Mark 5 - In Depth Bible Commentaries

640(...continued)The fact is that no matter how we may choose to interpret this story–whetherliterally, or symbolically, or in terms of an out-dated, pre-scientific way of describing mentalillness–the fact remains that we are always involved in a mysteriously difficult matterwhenever we seek to describe the “interior life” of human beings, especially when we aredealing with unusual, bizarre behavior that defies our usual understanding.Whenever we try to describe the “inner beings” of persons, what is happening“within” others, and ourselves, we are attempting to speak of and describe that which isintangible, mysterious, and incapable of being described literally and exactly. Weacknowledge this, confessing by our language that we live in a world surrounded by themysterious, by the intangible, by realities far greater than the physical senses are able todescribe.The stories we tell, or the psychological models we use, to describe these realitiesare not to be taken exactly, and literally (for example, the “id,” the “ego,” and the “superego”),but they are certainly to be taken seriously. They point to the reality of theseunseen, mysterious beings or forces that are at work in our lives, that cause us to do whatwe do, whatever their exact nature.The ancient world chose to describe these unseen, mysterious realities in terms of“demons” or “unclean spirits.” Our modern world chooses to use descriptive terms thathave grown out of the study of depth psychology and mental illness. It is obvious that ourmodern understanding and descriptive language has changed markedly as various schoolsof psychology have held sway.But regardless of the inability to arrive at a uniform, exact descriptive language, thereality of these unseen, inner forces at work in human personality simply cannot besuccessfully denied.There is far more to a human being than just a physical body that is born, thatmoves through life, and then dies, to be no more. There is within every human being amysterious “spiritual reality” that defies description, but that is nonetheless known, andreal, and of far greater value than simply bones and flesh and hair. And all too often, thatmysterious “inner being” becomes divided and confused, and comes under the powerfulinfluence of “unclean forces” that are destructive of human personality. This fact cannot beavoided–and the biblical documents do not seek to avoid it, but confront it openly andfrankly.When these biblical documents (such as Mark) seek to describe this reality in termsof people being under the influence and control of “unclean spirits,” what are we tounderstand by this? Must we, in their light, forsake the modern view, with its psychologicallanguage and models, and return to that earlier, first-century view, in which the earth ispictured as being inhabited by spirits and demons, by good and evil “angels” fighting forthe possession of human hearts? If so, there is little chance that the biblical message isgoing to get a fair hearing in our modern world.406(continued...)