Does the Demonic Play a Role in the Politics of the Day?

This just in from Vito Caiati:

Your thought provoking post An Oligarchic Pathocracy and in particular the twenty characteristics of this collective psychological derangement, each of which is an absolute inversion of the natural, the good, and the rational, leads me to consider whether potent demonic (Satanic) forces are at work here and now, either directly or through possessed human agents, forces whose presence is unnoticed, since it falls beyond the scope of the established explanatory frameworks of the social sciences. Although such an account may seem farfetched, I find that I must at least entertain the possibility of its validity, given evilness of the political and social destruction and the moral and cultural darkness propagated by the pathocratic Left:  Evil is instantiated in everything it touches.  Does this seem too farfetched to you?

Too farfetched? Not so farfetched as to be beneath consideration. Of course, proper method requires that we search first for naturalistic explanations.  This methodological principle is accepted not only by naturalists, who will omit the word 'first' in my formulation, but also by those who hold that certain phenomena are explainable only by supernatural agency.  (See for example the criteriology set forth by the great Spanish mystic Theresa of Avila in her Interior Castle for the assessment of the veridicality of certain mystical states, and also the procedures of the Church of Rome for the evaluation of putative miracles of different kinds, the Marian apparitions, stigmata, Therese Neumann, Padre Pio, et al. , and so on.) 

A committed naturalist will of course never accept any supernatural explanation of any occurrence however unusual and apparently inexplicable. He will either proffer a naturalistic explanation or, in the absence of a convincing one, state that there must be one whether or not we ever find it.  The italicized phrase signals the naturalist's a priori and presuppositional commitment to naturalism, to the metaphysical scheme according to which reality is exhausted by the space-time system and its contents. The naturalist 'knows' a priori and thus in advance of any particular investigation into any putative apparition, etc., that nothing could possibly be evidence of supernatural agency.  Nothing will be allowed by the naturalist to count as evidence against his naturalism.  To misuse, as in common parlance, the word 'theological,' there s something 'theological' about the naturalist's naturalism and his scientism. (Scientism is the epistemology of naturalism.)

Consider the case of the Russian monk, Rasputin. He was a hard man to kill, so hard to kill that some will surmise that he was under demonic protection. But there are naturalistic explanations of his toughness that are implausible, perhaps, but not impossible.  Adolf Hitler was another man who proved hard to kill until he decided to do the job himself.  I myself am open to the possibility that he 'enjoyed' demonic protection, but the evidence of its actuality is far from compelling.

Can we definitively rule out demonic interference in human affairs and thus in our politics? No. There is no proof of naturalism.  

While I cannot prove that there is demonic involvement in our affairs, it is reasonable to believe that there is. Here I argue that there is no plausible naturalistic explanation of  the ubiquity, magnitude, and horrific depth of moral evil. Fidel Castro, for example, that hero of the Left, did not merely imprison his political opponents for their dissent; he had them tortured in unspeakable ways.

Comments

[Vito B. Caiati]

Thank you for this very insightful response to my question, Bill. What particularly strikes me about the contemporary patocratic Left is its veneration of all that is unnatural and perverse in matters of sex and its fanatical assault on the innocence of childhood. When I regard the concrete manifestations of each of these ideological commitments—from men who proclaim themselves to be women and women who proclaim themselves to be men, the former now declared capable of menstruation; to the denial of biological differences of the sexes, with men competing in women’s sports and women as infantry soldiers; to the surgical destruction of human sexual organs and the modification of normal hormonal development by powerful, noxious drugs, often in the very young, in the name of “gender affirmation”; to the often covert indoctrination of little children in inappropriate sexual matters and poisinous gender ideology; and so on, seemingly endlessly—I instinctively sense that I am witnessing prime examples of “the horrific depth” of moral evil. Whether one is a theist or not, it is clear that something is a work here that seeks to defy, sully, and overthrow all that is good, innocent, and beautiful in the natural order of things. Human concupiscence, especially in matters pertaining to sex, is thus the means of entry for the Evil One and his minions into the heart of our civilization, which is now being systematically corrupted and destroyed.

[BV]

>>it is clear that something is a work here that seeks to defy, sully, and overthrow all that is good, innocent, and beautiful in the natural order of things. Human concupiscence, especially in matters pertaining to sex, is thus the means of entry for the Evil One and his minions into the heart of our civilization, which is now being systematically corrupted and destroyed.<<

Yes. The Father of Lies certainly seems to be behind the nihilism of the Left and its preternatural mendacity.

The utterly brazen lies of Biden and Mayorkas and Garland et al.