That demonic agents can work wonders is a staple of much Judeo-Christian theology. Believers have proposed various means by which the Devil's work can be distinguished from the miracles wrought by God, primarily so that no one is led astray by the Devil's ‘lying wonders.’ I consider the likelihood of our using the suggested criteria with any success. Given certain claims about the demonic nature and certain facts about the way theists often handle the problem of inscrutable evil, it seems unlikely that any of the criteria I examine can be relied upon.
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Notes
Distinguishing the work of Satan from that of God was especially important to early Christian monks, some of whom chose to live in wastelands where demons were thought to roam. Grappling with these beings—sometimes quite literally, according to their reports—and resisting their temptations was an important part of their ascetic lifestyles. See, for example, Athanasius' Life of Saint Anthony. Typically in these cases, however, the emphasis was on distinguishing divinely from diabolically induced feelings.
2 Cor. 11.14.
See Lewis, C.S., The Problem of Pain (New York: Macmillan, 1962), pp.133–6; Plantinga, Alvin, God and Other Minds (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967), pp.149–51. See also Luke 13:10–17.
For more on this way of understanding the concept of miracle, see Dennis M. Ahern, "Miracles and Physical Impossibility," Canadian Journal of Philosophy 7 (1997), pp.71–79.
Exodus 3:2. See also the story of the appearance of the angel of the Lord to Gideon in Judges 6:17–22.
Exodus 14:21–29. Compare the many miracles performed by Elisha in 2 Kings (e.g., 2:14; 4:32–7; 6:6).
See Locke's A Discourse of Miracles in The Works of John Locke, vol. 9 (Scientia, 1963), p.259; The Reasonableness of Christianity (Works, vol.10), pp.17–18; 32. Cf. John 10:25, 28; 20:30.
Locke, A Discourse of Miracles, p. 261.
It is not stated expressly in Exodus that the sorcerers called upon demons to work wonders; it states that they accomplished their feats by their “secret arts”. But miracle-working powers not inspired by God were often understood by the Hebrews as the result of congress with demons or foreign gods. For more on this issue, see Morton Smith's Jesus the Magician (Seastone, 1998), esp. Chap. 6.
Locke, Discourse, p. 260 Jesus demonstrated power apparently exceeding that of demons by performing exorcisms, although it is not clear whether exorcisms are properly considered miracles in the sense of natural events that the operative natural forces alone are insufficient to produce.
Bk. X, Chap. 16.
Book XXII, Chap10.
Revelation 13:13. The latter miracle, performed by the False Prophet, replicates a miracle performed by Elijah at 1 Kings 18:38, further rendering (b) implausible.
The performance by both sides of fairly minor miracles will not help to mark both as employing demonic power for the reason mentioned in connection with option (b) above. And neither can it be assumed that since demonic miracle-workers call upon the same powers they could never outperform one another; one might be more practiced in the black arts than another.
Locke, Discourse, p.261.
I refer especially to the assumption that God will not let his attestational miracles be outdone; he might do so, one would think, if somehow it conduces to some overriding good, whatever that might be. Note also that if it is the total body of miracle-working done by any agent on which we are to judge, then we could not be in a position to judge until we have assurance that we have seen all that each side can do.
Analogously, Theresa appealed partly to the calming and reassuring feelings that arise from contact with God from the unrest induced by Satan to distinguish divinely from diabolically inspired mystical states. See her Interior Castle (New York: Doubleday, 1961), pp. 141–2.
“Some (Temporarily) Final thoughts on Evidential Arguments from Evil,” in Howard-Snyder, Daniel (editor), The Evidential Argument from Evil (Indiana University Press, 1996), p. 318.
There are clear indications in scripture that on occasion God not merely allows but directly causes what can only be regarded as intrinsically evil but instrumentally good things to happen. The Lord's slaying of the first-born in every Egyptian household, after hardening the Pharaoh's heart to make him refuse to let the Israelites go, is a clear instance of this. See also Isaiah 45.
Or plausible enough, at any rate. The Devil's intelligence and foresight are not supposed to be the equal of God's, and the sagacity of the fallen angels has sometimes been held to have been impaired somehow by their fall from grace. But the Devil's knowledge would not have to be the equal of God's in order that his ways be just as inscrutable to men: we can be baffled even by the machinations of ingeniously malevolent humans.
2 Cor 11:13–14, emphasis added.
Cf. I John 4:1–3, where it is claimed that false prophets can be identified as such by their refusal to acknowledge that Christ has come in the flesh. Also see Theresa's Interior Castle, p. 140.
On the Devil's quoting scripture, see Mt. 4:5–6.
Morton, Jesus the Magician, p. 110.
Matthew 12:22–24. The response to the charge that Matthew attributes to Jesus is less than compelling: he implies that if he were a representative of the Devil then he would not cast out devils, as this would be to make Satan oppose himself.
A related possibility involves the fulfillment of prophecy as itself a miracle: false prophets make false prophecies, and that is how we know them as such. Of course this, like some other criteria, would have limited applicability, but it might work in tandem with others. For more on the general topic, see Robert C. Newman, "Fulfilled Prophecy as Miracle," in Geivett, R. Douglas and Habermas, Gary R. (ed.s), In Defense of Miracles (Intervarsity Press, 1997), Chapter 13.
The beasts of revelation will work wonders by the power of Satan; in Job 1–2, Satan himself wreaks havoc on Job's household and on Job's body. (Note that at 1:16 the servant who reports to Job the consuming of his sheep and servants by fire raining from heaven mistakenly attributes the miracle to God.) God rains fire on Sodom and Gomorrah at Genesis 19:24, and performs the same feat through Elijah in 1 Kings 18.
See, e.g., Mt. 8:16–17.
Or perhaps it can be suggested that any divine miracle subsequent to Old Testament times will replicate a miracle done in those days, as Jesus' multiplication of the loaves and the raising of Lazarus replicate miracles performed by Elijah in 1 Kings 17 (cf. Elisha's life-giving miracle at 2 Kings 4:32–41). But this suggestion is false: as I pointed out above (note 11), Revelation 13:13 has the False Prophet replicating one of Elijah's miracles; and the miraculous recovery of the first beast from a mortal wound (Rev 13:3) is supposed to parody Jesus' own miraculous recovery from the mortal wounds he suffered on the cross.
See Judges 9:23; 1 Sam 16:14; 1 Kings 22:19–23; 18:10; Job 1; 1 Cor. 5:5; 1 Tim. 1:19–20. It should be noted that in some of these passages it is not crystal clear just what sort of being is called upon to do God's work, and in none of them is it clear just exactly how the work gets done.
See, for example, Chapter 12 of Richard Swinburne's The Existence of God (Oxford University Press, 1979).
Of course this claim needs much more support than I can give it here. The obvious other candidates are the ontological, teleological, and moral arguments. But none of these seems well suited to showing God's benevolence displayed in human history and in private lives the way miracle arguments and arguments from religious experience are supposed to.
Naming the Antichrist (Oxford University Press, 1995).
Richard Grigg, "The Crucial Disanalogies between Properly Basic Belief and Belief in God," Religious Studies 26 (1990), p. 391.
Revelation 19.20 (New International Version).
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Beaudoin, J. The Devil’s Lying Wonders. SOPHIA 46, 111–126 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-007-0027-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-007-0027-2