Hey, Brad’s here – now we’ll have a little action, it looks like!
Though I must say, Brad, there’s a good bit of spin in your remarks I must address, and make clear. For instance, when you say,
“Many wiser men than he or me have addressed some of the inconsistencies and erroneous linguistics involved in his arguments”
the truth of that is I have responded and answered any and all objections brought forth, whether exegetical, lexical, historical, or linguistic. And I am quite up to doing it again, for this is no small matter. I won’t deny that I have interacted with men wiser than I, but in this particular matter they have not offered sufficient evidence to overturn my arguments.
You said, “Most of the old hands here are too worn out to discuss it with him anymore”, and at the risk of raising them all from their slumbers I will say I have endeavored to fulfil the elder’s duty, “by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince [refute] the gainsayers” (Titus 1:9 AV). This is “a hill [I am] ready to die on” (as the saying goes) and I will take a stand here. If this matter pertains to the purity of the LORD’s temple I would be remiss in my duty to Him did I otherwise.
I do appreciate your gracious heart in what you have said, and I have come to respect and have affection for you as well, and I know we are on the same page when it comes to certain important matters.
Let me go over your points. You said, Brad,
“As for the logic of stating that a thing that is ‘known’ for its use to engage in demonic activities must therefore be demonic in and of itself, that is absurd.”
I would agree with that. I guess you have not kept up with my addressing of various objections. Here is the response to that from TFOB:
Analysis of pharmakeia nature and action. To preemptively address a possible objection: no, the pharmakeia drugs do not contain demonic power. This would be the negative mirror-image of Rome’s claiming the wafer actually contains God’s grace, that having been infused in it by Him, and that it confers grace apart from any motion – faith or devotion – on the part of the recipient. Such, along with Francis Turretin, I would deny. Both views err. In Turretin’s words, “nothing corporeal can by its own power effect anything spiritual or act upon the soul” (Elenctic Theology, Vol 3, p 365), that is, evil or good do not inhere in physical objects; even alcohol or tobacco are not evil in themselves – it is their misuse that results in damaging effects on the human body and soul. Or Turretin again, “the sacraments do not work grace physically and ex opere operato [produce of themselves] as if they possessed a force implanted and inherent in them of conferring and effecting grace” (Ibid., p 363). The same inability to contain and/or confer evil applies to the drugs.
So at this point please note that I do not assert that demonic power is in the substance of marijuana or LSD, etc. It is simply a plant – or, with respect to LSD, a synthetic mix of chemicals – derived from the created order of things. Their effect is upon the physical body, particularly the brain and neurological system.
Whence then, the sorcerous power of the drugs? Perhaps this may illustrate my view: I was wondering a while ago, reflecting on this topic, what if (indulging briefly in the “if – then fallacy”) there were no demonic realm, no demons, just God and His creation in a holy state; and if someone inhaled the smoke of marijuana, or ate psychedelic mushrooms or peyote buttons, and the affect from ingesting these substances was to make them very aware of their inner being and of the outer physical and spiritual worlds? If there were no demons, this would not – in that context – be sorcery, nor would those substances be categorized and prohibited as pharmakeia agents. There would be no demonic influence at all. But this conjecture presupposes a blessed state greater than original innocence (for there was a devil lurking about the garden), rather the pristine holiness of the eternal state. Perhaps it can be seen where I am going with such thoughts.
Suffice it to say that the drugs act upon the brain and nervous system of humans in some way that they become open to spiritual phenomena, both within themselves – their own human spirits (the depths of their being) – and whatever spiritual is without, which in our world today includes other humans and demons. The demonic agency is not something inherent in the drugs, but is in the world (“the whole world lieth in wickedness” 1 John 5:19; cf. Eph 2:2) , and the drugs open one to that. They don’t open one to God, because God has forbidden using those drugs, and using them incurs His displeasure. I would think that sins of this sort done unwittingly incur less guilt, though the damage to the human soul is not lessened thereby. And damage done to the human community – whether the world or the church – continues, as demonic influence pours in through contact with the consciousness, activities, and works of those partaking the forbidden and unclean thing at issue here.
The pharmakeia agents are unusual – in comparison with other recreational drugs – in this regard: instead of infusing powerful energy (speed/amphetamines) or euphoria (cocaine) into the system, they disable the controlling mind and will of the user and render the consciousness exposed to its own energy and depths of being, and to the presence of other beings in their vicinity, human or otherwise. It is this making the consciousness naked and immeasurably more sensitive in its apprehension of what is, that is the distinctive of these sorcerous drugs. I do not wonder that some may be incredulous that such things might be. Who could imagine it, such a thing happening? I mean, we see reference to such in movies like Matrix, with the blue and red pills – the red pills actually truncated in their consciousness expansion by virtue of the reality-level of the movie – yet showing the concept of taking something that generates awareness. I don’t mean to buttress my argument by this reference, just to show a popular version of the concept.
Back to reality: there are drugs that act upon the brain and nervous system, infusing – as I noted above – energy or euphoria into the nervous system, whereas the unique properties of the pharmakeia agents bring an element into their effect on the brain and nervous system and then on the soul that renders it open rather than acted upon with infusion of power or euphoric sensation. One assesses pharmakeia drugs by their properties, their effect on the human system.
This is getting into that mysterious interaction / interrelationship between the physical brain and the immaterial spirit or soul of man, and as this is hard to define or delineate, so it is hard to define or delineate the actual affect of the pharmakeia drugs on the brain, and how this affects consciousness. Even scientists cannot measure immaterial substance such as the soul or spirit of man, or love between humans, and thus they could not – at least scientifically – explain such things as we are seeking to discern.
Further, you say,
“Steve has created for himself an entire eschatology around his view of drug use”
Come on now, Brad, that’s taking spin beyond truth, for my eschatological position is classic contemporary amil, more precisely, the modified idealist / eclectic view of Greg Beale, Dennis E. Johnson, William Hendriksen, Vern Poythress, Cornelis P. Venema, et al. Where I go further than they is to assert that it can be seen in hindsight what the phrase in Revelation 18:23, “for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived” refers to. Nor is it surprising that other godly men have not seen it (though some indeed have!), for they wisely stayed aloof from the doings of the counterculture sixties, and have no intimate knowledge of them. Or if some of them did partake of the ungodly sixties substances, they did not see it with the insight of the Holy Spirit.
So my “entire eschatology” is quite sound and in the consensus of the contemporary amil, excepting my view on Rev 18:23. Exaggeration promoting error is not becoming in such discussion.
Then you say,
[Steve’s is] “a view strongly influenced by his own subjective experiences in the much-glorified ‘60’s drug culture.”
There’s half-truth in that. What I think you imply (I could be wrong) is that that drug culture is “much glorified” by
me, which is false. Simply speaking of it is not to glorify it. That drug culture killed a lot of people, and drove many others mad, and influenced the mental and spiritual consciousness of collective humankind by opening a terrible Pandora’s box – an interdimensional gateway, if you will – allowing direct demonic influence to enter the archetypal human heartlands by means of these sorcerous drugs. Many pagans are aware of these things (though not from the Christian view which discerns the evil), but most of the Christians not, which will be a grave handicap in maintaining holiness in the church, seeing as we are growing so lax in letting the world into our sanctuary.
Those particular [psychedelic] drugs, you say, have “been around for thousands of years, used both for good and evil”. You err greatly there, Brad, for the psychedelics have indeed been around for thousands of years, but never used “for good”. Under Moses the use of them warranted the death penalty, and under Christ excommunication for the unrepentant user, which resulted in eternal death if persisted in. No good ever came from sorcery or witchcraft, or any other imagined use of these drugs.
Some of your ideation you are projecting onto me from elsewhere in your past. It is not mine. As for my own “subjective experiences” . . .
I’m actually wrapping up writing a book, in the genre
visionary adventure, nonfiction, about a disciple of Christ rescued from the 60s counterculture and soundly converted, but after having been fed “the thinnest of soups” which the generic evangelical Christian churches offered then, and introduced to the default theologies of those times – Finneyesque pelagianism and Wesleyan perfectionism along with its quasi-charismatic “second blessing / entire sanctification” teaching – he ignominiously fell away and backslid, reverting back to the counterculture ways, with this difference: he saw what was
really going on spiritually in the counterculture, and it terrified him. It was an odyssey, his seeking to return to his Master, and He finally got him back and restored him. Is it possible the LORD used this disciple’s sin, much as He did Samson’s at the end of
his wayward life, giving him to tear down the entire temple of the Philistines, destroying many of their rulers along with it?
Is it possible the wayward disciple (in the book) was given to see the satanic evil that had been perpetrated against (and through) this rebellious generation – the enormity and horror of it – and was further given to bear witness of it when his LORD required it of him?
At any rate, this story – and odyssey – is written of in the book,
A Great and Terrible Love; but the odyssey continues, for when he is finally back with the LORD, the destination continues to Celestial City, the resting place of all the saints of the true God.
But there is a problem (I’m a story-teller, so I’ll just spin it out a bit), and that is that the world of this disciple and his Heaven-bound friends has become very dark – much as Tolkien’s “shadow of Mordor” encroaching upon all of Middle Earth, or the days of Noah where “the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually . . . [and] the earth [was] filled with violence through them” (Gen 6:5,13) – and what was once a relatively pleasant world (and country, for those in America) to live in, became increasingly hostile and unjust, and the culture Babylonian, that is, seductive by means of its arts, entertainments, luxuries, comforts (while multitudes elsewhere languished in misery and want). The world became more beast-like with its wars everywhere, emerging police states even in the supposedly civilized West. Ethnic groups now fostered hatred toward other groups (cf Matt 24:7 – “nation shall rise against nation”, which in the Greek is
ethnos shall rise against ethnos – people groups against people groups), and social fabrics increasingly disintegrated.
This odyssey / pilgrimage to the Heavenly home now became a trek through a gauntlet of violence, and not only that, but due to the increasing wickedness the Almighty meted judgments upon this Babylonian entity. The stench of the blood and pain of 96,000,000 babies murdered in the womb (in America alone) over the brief period of 41 years, along with the celebrating all manner of sexual perversions and sin drew from Heaven great wrath, and the days were to become hard.
The story tells how the disciples were given to love those suffering, even their enemies in the hostile cultures of the world. But enough – you’ll have to buy the book when it comes out (first in Kindle), though I’ll see to make it free for periods of time, as Amazon allows.
The bottom line is this: if I err in things, and am shown this, I will correct my way – for far be it from me to promote lies and deception – but otherwise I will continue to publish what I believe I have been given to hold forth. Over the past half century as a writer and poet I have become hardened against rejection (though I appreciate discerning critique), so I care not if the world is against me. For so I am made.
I aim to tear down the refuge of lies that constitutes The Temple of Man and his alleged inherent goodness and indwelling “spark of divinity”, instead revealing an experiential and visionary look into the concept, the “total depravity” of man, and a vision of the utter holiness of God and of His Christ, along with their great mercy toward the children of men, as demonstrated on the cross, where the heart of God was revealed in all His holiness, justice, and love.
Either I am a fool or true, and God knows which.
________
Hey Brett, I’d suggest looking at some modern commentators on Revelation, some of whom I have provided in the papers referenced above.
