snip: Your point being that our modern antagonists embrace evil incarnate, whereas their ancient predecessors (as an example, offering the sophists and politicos of ancient Athens) were merely afflicted with an overwhelming power lust.
Yes, dear brother in Christ. That was my point. At least with regard to some of the antagonists.
Spirited: Bettys’ position is emminently sensible in my opinion. Some of our best and brightest thinkers, such as Tolkien and CS Lewis, posit that from the time of the Fall, mankind had been increasingly wandering in the mists of forgetfulness. Thus it was, noted GK Chesterton, that by the the time of the fall of the Greco-Roman civilization, demons walked about openly. By this he means that there were men who had become completely possessed, their souls having been booted out into the void. When Dante writes of the dispossessed soul, he places it in hell, whereupon it laments that a demon is walking about in the world doing evil while ‘in my body.’
It is well known that through the Mystery Religions many men and women had not only come into contact with demons but many of them had familiar spirits (demons). But keep in mind that it was in pursuit of power (psychic abilities) and salvation that the ancients contacted demons. Like today’s New Agers, they naively believed that spirits were both good and bad. This naivety was, and remains, due to the belief that some force within nature or cosmos is the first principle, the ‘cause’ of everything and that all things are one-with the force, be it thought of as divine spirit (pantheism= Stoicism, Hegels’ Dialectic) or nondivine atoms (Epicurus, Lucretius=materialism; Marxs’ Dialectical Matter). The atheist system invented by Buddha combines both pantheism and materialism and is the most refined form of monism.
As noted above, the idea that all things are ‘one with’ nature, absolute spirit, etc. is monism. Monism always leads to the erasure of distinctions: between good and evil, between male and female, between God and Lucifer.
The point here is that the ancients contacted the demonic realm out of ignorance while modern nihilists such as Proudhon, Bakunin, Bauer, Marx, Alinsky, etc. were not ignorant, they did know. Without doubt, they knew. Yet knowing, they nevertheless rebelled against God the Father and lauded Lucifer as the first ‘free thinker.’ Which brings us to bettys’ claim that “our modern antagonists embrace evil incarnate.”
Excellent points.