertion that needs to be critiqued with a God-incarnate manifestly eating with sinners!). Scripture must challenge our beliefs as much as it shapes our beliefs.
In it all we can be tempted to put a finger into a text and then make all the others fit what we read in one place… or maybe we let them free stand and allow for an evolution of understanding.
I think the latter. Loose ends. And seeking to bring my practice into line with the practice of Scripture. If demons and the devil do not exist as personal entities we witness that Jesus responded in a way that suggests they do. I am allowed to be agnostic in belief but not so in practice.