We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
6 Things the Church Fathers Can Teach Us about Spiritual Warfare
Image by Christina Saint Marche via Flickr
Unlike our thinking today about the source of good and evil in the world, the early church fathers, including Irenaus, Athenagorus, Origen, and others before Augustine, possessed a warfare worldview. Here are 6 ideas that are common in their writings:
- The Reality of the “World-in-Between”
The church fathers assumed that in-between humans and God there exists a vast society of intelligent, free, spiritual beings whose behavior significantly impacts human existence. The early fathers are all in general agreement that the key to understanding evil in a world that has been created and is yet sustained by an all-good and all-powerful God is to understand this “world-in-between.”
- The Freedom of the “World-in-Between”
The fathers tirelessly stressed the fact that the inhabitants of the spiritual realm, like the inhabitants on earth, are free. “Just as with men,” Athenagorus writes, angels “have freedom of choice as to both virtue and vice.” God’s aim in creation requires that his creatures be morally responsible. This moral responsibility requires freedom. And freedom, by definition, cannot be programmed.
- The Morally Responsible Hierarchy of the “World-in-Between”
The insight concerning the freedom of angels was combined with a hierarchical understanding of created reality in which the moral responsibility of one in a ‘higher’ position encompasses the welfare of those in ‘lower’ positions. For instance, when kings turn evil, their subjects suffer. So too, when angels rebel, all those under them suffer accordingly.
- Evil Does Not Go Back to God
All of the pre-Augustinian fathers, in sharp contrast to Augustine and most who followed him, saw clearly that this freedom entails that God is not in meticulous control of the cosmos. “There is no coercion in God,” wrote Irenaeus, a statement that sums up the conviction of this period. And this implies that evil cannot in any way be traced back to some secret dimension of God’s omnipotent will. Not one author in the pre-Augustinian period expresses any of the awkward discomfort we find in and after Augustine with trying to affirm a good divine purpose for particular blatantly evil events.
- Evil Agents and Evil in our World
Because of the hierarchical structure of the cosmos, the fathers suggest that a dimension of both moral and natural evil is rooted in transcendent spiritual beings who have become evil. Without excusing our sin, these fathers understood that there is at times a dimension to our sinning that is beyond our control. We are undoubtedly responsible for our actions, for we are responsible for relinquishing our self-control, as Origen insists. But a full account of our behavior or attitudes is not possible so long as we consider only variables that are within our control.
In the same way, this applies to natural evil. When angels of nature turn ugly, the nature they are over becomes a weapon.
- Satan and Cosmic Structural Evil
Evil, in the view of the fathers, was not understood as simply something that occurred in an otherwise pure and pristine creation. Rather, the creation itself was understood by these theologians to be adversely and radically affected on a fundamental level by cosmic forces of evil. Another way of making this point is to note the remarkable scope of authority that many of these fathers ascribed to Satan. Their view of the present cosmos was such that they saw everything as being caught up in a cosmic struggle between God and Satan.
Category: General
Tags: Evil, Natural Evil, Problem of Evil, Satan, Sin, Spiritual Warfare, Theodicy
Topics: Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict
Related Reading
A Response to Tony Campolo on Fighting the Powers
While I have nothing but admiration for Tony Campolo, I differ with his views on how Christians are to be change agents in the world. He has always been a strong proponent of Christians bringing about change by political means. I, on the other hand, am not in principle opposed to Christians engaging in politics,…
Podcast: Defending the Manifesto (7 of 10)
Greg responds to challenges by William Lane Craig from Craig’s podcast “Reasonable Faith.“ Greg discusses atonement and the shortcomings of penal substitution theology. http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0062.mp3
What’s Wrong With The World?
Hartwig HKD via Compfight The reports coming out of Fort Hood this morning once again highlight that our world is messed up. And it often feels like we are rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic as we try to find answers to address the problems we face. Here are some reflections by Greg on…
Podcast: Did Jesus Really Engage in Spiritual Warfare, or Was He Simply Playing Along with the Cultural Narratives of His Time?
Greg considers whether Jesus genuinely engaged in spiritual warfare, or if he was simply playing along with the beliefs of those around him. http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0289.mp3
What Does it Mean to be “Saved”?
The common legal-framework view of salvation encourages people to understand it as mere acquittal, but there is much more to it than that. First let’s consider what God saved us FROM. It’s certainly true that God saved us from the fatal consequences of our sin by forgiving us. But the New Testament’s view of salvation…
The Warfare We Have Inherited
Image by Chris Sardegna Jesus’ miracles over nature, as well as his healings, exorcisms and especially his resurrection, were definite acts of war that accomplished and demonstrated his victory over Satan. These acts routed demonic forces and thereby established the kingdom of God in people’s lives and in nature. But their primary significance was eschatological. People…