Over in the polytheism thread, I started a bit of a hijack about the free will of demons, which I’d like to take out of there.
To sum up: kanicbird claims that demons can only do evil, I say that means they have no free will, (or not even the illusion of it if you prefer), and thus are not responsible for their actions. He(?) says that yes, they do, but only within the “Satanic Kingdom.”
I ask whether that covers this world too, since this is where their actions are supposedly manifest, He comes back and says this world is a battleground, I go “Oh, so they can act outside their own Kingdom, then” (a point still not addressed), he comes back with a bad, almost racist, analogy and basically says that demons have free will, because they’re not under direct orders, but still only the will to do evil, which strikes me as not very free at all.
I still don’t think he’s addressed the central point - if demons are only free to do evil, then they are not free-willed, and are not to blame for their actions. Like a criminally insane person isn’t truly responsible - it’s like demons are possessed by some meta-demon that drives their actions.
Now, I’d like to **leave aside **the issue of whether free will is illusionary/only a pragmatic approximation, please. Accept that we’re talking about a reference framework where human beings do have free will (so can choose to be tempted by demons or not, and are judged accordingly.)
Given that framework, what say you about demonic free will? A simplistic alignment issue - a roleplaying scenario where Orcs are always and only Evil? Or is God a better DM than that?
I agree. I’ve thought for years that the idea of a creature that is instrinsically evil is simply a logical contradiction. A being that is always and only malignant, and can’t be anything else is no more “evil” than a storm.
Back when I Dungeon Mastered D & D, I regarded demons and such as creatures of pure malice, not evil; “evil elementals”, basically. I treated non-demon “evil races” in various ways; Orcs as having both highly predatory and sadistic instincts, and being too stupid to see how their approach was flawed, but not as “pure evil”; an orc raised by humans might have turned out good or neutral ( in my games ).
Alot of people would say something like the following.
Even if a creature can’t do anything but evil, it can still be morally responsible for doing this evil, if it’s present inability to do good is due to its own actions in the past, where those past actions were evil acts done even though the creature could have done good instead.
To go a few steps further than Frylock, I’m perfectly willing in many contexts to hold creatures morally culpable for their actions, even if they had no “free will” in the matter and could not have done otherwise. But that’s just me. I mean, when I judge someone as good or bad, I don’t feel like what I’m doing is, or need be, predicated upon the assumption that there is another possible world where they acted differently.
And since it will come up, naturally, in reply to the comment in the OP about the criminally insane, yeah, I’m ok with considering people with certain sorts of mental/personality disorders to be morally flawed [not in the case of all such disorders, but some, of the right kind]. Sure, they can’t help that they’re morally flawed, but nonetheless, they still are, in fact, morally flawed. But that’s just the way I’m willing to use the terms. The way I use the language of morality is such that, if you were born a psychopath biologically prone to bouts of murderous rage, well, that’s not an excuse for your actions absolving you of your evil; rather, that’s just the very source of your quite-existent evil.
(Why don’t I call murderous storms “evil” then? Well, I don’t know; why not say submarines can swim? I don’t normally do it because it’s a category error in ordinary language, people wouldn’t normally talk that way or apply those concepts to those objects. The language of morality is normally restricted to creatures of a certain sort. But I might be coaxed into such a mood as to say such a thing anyway, were I to feel it brought out the right resemblances to the ordinary use of the word. I could see myself considering storms evil in some contexts, it’s not totally at odds with how I understand the concept of evil.)
As a mystical catholic and somewhat believing in angels/demons/what-have-you, IMO demons have free will but are unclouded in their views of God, Satan, and morality. They choose evil and like doing evil. Of course they are free to do non-evil acts, but why would they?
Good answer. It does make me question why the possibility of redemption is withheld from demons (but not humans), but it is a good counter-response.
However, it still doesn’t answer why the demon is currently incapable of choosing good, as kanicbird would have it - why the Fall removes free will from the demon. “I do evil because I am now Evil” is a non-argument , IMO.
Indistinguishable, I feel you’re going down the “does free will exist?” path, which isn’t really what I want to discuss.
Der, I think you and I have similar DMing styles, although Planescape has opened me up to the possibilities of risen Baatezu and fallen Archons. Or maybe Good Omens did it first.
Yeah, I was afraid I might have been veering in that direction. It’s naturally hard for me to entirely divorce my position on this from my position on that. Nonetheless, my extricable point remains that I’m totally cool with holding beings morally culpable for their actions even if they didn’t have free will. I’m totally cool with considering free will-less demons, pure automatons forced to do heinous things, to be blameworthy and evil.
I guess my “vote” would be most in line with Autolycus. At some point, an entity reaches a certain clarity of mind and stops waffling between good and evil. They might be free to do good, just not inclined to.
Regular soccer mom is free to torture her kids, but she just won’t. Does that mean she lacks free will?
I’ll sum up my points, demons strive to advance Satan’s kingdom. This does not mean that everything they do is evil.
This world is contested ground, demons are the ‘foot soldiers’ of the satanic forces. Satan does claim ownership of the world, The location of Satan’s throne was known in one of the letters or perhaps in Revelation, though that doesn’t mean it’s still there.
The racist label that Mr. Dribble slapped on me was because I compared the structure of the Japanese military and their emperor to the way that many view the structure of the satanic kingdom. It was the structure that I was comparing, not the people, or entities, which I still contend it pretty close and a good analogy.
Last part first, demons ARE judged and condemned already (from Mt 8-29), so it does not matter what their actions are now. The actions they are condemned for have already past and they can’t repent (in a simple form God will not accept their repentance if they try). So they are facing eternal punishment, but for now till the end times they are free to do what demons do. The only gig in town is Satan’s kingdom. What if they refuse to sign up with the satanic military, I’m not sure, but I assume it’s not pretty as they can’t go to God.
This is another way to look at it, the demons have no reason or incentive to act good, and I would add a disincentive to do good (Satan will not be happy with such a demon and that demon will find himself kicked out of the only kingdom that accepted him, or have kp duty for a few centuries). Also saying unclouded in their view I think you mean that the demons know for a fact, there is absolutely no doubt that God and Satan exists and have a crystal clear view of morality, it does not mean that they are omnipresent.
Actually this is something I wonder about myself, and best answered that they are condemned already. It seems like they can not pass through the baptism of water which is redemption, and are confined to ‘dry places’. In this case water is taken in the elemental sense (wind/earth/fire/water).
I’m not sure that the fall of man was the point of judgment, it may have been the flood (water removed from the demonic area of the satanic kingdom was released on earth).
And addressing your post in the other topic:
Demons sometimes do desert their post, just like Christian warriors, it’s a war and shit happened, people and demons panic. But the issue of surrender for demons really would mean eternal death so they have no reason to surrender, for being shot up is far superior to surrender.
Spike’s choice in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series may be relevant here. Or did the chip override his “evil” programming? Would he have ever made the choice to get a soul without getting stuck with the chip first?
Interesting premise in this demon mythology, kanicbird-demons who have already been judged and thus have no reason what so ever to do anything other than evil. Does this work for everyone who has been judged? For instance, if God informed you that you didn’t make the cut, would you abandon all the morals and ethics you’ve developed over the years and decide to do only evil things?
In other words, is the promise of a Final Reward the only reason you have morals and ethics?
IIRC, it was Thomas Aquinas who defined angels as beings of pure unimpaired reason, so that an angel would know the ultimate result of what choices it made. Satan & the other fallen angels thus chose to rebel, knowing logically that it would bring evil to others & damnation to themselves, and thus they are without repentance.
Origen, earlier, saw all souls/spirits as fallible creatures of God/Logos, and eventually capable of salvation through the Logos’s incarnation as Jesus. Therefore, theoretically at least, Satan & his demons could eventually repent and be saved.
Christ said that the only unforgivable sin is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Contrary to what some atheist teens on YouTube believe, that doesn’t mean someone just up and saying “fuck you, holy spirit”. It means seeing undeniable proof of the goodness of God and still saying “fuck that” (the context of the verse was some Pharisees witnessing Jesus healing and saying that his powers came from Satan). Unless you’ve witnessed a real miracle and know what you’ve seen, you can’t commit that sin.
But Angels can. They know full well what God is. If an angel turns against God, he knows what he’s doing. He’s therefore unforgiveable. Whether his subsequent evil acts are simply because he therefore has no reason to do good, or because he’s blown out his capactity to do good seems a rather academic point.
Fallen angels are angels and are not demons, so they knew what they were getting into when they rebelled and can’t obtain repentance. Demons OTOH and IMHO had a chance to repent, but chose not to, were judged and are sentenced to eternal death. Their time to repent is over. Again it does not appear demons have any way to obtain repentance, no water baptism is possible.
You are leaving out the rest of the equation, the current presents of satanic forces. I would wag, absent of Satan and other tormenting demons and fallen angels, demons may chose a more benign lifestyle, but Satan and other demons under Satan do exist and are there to further Satan’s kingdom, if a demon does not comply I would assume he would become a enemy of Satan also and a enemy of God is bad enough, being a enemy of both is a very bad place to be.
You asked me personally, what if God said I didn’t make the cut, and salvation is not available to me? Well with that knowledge I would expect the knowledge that all morality is based and flows from God, without God I have no ‘real’ morality. I could go with ‘satanic morality’ and try to further Satan’s kingdom, or go with ‘anti-satanic morality’ to oppose Satan, or morality of the flesh (secular morality). In the end it wouldn’t matter - God wins.
I would expect such knowledge however would lead to actual demonic possession (as opposed to demonic oppression), as Satan has a free and clear claim on a person that God will not oppose. That would quickly lead to serving Satan or suicide IMHO.
My morals and ethics come from wanting to serve God, God provides instruction and guidance, the morals and ethics are from Him, not of myself.
Sort of true, well He did say that, but there is one more way mentioned in Revelation - accepting the mark of the beast. This may be one in the same however.
Also in Hebrews, though not a direct quote from Christ, says if you accept the faith, light and the Holy Spirit then fall away you can never come back. Again it sound slike one and the same with the unpardonable sin.
another way seems to die in a state of not being saved.
But either way I beleive the unpardonable sin is phrases ‘all sins will be forgiven man except…’ demons are not men.
This is just part and parcel of the larger incoherent free will debate. Which beings have froofalloo and which don’t. Go! Argue heatedly over something no one can define in a coherent fashion in the first place!