Q. Right, there is one place where you read of the devil and his angels, so the word angelos is used in connection with the bad guys. But in most cases it's otherwise, the word is daimonos.
A. Okay, let me come back - you said the good angels
were just called angels and the other ones, the bad ones, as you see them,
were called demons, or the devil and his angels. Well, I would suggest that
there is really very limited connection, if any connection, between angels
and demons. That's a missing link in the CGAF's reasoning, that you have got
to prove there's a connection between demons and angels - sorry, sorry, if I
can just actually complete my answer to your question - and then you've got
to prove that the devil and his angels equals demons. Now, that's something
that people have got to think about.
Now in this passage about the devil
and his angels, well the point has been made that the word 'angels' -
angelos' - can refer to men. I don't think there is anyone who would dispute
that. When you read about the angels that sinned - and that is quoted by the
CGAF as relating to the angels, the bad guys, shall we call them, well there
it doesn't talk about demons that sin, it just says the angels. You just
said that when it says 'the angels' that's talking about the good angels. I
would suggest that when you say this is a linguistic marker that indicates
good angels and bad angels, that is not the case. It's an interpretative
marker which you are placing. Well, let's just take a case: the angels that
sinned. Well, what's that, good angels or bad angels? According to you,
that's the bad guys, but then you say the linguistic marker means it's the
good guys, so I think you are in trouble there.
Q.I would qualify that and say most cases, but there are one or two situations where it's otherwise, but most cases apply.
A. If you are down to a 'most cases' argument, you are not talking about linguistic markers. If I might point out, the CGAF has gone wrong twice in this debate on that. You have just made a bit of a bloomer there and Mark was obviously on about this linguistic marker business, when he says 'the satan' means, always means, the personal supernatural being called satan. Well, again, we've shown that isn't the case. So I think you had better replace the idea of linguistic markers with the idea of interpretative markers. Yes?
Q. I am curious as to your understanding of Luke 8: 27 through 37.
A. Well, the question is Luke 8: 27 through 37. Well, this is the issue of demons, and as I had to say in my last debate with Jeff Fletcher, this debate is not a debate about demons. It's not that we can't handle it, and there is bags written about demons in this booklet, and my other booklet on display, but I'd rather not get involved in discussing this whole issue of demons, because I think that is a completely different subject. It would be nice, I think, to have a written debate about it in Mark's magazine, but that's another story. So it's not that I can't answer it, but it's because I don't want to be drawn onto this issue of demons, because I don't that's actually what this debate is about. We're talking about what the Bible says about the devil and satan, so perhaps we can talk about it afterwards.