"He cast out _devils_." This record shows that the term devil is generic,
being used in the plural number. From this it follows that there is more
than one devil. That Jesus cast several persons out of another person, is
not stated, and is impossible. Hence the passage must refer to the _evils_
which were cast out.
Jesus defined devil as a mortal who is full of evil. "Have I not chosen you
twelve, and one of you _is a devil_?" His definition of evil indicated his
ability to cast it out. An incorrect concept of the nature of evil hinders
the destruction of evil. To conceive of God as resembling--in personality,
or form--the personality that Jesus condemned as devilish, is fraught with
spiritual danger. Evil can neither grasp the prerogative of God nor make
evil omnipotent and omnipresent.
Jesus said to Peter, "Get thee behind me, Satan;" but he to whom our Lord
gave the keys of the kingdom could not have been wholly evil, and therefore
was not a _devil_, after the accepted definition. Out of the Magdalen,
Jesus cast seven devils; but not one person was named among them. According
to Crabtre, these devils were the diseases Jesus cast out.
The most eminent divines, in Europe and America, concede that the
Scriptures have both a literal and a moral meaning. Which of the two is the
more important to gain,--the literal or the moral sense of the word
_devil_,--in order to cast out this devil? Evil is a quality, not an
individual.
As mortals, we need to discern the claims of evil, and to fight these
claims, not as realities, but as illusions; but Deity can have no such
warfare against Himself. Knowledge of a man's physical personality is not
sufficient to inform us as to the amount of good or evil he possesses.
Hence we cannot understand God or man, through the person of either. God is
All-in-all; but He is definite and individual, the omnipresent and
omniscient Mind; and man's individuality is God's own image and
likeness,--even the immeasurable idea of divine Mind. In the Science of
good, evil loses all place, person, and power.
According to Spinoza's philosophy God is amplification. He is in all
things, and therefore He is in evil in human thought. He is extension, of
whatever character. Also, according to Spinoza, man is an animal vegetable,
developed through the lower orders of matter and mortal mind. All these
vagaries are at variance with my system of metaphysics, which rests on God
as One and All, and denies the actual existence of both matter and evil.
According to false philosophy and scholastic theology, God is three persons
in one person. By the same token, evil is not only as real as good, but
much more real, since evil subordinates good in personality.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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