GakuseiDon

I'm saying that the demons were material AND spiritual. The demons had bodies of air and fire, though earth-bound spirits also had a little earth and water in them to keep them earth-bound. Everything that had a body in the material world was made from the four elements, and that included demons and humans. I'll give you quotes at the bottom.

Basically on how you are defining "supernatural". It doesn't seem consistent with what they believed back then. In fact, it seems quite at odds. If you could provide examples from the literature of the time that clarify what you mean by "supernatural", it would help. Are you using modern definitions of "supernatural"? If so, then that may be the cause of the confusion. It would really help if you use the literature of the time to put what you are saying into some kind of context. As I said, I'm more than happy to look at any references you bring up to support your ideas about the supernatural. Otherwise, I'll have to pass.

There is a LOT of misinformation floating around the Internet on what people believed back then, so just beware if you are cribbing ideas off sites that are sparse with primary sources. From where are you getting the idea that early Christians were platonists who rejected the supernatural?

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Here are some beliefs about demons, spirits and the four elements that make up human flesh and demon bodies, coming from sources dating around the first few centuries CE:

Tatian: Address to the Greeks

But none of the demons possess flesh; their structure is spiritual, like that of fire or air.

Clement of Alexandria
http://www.earlychristianwritings.co...hortation.html
How, then, can shades and demons be still reckoned gods, being in reality unclean and impure spirits, acknowledged by all to be of an earthly and watery nature, sinking downwards by their own weight, and flitting about graves and tombs, about which they appear dimly, being but shadowy phantasms?

Minucius Felix

These impure spirits, therefore--the demons--as is shown by the Magi, by the philosophers, and by Plato, consecrated under statues and images, lurk there, and by their afflatus attain the authority as of a present deity; while in the meantime they are breathed into the prophets, while they dwell in the shrines, while sometimes they animate the fibres of the entrails, control the flights of birds, direct the lots, are the cause of oracles involved in many falsehoods.

Plutarch
http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Plutar...chNature1.html
He affirms that our soul is nothing but air; it is that which constitutes and preserves; the whole world is invested with spirit and air. For spirit and air are synonymous.

Plutarch: Concerning Nature:
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/p/plut...ure/book1.html
The followers of Aristotle and Plato conclude that elements are discriminated from principles... Those which we call elements are earth, water, air, and fire...

Empedocles the Agrigentine, the son of Meton, affirms that there are four elements, fire, air, earth, and water...

http://history.hanover.edu/texts/presoc/emp.htm
Empedokles : Flesh is the product of equal parts of the four elements mixed together, and sinews of double portions of fire and earth mixed together, and the claws of animals are the product of sinews chilled by contact with the air, and bones of two equal parts of water and of earth and four parts of fire mingled together...

Elijah

That’s not usually how things are seen then, the divide between the spiritual and the material is pretty clear, they interact but don’t mix. Demons are usually seen as spiritual, we here were arguing about by “spiritual” do they mean in a supernatural sense or metaphysical sense, but you are now presenting material demons. What makes these guys supernatural if they have natural bodies?

You’re asking from me what I’ve been trying to ask from Toto and Amaleq13 and haven’t received yet. The supernatural thinking is known from the people we live with today praying to anthropomorphic entities waiting to go to a special astral realm when they die. My position is that type of thinking is being imposed on the philosophers of then without support.
No I get this opinion from reading the texts from the period and seeing platonic influence (as in the text you offered) and not finding a supernatural school of thought. Where are you getting the supernatural opinion from?
“Like air” and being made of air and fire is different in my mind.

Having a materialistic demon is a new one on me. Spirit and matter is the basic duality of the time. I don’t know if you are proposing a triality where spirit and matter has a middle ground of some type and are proposing a new aspect of the universe that’s half spirit/half material or just understanding the standard duality differently than I am used to.

GakuseiDon

You need to define your terms, Elijah. I suspect that you are trying to impose modern ideas on the people back then. So, can you please explain:
1. What did the people back then think demons were made from, if not the four elements?
2. What do you mean by "in a supernatural sense", in terms of the beliefs back then?
3. What do you mean by "in a metaphysical sense", in terms of the beliefs back then?

Most importantly, please provide examples from the literature of the time. That seems to be the only way to ensure that you are looking at things from THEIR perspective, rather than a modern one. If you can't provide references to literature of the time, how do you know that you aren't imposing modern beliefs on the ideas back then?

FYI: I'm more than happy to examine new ideas that are backed by primary sources, and also happy to provide information where I can. But I've retired from debating people promoting weird ideas about early beliefs that they can't back up. If you want to propose something that you can't back up, then go for it. But I'll get involved when I see some primary sources.

Elijah

Spirit. The divide was between the material and the spiritual demons and angels go on the spiritual side of the universe.

What the atheists here are suggesting they believed. How a child understands heaven or how south park or any other cartoon would illustrate spiritual entities. How people think the uneducated religious view heaven earth and hell.
What the platonic philosophers thought then about the universe; read the German idealists to get a more modern impression.

These beliefs aren’t modern they go back to the time of Plato. Read Plato’s Timaeus if you haven’t already.

You are really having a hard time with the point that it’s me who is asking for the sources in this thread. Your understanding of platonic thought is your own. I’m putting forward a pretty basic understanding which you are trying to overlay supernatural elements without any reason that I can tell of other then you think they thought that way.

This sums up platonic duality as well as I know of.
A more modern take from Hegel

Amaleq13

Andrew and Don are Christians.

lpetrich

Where did Jesus Christ explicitly say that?

The "philosophy" that "demonstrates" this contention seems like an after-the-fact rationalization.

The seeming oneness of reality is likely a side effect of a certain part of the brain going quiet, as was determined from doing brain scans of contemplators. That part of the brain is involved in making a distinction between self and nonself, so when that goes inactive, that means that we are not trying to distinguish the two, thus making all reality seem like one.

So working miracles is a sort of super power?

What evidence do you have that everything thinks?

Is there ANY evidence for this contention other than mystical experiences?

How did you figure that out, No Robots? That is not apparent from my reading of the Bible.

bacht

I guess I've learned something from this thread. I thought it was obvious that the early Christians accepted the existence of supernatural "powers and principalities".

The issue here seems to be: Do we actually know what the early Christians were thinking, and can we understand it? The charges of anachronism and projecting modern ideas back to the 1st C are relevant. It seems clear also that one must look at the state of Hellenistic philosophy at the time, and try to measure what influence it may have had on the early Christian beliefs.

I can only read the English translations, but I don't see a huge shift from the Apocrypha/pseudepigrapha to the New Testament in terms of supernaturalism (?)

Toto

It is still obvious to me that early Christians accepted the existence of supernatural powers, and that Elijah is projecting his modern ideas back into what he reads.

Elijah

Obvious how? What evidence?

There is nothing modern about Plato or new about metaphysics; it was the philosophy of the time which was rational (attempted) not supernatural.

I really really wish the skeptics would provide the source of where this thinking is coming from or provide the criteria for deciding when we should interpret scripture as supernaturally speaking or metaphysically speaking.

Toto

We know that establishing the modern Enlightenment, which rejects the supernatural, was a difficult transition in intellectual history. We know that it has still not permeated throughout our society - we can find leaders in politics and business and the arts who believe in non-rational forces. We know a lot of Christians today who still practice exorcisms and believe in evil demons.

So when we read language in early Christian writings that refers to demons, angels, supernatural beings, miracles, and other obviously impossible events, why would we not read it at face value as reflecting the views of the Christians who wrote it? Where is there a clue that there is some "metaphysical" interpretation that makes it all conform to 21st century ideas?

I think you need to provide the source of your assertions with more specificity than "they weren't retarded," or cites to modern philosophers, or by arguing that Paul shows some Platonic influence, and there is some interpretation of Plato that is strictly rational, so Paul could not have believed in non-rational forces. (You see how this does not follow?)