• You are currently viewing our forum as a guest, which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community, you will have access to additional post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), view blogs, respond to polls, upload content, and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free, so please join our community today! Just click here to register. You should turn your Ad Blocker off for this site or certain features may not work properly. If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us by clicking here.

Is it possible for a demon to do good?

LonestarCowgirl

New member
Joined
Oct 21, 2013
Messages
482
It's a bit more complicated than that,"I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things" (Isa 45:7 KJV)

"The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil" (Prov 16:4 KJV)

"Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?" (Amos 3:6 KJV).

In the old testament and prophets, God does a lot of unique things. Mind you, I don't believe these are literal events, I see it all as symbolic, for something more internal, to me the bible and stuff, are psychology books of their time. thats just my opinion.

anyways in answer to the question, I don't know. It depends on how one defines Good and how they see a demon? No one is good, but we all seek to do according to our concept of good, which figures its way by influence which comes to us from those outside, what we are educated with... that then becomes uniquely mixed with our own thinking and experiences. I can't see I believe in morality, only as an ideal. So as a result, a person is both bad and good, demon and angel, wolf and sheep. What we want to be, it is difficult to be, often we want to be good, but we fail short. Are behaviorism is predictable, given the stimulus, and we seem to experience the same type of stimulus, same type of associations daily. So for a human it is even difficult to be good, in the gospel, Jesus suggests that not even he was, only God was. Plato, through Socrates wrote about The Good, and the ascent to it, was not something already man in us, but something that takes layers of working through to in order to reach, as an Idea, much less and ideal. The Good, symbolized in the sun, an objective source of Light and heat, which shines on everything, despite its nature or formation. So can a demon be good? Well the devil is good, the Antagonist is what moves the progression of the protagonist, to manifest fully all the qualities that is potential in within. The hero is developed by the villain, without the villain, there would be no ultimate good, there could be no growth. The antagonist is a force of resistance and it is between the compelling force and the resistance force, that a new quality can be build. So I guess, a demon can't be good, for it has to be what it is, but its existence brings about the greater Good. Greater good taken differently, as than ordinary good, which is the opposite of bad. This is consistent with Judaism and the gospel honestly... although likewise consistent with the yin yang, perhaps even zen... i dunno.

This reminds me of an old Gnostic piece of literature, I believe the Phillip Gospel,
Light and Darkness, life and death, right and left, are brothers of one another. They are inseparable. Because of this neither are the good good, nor evil evil, nor is life life, nor death death

God is not the author of evil. The Hebrew translation of "evil" in the scripture you quoted is adversity or calamity. There are two forms of the word: moral evil and calamity or distress. The KJV often refers to adversity or calamity.
 

LonestarCowgirl

New member
Joined
Oct 21, 2013
Messages
482
In my understanding of the Christian faith, the question presumes an ungodly frame of mind.

Can a demon do good;- well, relative to what? The question only makes sense relative to a world-view.

Subjectively with the Holy Spirit, there is no good and evil, when you are discerning what to do, its simply required to see a true account of what is happening;- judging events as good or evil condemns yourself to be a mere affect of past actions (and part of the World's action as your judgement of the world condemns yourself to it's own determinism (*cause and effect)).

If you act freely, your ability to reference what is happening is a resource available to you in the present;- knowledge is a tool that makes you more effective in the present;- whereas moral knowledge means you are condemned to the narrative that you are only a [spiritually] dead part of. The Holy Ghost is an amoral force;- the Holy Spirit is the mental energy that serves the context the Holy Ghost provides when the 'Ghost' of truth is used to judge/measure[to clearly see] the entire field of truth your mind is being freely given [of God]. The way of the Ghost and the spirit serving in truth together overcomes the world (overcomes all external locus of authority);- because the mind bears record of proper discerning.

I'm impressed with your insight; it's profoundly spiritual and aligns with my experience as well. I'll sum it up by saying, when one has a revelation of God's grace, they become more Christ-focused, rather than self-focused and sin no longer has dominion over them.

Well didnt like Satan fall from heaven or something? If he fell I do not see why a demon could not ascend.

I'm not very religious though, but it seems to me like the biblical God castigates people to hell because the majority of their actions are bad, or one of their sins in unforgivable, so I suppose that does not necessarily mean that everything they did was always bad, just that the badness overshadows in Gods eyes.

It is more of a ratio I guess.
As far as I understand, satan and his minion of demons can't and won't be rehabilitated. Their goal is to overthrow god.

Possible conclusion? A demon does nothing, rather a person uses the power of a demon to do something, and because their power is of the lower form, it necessarily sends the person lower down so is necessarily evil.
I guess it's possible some demons are as you described. In my experience, demons don't require people or their permission to do something.

So for a human it is even difficult to be good, in the gospel, Jesus suggests that not even he was, only God was.
According to the Bible, Jesus is God.

John 10:30 - I and [my] Father are one.

Isaiah 9:6 - For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.


Hebrews teaches Jesus was tempted as we are, yet he was without sin (Hebrews 4:15). Jesus is also described as a high priest [who] meets our need - one who is holy, blameless, pure, exalted above the heavens (Hebrews 7:26) and is unblemished (Hebrews 9:14).
 

á´…eparted

passages
Joined
Jan 25, 2014
Messages
8,265
A demon can be or do what ever the hell it pleases. There is no common regarded definition saying what it is or isn't, and the definitions that exist run the gambit. For that reason, it can be whatever.
 

Crabs

Permabanned
Joined
Dec 26, 2014
Messages
1,518
i suppose it depends on whether or not demons exist. there is much we don't know about the nature of consciousness and altered states of mind. can everything be reduced to chemical reactions in our brain? or does our chemical composition sometimes coincide or react with our emotional (or spiritual) disposition? certainly, external factors can affect a person's emotional state. even though psychology and the labels we use to describe particular "mental illnesses" are constantly evolving, there is an assumption that extremely aberrant behavior is the result of the brain's structure, which itself is subject to change via neural plasticity in response to behavior, environment, neural processes, thinking, and emotions.

the miami cannibal, rudy eugene, is a prime example. though he had no documented history of mental illness and the toxicology report found no drugs in his system other than thc, he stripped his clothes off, growled like an animal and chewed a man's face off. before the results of the toxicology report were disclosed, everyone assumed that he was on bath salts or some kind of synthetic drug, but he wasn't. Some things we just can't explain.

like this:

 

Evee

Permabanned
Joined
Jul 3, 2014
Messages
2,285
MBTI Type
INFP
Enneagram
5w4
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
The Greek word for "demon" meant "divine being or god". For them, supernatural beings were both good and evil simultaneously.

Also, the french words dieu (god), and diable (devil) have the same root.

God and devil are one, at least originally.
 

Kanra Jest

Av'ent'Gar'de ~
Joined
Jun 30, 2015
Messages
2,388
MBTI Type
ENTP
Enneagram
4w3
Instinctual Variant
sx/so
Demon just seems to be another form of supernatural being.. and the bible is seriously far too inconsistent and twisted to be pulling quotes from. The quaran has Jin, made from fire, who basically play the same role for simply not bowing.

Demons are demons. They have many interpretations and understandings and lack clarity as to the tangability of what they truly are. So saying whether they are able to be good or not doesn't seem possible if we can't even come to a conclusion of who they are. But if we go by what they became translated to be over time, I still wouldn't doubt they can be "good". No species or creature of any kind is absolute evil because of what it is. That is simplistic. And the real world isn't black and white, only perceptions can be.
 

Raffaella

bon vivant
Joined
Jan 25, 2014
Messages
945
Djinns are sapient creations of smokeless fire living invisibly amongst humans. They were granted free will despite being ranked beneath humans (clay; with free will) and angels (light; without free will). Some followers believe that not all Djinns are demons, only a subtype, the shaytan, known for their hubris, are analogous to demons (Iblis/Satan is one). Others believe that all Djinns are demons; some even cite Iblis as the father of Djinns.

However you classify demons in Islam, they have free will and therefore the choice to do good. Iblis questioned God’s command to prostrate before Adam, whereas the angels, without free will, obeyed God.
 
Top