The word of God isn’t just a conceptual comfort; it’s a cutting blade. It cuts through evil. When we’re struggling to fight a particular thought, we need to confront that thought with the power of the truth. If thoughts can be evil, then they can also be wise and righteous; they can be Christ-exalting.

One of the many telling lines in C. S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters is this one, from one devil to another, “It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping them out” (Letter 4). Keeping what out of our minds, exactly? Here’s one example: the idea that thoughts can be evil or demonic.

I realize in our contemporary secularized culture, where everything has been de-supernaturalized, that’s a lot to take in. “Aren’t thoughts just…thoughts? Synapses firing in the brain? You don’t have to go all medieval on something that has a perfectly grounded medical and scientific explanation.” I hear you. Really, I do.

What If

But what if that is exactly what demons want? Screwtape told his nephew that they do their “best work” by keeping things out of our heads, not putting things into them. What if they’ve been celebrating since the Enlightenment because people mostly assume that thought is a neutral, physiological phenomenon? What if Satan celebrates the fact that many Christians view their thought lives as neutral?

I’m reminded of a similar what-if that John Mark Comer draws out, as he builds on the work of Evagrius (a monk of the early church) in Live No Lies:

For Evagrius, logosmoi, or our thought patterns, are the primary vehicle of demonic attack upon our souls. That might sound far-fetched to our skeptical Western ears, but think about it: Have you ever had a thought (or feeling or desire) that seemed to have a will to it? An agenda that was hard to resist? And not thinking it felt like fighting gravity? It seemed to have a weight or power over you that was beyond your ability to resist?

Could it be that the thoughts that assault your mind’s peace aren’t just thoughts? Could it be that a dark, animating energy is behind them? A spiritual force?

Could it be that this is about more than mental hygiene or positive thinking; it’s about resistance?

John Mark Comer, Live No Lies, p. 86

“A dark, animating energy…” Yea. What if thoughts aren’t just synapses firing within the soft walls of our brain tissue? What if a thought could be weaponized? Would that change the way we walk through life each day?

I think it would. And doesn’t this make a bit more sense out of Paul’s call to spiritual warfare in Ephesians 6:12? We’re fighting against things that sound pretty abstract to 21st century Western ears: cosmic powers and spiritual forces of evil. And that’s not just a fraction of the enemy; that’s the enemy. Our war isn’t against “flesh and blood”; it’s against this.

What Makes a Thought Evil?

“Hold up,” says the well-rounded Christian skeptic (is that an oxymoron?). “How can you possibly link thoughts with these things?” Well, think about what our spiritual enemies do. Then think about what a thought can do. Satan and his servants want to do essentially three things. They want to take us…

1. Further from God. We only move in two different directions: either towards God or towards Satan. That’s it. There’s no neutral zone. Moving in God’s direction means moving deeper into relationship with him so that we start to resemble our creative, loving, generous, patient, self-giving Lord. Moving in Satan’s direction means becoming a black hole for all goodness. We become destructive, malevolent, hoarding, quick-tempered, self-seeking centers of chaos.
2. Deeper into doubt. If Satan can get you to doubt God and his promises, he’s already won the hardest part of the battle. Genesis 3 is a case in point. Doubting God’s goodness led immediately to breaking his law, which led to death and a kingdom of curses.
3. Lower into self-absorption. The devil’s aim is to bend our backs so much that we stare at ourselves for eternity. He wants each one of us to be as self-absorbed as possible, the practical center of our fantasy universe.

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