20 December 2023
There seems to be some confusion about what Michael S. Heiser says in his several books explaining various aspects of the Unseen Realm from a Hebrew point of view.
The confusion regards various roles, as to who can do what. Granted, there are some distinctions difficult to make. I've already noted how we cannot really have detailed information on the Unseen Realm. We are granted only a limited amount of insight, enough for operational purposes. We know just enough to do what God requires of us. We should strive to shift our intellectual curiosity from ontology (the nature of the thing) to a strong interest in functional understanding. Our best hope is never having any better than a working model.
Thus, what I am trying to offer here is an explanation based on how we must act. "We must act as if..." is a common line I use. We should not pretend to know what is actually real. Thus, I have often advised readers to act as if the natural world is alive, sentient and willful to some degree. It's not that I believe such is the ontology of things, but that if you want to make sense of what Jesus taught, you must stand on the provisional assumption that reality is a living being, and at the same time, a jillion living beings.
You must be prepared to deal with ontological conflicts. You need to grasp the mental image that you cannot possibly know, and that any time you surmise things, it's inherently provisional. There will ever be a certain level of uncertainty, and even matters of substantial experience are subject to quirks that make no sense at all. Get used to that; our Creator remains active in His Creation, and tweaks things to suit His whims. Most of the time, we call that "miracles" because He tends to do so in our favor.
However, an awful lot of His works are for purposes that will never make sense to us. We are obliged to believe that it is all in our best interest, in the sense that whatever God chooses to do is always going to turn out as good as it possibly can be for us. That's a part of faith, and this is a fundamental part of the Hebrew outlook in Scripture.
At the level of the elohim council in Heaven, God put them in their places and has granted them a certain latitude to act as they will. It would make more sense to see them as varying in the degree to which they might not agree with what God wants to do. These are real persons with real minds that we cannot comprehend, and a certain kind and level of free will. We should get used to the idea that any abuse of that free will does not necessarily warrant correction as we might assume. The modern western notions of management don't apply to the situation.
We cannot even estimate what other creatures in His courts may also possess varying degrees of discretion on what they will do without correction. Perhaps it would make more sense to discuss it in terms of how their actions would automatically move them closer or farther from their opportunities to continue in their positions. At what point do they forfeit their positions? How is it enforced? We don't have any way of understanding who has what freedoms. We cannot estimate where the boundaries are, nor the means by which those boundaries are checked.
But we can grasp that there are some creatures in the Unseen Realm that do not possess that same level of discretion to do as they wish. Thus, we have a term "fallen angels" in the New Testament (English translations) that indicate some creatures crossed those boundaries and are now paying the price, where others have not crossed those boundaries. Further, the New Testament narrative itself avoids trying to give too much detail. That's a part of the Hebrew mindset. The "facts" are subservient to the broader purpose of guiding our choices.
The worst thing you can do in pursuit of that goal of bringing about better choices is to force an overly simplified set of assumptions onto a very complex situation. You should assume that your perspective is limited, and that you will never understand what's happening. All you really can know is what God requires of you.
You should be especially wary of common American church assumptions about things. Point me to a church organization where it's common for people to walk through Hell and still cling to Christ, churches where such a thing is not regarded as exceptional. Failing that, just show me a church where the average member is willing to place themselves in the line of fire for the name of Christ. Not in some hostile and combative sense, but someone who calmly accepts the necessity of taking up their own cross.
As long as such things are exceptional, as opposed to the standard expectation in what they teach, encourage and enable, then those churches are lacking something.
Comments
Jay DiNitto
The modern American would have a very hard time following a path without knowing everything. That's pretty obvious. He would demand "transparency" from God or wonder what He was hiding that makes Him so secretive. I'm strawmanning a bit there, but you know that's how things would go with some of us.
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