In researching who would be the best person to quote that defends the demonic deception hypothesis, I chose Ron Rhodes. If you have ever done any study on the occult from a Christian perspective, you will have come across his name. He is considered by many to be one of the leading experts in this area. In his book, The Truth behind Ghosts, Mediums, and Psychic Phenomena, he sums up this position well. In saying that some paranormal experiences can be sheer subjectivism, he makes this caveat, "Though alleged ghost encounters can be explained this way, people sometimes genuinely encounter a spirit entity - though not a dead human. Some people encounter demonic spirits who may mimic dead people in order to deceive the living (see 1 John 4:1; 1 Timothy 4:1-3)."
I can't agree with such a blanket statement. First, it goes to far. Second, the text that he sights in 1 John 4:1 tells us to test the spirits. How do we test them? Verse two provides the answer, "By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God." While demons can definitely impersonate the dead, this verse assumes that all spirits can be tested. If all spirits are demonic, why should we even bother to test them in order to determine whether they are godly or ungodly? Why bother with a test if the answer is already "demonic"? This passage alone should keep us from making such a sweeping statement Rhodes makes. I fail to see how his second proof text applies. Paul is saying that people will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons. The only way this fits is if one already assumes that all ghostly appearance are demonic. The text is making no claim about every ghostly appearance.
Let's take this test from 1 John and apply it to all the cases I have mentioned thus far. Let's test the Skubish case; C.S. Lewis and J.B. Phillips. Let's test Koch as well. They definitely seem to pass the test. I hope by now that you can see that many Christians are giving either unsatisfying or false answers in this area.
Let's pause right now and look at some objections to the concept of ghosts in general. Ghosts are commonly beleived to be the spirits of dead humans who are trapped here on earth and cannot move on to the afterlife. They are trapped and cannot move on because they seem to have unfinished business here on earth. Sometimes, the ghost is even unaware that they are dead. This type of understanding of ghosts defintaly seems to go against a biblical worldview. But should we accept such a definition? I don't. While there do seem to be ghosts that appear at times by divine decree, we are not required to accept the modern definition, nor are we required to accept that all ghosts are trapped human spirits.
I have read some authors who have pointed out that the Bible never once says that ghosts are the trapped spirits of dead humans. They have also argued that never once do we see Jesus dealing with ghosts, or trying to help ghosts cross over. This is an argument from silence, and one that I don't find convincing at all. Why? The Bible doesn't mention a lot of things that we know exists. If we are going to argue from silence, let's do tit for tat. Scripture never teaches that demons pretend to be human spirits either. Just saying...Finally, if the understanding of the day was that demon spirits where the ghosts of both the Nephilim and the wicked departed, then Jesus most certainly dealt with ghosts, but not in the since of helping them pass over.
Another argument against ghosts is that there is no way that God would abandon believers to roam the earth until the day of Judgment. I agree. However, this does not take into account the spirits of the wicked dead who are involved in wicked, violent, evil supernaturalism (like the occult, etc.). The presumption here is that trapped human spirits have to include Christians. There is no evidence of this, so no, it doesn't.
This is a difficult subject, and I don't claim to have all the answers. Because it is so difficult, it is easy for us to want to retreat to cush answers. It is easy for us to want to proclaim that upon death, people go immediately to Hades or Paradise, and write every ghostly appearance off as demonic. But does the Bible demand this interpretation? I don't think so.
As far as Christians go, I definitely think the Bible teaches that those who die in Christ go to heaven (see 2 Cor. 5:8; Phil. 1:23). Yet these verses don't really tell us anything about the intermediate state of the unbeliever, nor do they tell us the timing of when this happens for believers. It's not about whether or not the Bible is clear on the destiny of those who die, but the knowledge of the timing of when humans go to either Hades or Paradise. But doesn't Hebrews 9:27 say "And it is appointed for men to die once, and then after this the judgment."? it does, but the idea of "after" doesn't mean immediately. In fact, this verse doesn't even mention the intermediate state, since the "judgment" doesn't happen until the resurrection of the dead. In fact, the demons even understood this, In fact, they said to Jesus, "Have you come hear to torment us before the time?" (Matt. 8:29). This implies that the demons were experiencing a large degree of freedom, even begging Jesus at one point not to send them into the abyss (Luke 8:31).
This leads to the question of what happens to the wicked dead. Despite common understanding, the Scripture does not present a fast and hard description of the timing of when they move on. In fact, as we have seen in our posts on the afterlife, the biblical text about it are scarce. The paucity of texts has caused many to argue for a concept of soul sleep. I don't agree with soul sleep, but the fact of the matter that there is a debate between scholars, who all admit that the evidence on the intermediate state is sparse, should cause us to hesitancy in being dogmatic.
To further reiterate this point, I want to examine some proof texts that are used to debunk the theory of ghosts. The first is 2 Peter 2:9. Here Peter address the wicked. He states, "then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment." This verse would seem to indicate that the "unrighteous" would include all the unrighteous, both dead and living. The verb "keep" gives the idea of "to cause a state to continue or to cause to continue, to retain, to keep." This says nothing about the intermediate state. All it tells us is that God retains the wicked in a state of judgment. That judgment will be manifest on The Day. Who is to say that, out of judgment, God hasn't decreed some wicked spirits of the dead to roam the earth in a disembodied state until the final judgment? One thing that is clear from this passage is that God treats the righteous differently than the wicked, both while alive and dead. Also, this "retaining" to the day of Judgment does not demand that they are quarantined from the living (Cris Putnam, Supernatural).
One of the things we looked at in the posts on the afterlife is that it seems like the wicked go to Hades. Apart from that, we know nothing about this place. This brings me to the second proof text- Luke 16:29. In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus it says, "Besides, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us." This verse is used to argue that the dead can't escape, thus the only understanding of ghosts is demonic deception. However, two things need to be noted about his passage. First, the chasm is between Abraham's bosom and the rich man in Hades. it is not between the living and the dead. Also, the rich man can see what is going on, which means he is not totally isolated. Second, drawing theological principles from parables needs to center on the parable's main point. The point of this parable is that if people do not repent in response to Moses and the prophets, they will not repent if someone should rise from the dead. This means it is dangerous for us to build dogma on the details of this story, seeing that it was 1) a parable, 2) a common folk tale which contrasted the fate of the bad rich and the virtuous poor.
The point of this post was to show that the demonic deception hypothesis does not adequately deal with the concept of ghosts. While it may explain some phenomena, it does not explain all phenomena. Furthermore, Scripture seems to be silent about both the timing of our passing over and the rules of the intermediate state. The demonic deception hypothesis has built its dogma off of silence. We should not hold any doctrine as credible if it is built on silence. Finally, if you reject the concept of Purgatory because it is basically built off of silence, then you should follow the same logic and reject the demonic deception hypothesis as an adequate way to deal with all the phenomena, since it too, is built off of silence.
Yet the real question still remains: does the biblical worldview include ghosts? This is what we will look at in the next post, as we examine Scriptures that support this claim.