Possession

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Cup_o_Joe

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I am in an argument with a friend right now about demonic possession.

His position is this: “Everything is grace alone. It’s impossible for Believers to become possessed, Jesus protects us, if someone gets possessed after he professes with his mouth that Jesus is their savior then they weren’t really saved in the first place.”

I’m trying to tell him that “Everything is grace through faith working in love, you can’t just go around doing anything and expect to go to heaven. It is possible for a believer to fall, we’re human. Also, saying that someone isn’t saved because their body becomes possessed is like saying that God will condemn them for being persecuted.”

Can you guys help with what I can say to help him realize that he’s wrong and that the Church is right?
 
Well, there was mary magdeline who was cleansed of an evil spirit by Jesus and she was a very close follower of Him. heck, He chose her to reveal Himselve to her after He rose from the dead

Yet, after He cleansed her, seven more evil spirits entered her.
 
Yes is it is the case that a baptized Christian who remains in a state of grace and who is praying etc is not likely going to get “possessed”…(unless he starts doing occult things etc)

(Possession is more on the rare side in any case.)

But as to a person who was “freed” but then does not “live with God” …or who goes back to a very disordered way of life…(sin…occult etc) it can be worse it seems…

see;
Luke 11 14-26

but yes…it is also the case that it is a persons body that is possessed…they can be or enter into later a state of grace…of being alive in Christ…and if they die in a state of possession…but in a state of grace…then they will end up in the end …with God.

(on faith etc
vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2008/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20081119_en.html

vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2008/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20081126_en.html
)
 
I think people get too hung up on possession. Possession is extremely rare, even among non-believers leading horribly sinful lives. Demonic activities can take on a whole range and their effects can vary.

Many exorcists will talk about demonic oppression or demonic influence. In those cases it’s not that the demon has possessed anybody, but that their influence on a person’s life can be more pronounced – like people with extreme attachments to certain sinful habits or extreme infatuation with occultic or evil practices (even if not practicing themselves). This seems to me to be the more dangerous level since it’s a point where the person isn’t possesed but they have relinquished control over a portion of their life.

Also, I’d always thought that possession was a case of people “inviting” the demon in, not like a hostile takeover, but that they opened some door to the demonic that was able to come in. So, in one sense if a believer is steering clear of that stuff and not infatuated it would be extremely difficult to become possessed, but if they are playing with occult things then they could unwittingly open the door to possession.

ChadS
 
ChadS said:
Also, I’d always thought that possession was a case of people “inviting” the demon in, not like a hostile takeover, but that they opened some door to the demonic that was able to come in. So, in one sense if a believer is steering clear of that stuff and not infatuated it would be extremely difficult to become possessed, but if they are playing with occult things then they could unwittingly open the door to possession.

ChadS
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Yes for the most part yes.
 
Cup_o_Joe said:
I am in an argument with a friend right now about demonic possession.

His position is this: “Everything is grace alone. It’s impossible for Believers to become possessed, Jesus protects us, if someone gets possessed after he professes with his mouth that Jesus is their savior then they weren’t really saved in the first place.”

I’m trying to tell him that “Everything is grace through faith working in love, you can’t just go around doing anything and expect to go to heaven. It is possible for a believer to fall, we’re human. Also, saying that someone isn’t saved because their body becomes possessed is like saying that God will condemn them for being persecuted.”
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Yes, that’s a very good point. In their great work on spiritual theology, The Theology of Christian Perfection, Fr. Antonio Royo, O.P. and Fr. Jordan Aumann, O.P. make clear that while some cases of possession do come about when the subject has asked for this in order to enter into a pact with the devil, it is not true in all cases. Possession can take place because God has permitted (and any possession is always at God’s permission) this as a punishment in order to inspire a great hatred of sin, or, as in the case of some Saints, to bring about a greater purity of soul. Thus a soul may still be in the state of grace while being possessed. Fathers Royo and Aumann include this account of a saintly priest who in 1623 became possessed for twelve years after he exorcised the Ursulines of Loudun, France. From the priest’s own account:
“‘I cannot say what happens to me during this time nor how that spirit united to my soul without depriving me of consciousness or of liberty. He is there as another I, and it then seems that I have two souls, one of which, deprived of the use of the bodily organs and remaning as it were at a distance, watches what the other one does. The two spirits struggle on the same field of battle, which is the body. . . .In one and the same instance I experience a great peace under the approbation of God, and I do not in any way consent to the feeling of repulsion which moves me, on the other hand, to separate myself from God, to the great surprise of those who watch me. I am at the same time filled with happiness and overwhelmed with a sorrow which is expressed in complaints and groans, according to the caprice of the devils,’ Fr. Surin, S.J.”, quoted in The Theology of Christian Perfection, pgs 251-2.
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It sounds like your friend isn’t a Catholic; if that’s the case then convincing him that the Church is right might be difficult.
 
Cup_o_Joe said:
I am in an argument with a friend right now about demonic possession.

His position is this: “Everything is grace alone. It’s impossible for Believers to become possessed, Jesus protects us, if someone gets possessed after he professes with his mouth that Jesus is their savior then they weren’t really saved in the first place.”

I’m trying to tell him that “Everything is grace through faith working in love, you can’t just go around doing anything and expect to go to heaven. It is possible for a believer to fall, we’re human. Also, saying that someone isn’t saved because their body becomes possessed is like saying that God will condemn them for being persecuted.”

Can you guys help with what I can say to help him realize that he’s wrong and that the Church is right?
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I suggest you brush up on the subject to properly arm yourself. There a few good books out there but two I have read contain a lot of good info: The Rite by Matt Baglio and one by Fr. Gabriel Amorth (forgot the title).

On demonic possession or obsession of good and sinless christians or catholics…in the case of the saints, this was allowed only with God’s permission to test their oneness with the Lord and their resolve, as a sort of challenge to the dark one. Some notable saints known to have been tormented by the devil-Padre Pio, St. Gemma Galgani, Teresa of Avila, John Vianney…I read up on St Gemma Galgani (because she was unfamiliar to me)…there is a website dedicated to her…so you may start with her, if you want to read up on it…
 
Why would a demon even care about possessing or corrupting a non-Christian?

**"31 “Simon, Simon, behold Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, ****32 ****but I have prayed that your own faith may not fail; and once you have turned back, you must strengthen your brothers.” **
.’" Luke 22:31.

Not necessarily “possession” but it sure sound’s like it might have been to me.

Chuck
 
Bookcat said:
Mary Magalene was freed from the demons…by Jesus…they did not return.
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Thank you. Sorry guys, I was a bit off on that one.

I got it mixed up with the principle that if you are freed from a demon, you can be attacked again seven fold.

Them nasty demons go after the good guys harder.
 
Doxiemom said:
Yet, after He cleansed her, seven more evil spirits entered her.
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Quote unrelated to Mary Magdelene.

Parable = denoting a soul that has lost the life and power of godliness, and the testimony of the Holy Spirit
And when an unclean spirit is gone out of a man he walketh through dry places seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith: I will return into my house from whence I came out. And coming he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then he goeth, and taketh with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is made worse than the first. So shall it be to this wicked generation
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. Douay Rheims Mat 12:43-45
 
Thanks everyone but his argument is that if someone becomes possessed then they weren’t really saved.

I want to let him know that it is possible for someone can be saved and suffer spiritual persecution at once. Saying that someone wasn’t saved in the first place because a spirit entered a believer’s body during a vulnerable moment in that person’s life is against church teaching.

(The person I’m referring to that was possessed has always been going to mass daily and was recently given an exorcism)
 
Cup_o_Joe said:
Thanks everyone but his argument is that if someone becomes possessed then they weren’t really saved.

I want to let him know that it is possible for someone can be saved and suffer spiritual persecution at once. Saying that someone wasn’t saved in the first place because a spirit entered a believer’s body during a vulnerable moment in that person’s life is against church teaching.

(The person I’m referring to that was possessed has always been going to mass daily and was recently given an exorcism)
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Joe, his problem is believing in the unbiblical notion of eternal security. Until he can see the error in that he will never understand how a faithful Christian can be possessed. If you do a search on CAF for “eternal security” or “Once-saved, always-saved” threads, you’ll find plenty of material that might help him.
 
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