Jeromy Johnson 0:00

I wanted to give you a quick heads up. My audio on this one is not up to my usual standard. I did what I could to clean it up, but the conversation felt too important not to share.

Justin Coutts 0:17

And actually they're destined for goodness and they're destined for beauty. We are going with the stream when we try to heal. We're not going against it. And that gives us a lot more hope.

XXX 0:28

Okay, hear me out. What if we do something that I want to in the phone?

Jeromy Johnson 0:40

This is a space where fear-based faith gets re-examined through radical grace. What if the worst thing you've ever imagined isn't beyond redemption? What if even the symbols of ultimate evil, Satan and demons, aren't outside the reach of God's love? Because if God is restoring all things, does that mean all things? Or do we still need a place where grace finally runs out? Today's question came straight from the listener. Can Satan be saved? And depending on your answer, it might reveal more about how you see God than anything else. I'm your host, Jeremy Johnson, and you're listening to Slutty Grace. Hey everyone, welcome to uh Slutty Grace. So I got a listener request uh not too long ago, and this is what it said. It said, Hi Jeremy, I have enjoyed every episode so far. Keep on doing it. I would like to hear on the topic of salvation for Satan and the demons. Great question. I feel like this is a common question. Fear, if God is indeed gonna save and restore all creation to himself, then that must include Satan and his hordes. Or maybe it doesn't. Does it? I don't know. We're gonna ask that question. And so I popped this question out to the interwebs. Do any of you guys know who a good uh Shmi is on this on this subject of Satan demons and their salvation? My guest, his name popped up time and time again. So I reached out to Justin and I said, Hey, would you mind hopping on and let's dive into this question of can Satan or will Satan be saved? And Justin said, Absolutely. This is Justin Kooks, and he is from Ontario. He has a ministry called New Eden, and that's I think New Eden Ministry.com, right, Justin? Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So Justin, just to ground us, most Christians and probably most of my audience or those who uh were evangelical, the belief or assumption is Satan and Satan's whore to demons are literal. They are literal physical beings consciously opposed to God. So I think we just start there. What is the standard theological argument, would you say, for why Satan and demons are considered uh, I guess, number one, literal beings, and then that those literal beings are beyond redemption?

Justin Coutts 3:12

Maybe it would be helpful to start from my understanding, anyway, of sort of how it plays out in the scriptures themselves and in the early, like in the church fathers and stuff like that, um, and separate that from what I necessarily believe and just kind of present that as it is a little bit. And so, one of the things in the New Testament, we have a lot of language that gets translated in a funny ways because we don't know what to do with it in modern terms. Paul, for instance, talks about archons a whole bunch, and he uses the Greek word archon, which is related to our idea of an archangel and that kind of idea of an overseeing power, a spiritual power. And so, in the ancient world, for Christians, for Jews, for pagans, for all kinds of people, the assumption was that there are these sort of intermediary powers, you might say, gods, little g gods, angels, um, demons, and all of these are kind of different names for a similar metaphysical category of not human beings, not God in the proper sense, something in between. And in the ancient world, it was understood that the whole cosmos, the whole of creation is governed by these beings, these archons. You know, in the New Testament, you get this idea that those powers have fallen, and that's why we have uh death and decay and corruption. It's sort of like a parallel story to the fall of from Eden, as to it's another part of the narrative of how how we have this world of corruption and and destruction and stuff. And so Paul tells us to do battle with the heavenly powers, and the idea being that like we actually can engage with these beings, they're not God in the proper sense, so we have an ability to interact with them and to change them, even. Yeah, but on full armor of God, right? Yeah, yeah, and to do battle with the heavenly powers, and so those heavenly powers, like the archons are created good in pretty much all ancient ideas, and then if they fall, it's uh it's a fall. So just like Adam was good and then fell and then could be redeemed, the demons also were angels first, and then they fell, and so therefore they can be redeemed, they can go back to their original condition because they weren't made demons. God didn't make evil monsters that torture people, those free will spiritual beings, out of their own volition, out of their own free will, had the capacity to fall and did. Um, so that's kind of like the ancient view and how I read the scriptures and the way Paul talks about it. I don't know if that's helpful.

Jeromy Johnson 5:28

No, it is, and I I imagine that story is not isolated to just Christianity. I imagine there's a lot of other beliefs and religions and philosophies out there that follow that same crazy.

Justin Coutts 5:37

Yeah, and a whole wide variety of ways, yeah. So that's kind of the idea of it. And then in the early church uh debates about whether or not um, you know, the demons could all be saved or would be saved, or especially Satan as the sort of the chief of demons kind of thing. Yeah, so see, it's kind of like the the chief archangel, right? That's definitely like a good presentation of how a lot of people see it. And I think on a sort of theological level, one of the issues with that is that it puts Satan and God on equal playing fields, as if they were um, you know, Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker or Luke Skywalker, whatever. I got my my uh my Star Wars mixed up there, but you know what I mean? Like like two powerful beings hacking it out for good and evil. But that that's not the Christian God. The Christian God is the supreme power above whom there is no for whom there is no equal. And so to kind of have this notion of God and Satan locked in some kind of eternal battle almost is really just counter to traditional Christian theology as I understand it, where Satan has to be something lower than God, in some sense still under God's authority and control in some way.

Jeromy Johnson 6:43

So these are these literal beings, but then they go like, but Satan cannot be saved. Where does that come from? Are there key passages? Are there key things that say, like, look, this guy is is beyond redemption?

Justin Coutts 6:58

I don't know of any scriptural passages myself that would say that Satan should be excluded from the restoration of all things, of the salvation of the world. I don't know of any scriptures at all that would say that. I think there's a a sentiment of how could someone so evil be? And it's like kind of like whenever you argue for universal salvation of human beings, let's say, aside from demons, people will make the argument what about Hitler? Is Hitler really gonna make it or not? And I think there's a kind of sense of that with with Satan too, of like really even Satan, like we have to draw the line somewhere. But I don't know that that's really a slutty form of grace. It's a very, very limited one. Um, and I don't see why God would want to abandon Satan or why God would be incapable of saving Satan. I don't know of any scriptures, they might be out there.

Jeromy Johnson 7:46

I'm not perfect with that, but yeah, I guess there's some that hint at it like he's casting the lake of fire.

Justin Coutts 7:52

Yeah, Revelation's a tricky one for sure, because it's definitely symbolic in my mind. I mean, if you try and apply it like as a literal, like hardcore literal book, it just sort of I don't even know what you're supposed to do with it. And so for me, it's very symbolic. And then you have to ask yourself, well, what is the lake of fire and and what does that mean? Uh for a lot of the church fathers, the lake of fire was God, the all-consuming flame, which is also scripture, God is the the fire, the all-consuming flame. And so the understanding that actually the fire of hell is God, and that it's when a sinful soul encounters God, all of that sin impurity gets burned away, uh, using the metaphor often of uh like raw iron being smelted down out of the rock, and you're left with the pure iron and all the rock gets left away. For me, anyway, and uh and for certainly a lot of the early church fathers, and I would guess the writers of the New Testament, though, that you know, we just guess those things, what their intentions were. I would think that that the lake of fire is not something other than God, because then you get back to that dualism question, right? Like like where what is this eternal thing that isn't God that is evil and terrible and awful, and why why does it exist? And and if you have an understanding of hell as a as a purification process, uh the just the painful letting go of all of the sins that we're attached to, the the pain that comes with acknowledging the things that we've done wrong and learning new patterns and letting them go, whether that's right now or whether that's in a bigger picture cosmic afterlife kind of scenario, that makes a lot more sense to me, like just logically, why God would allow such things. Yeah. Eternal conscious torment is counter to God's nature, as I understand it, God being loving, merciful, desiring that all people come to repentance, you know. These are all scriptures. And if God desires all to come to repentance, then why on earth would there be a place where you go and you're not allowed to repent and you're not allowed to change and not allowed to come out of there? Like God just tortures people with no hope of them being saved? That's that's not that's not the God I know. And so that same logic applies in my mind to Satan and the demons. Like, why wouldn't it a rational being? Why would God torture an angel that he loves so much?

Jeromy Johnson 10:04

Where historically then does this notion of fiery hell, Satan's there with his pitchfork, Satan's king of this place, he will be down there, you guys are both gonna be hanging out for all of eternity. What's this historical point of reference though?

Justin Coutts 10:18

Uh I know for sure that Dante's inferno had some part to play in it, but I know it also predated Dante for sure. And yeah, I don't know, I guess, the origin of it. I do know that um in the early church, especially with the early councils, they were debating this question, and it was not fully agreed upon position from the beginning. It's something that there were orthodox people on both sides of the debate, and it came down to a settlement after lots of lots of councils and that kind of thing. And it got labeled as sort of his originism as being associated with um origin of Alexandria, um, because he did teach uh explicitly that Satan would be included in the restoration of all things and the universal salvation, which is to come, which I think is super scriptural. I think the best argument for will Satan be saved is just the same arguments for will all people be saved.

Jeromy Johnson 11:04

Yeah, I think scripture says God will draw all men to himself and longs to restore and will restore all creation. So even if Satan is a literal created being, and so are the demons, then in my belief, in your belief, that has to include them. Yeah. I guess for others who who say that, yeah, no, salvation is limited by our death. Once we die, that's it. If you don't believe certain things, so then I guess they're just thinking Satan will never come to believe these things.

Justin Coutts 11:29

And if he's Yeah, yeah, that's an interesting question because I mean this the demons in the scriptures regularly have correct theology about Jesus.

Jeromy Johnson 11:38

Yeah, you are the son of God.

Justin Coutts 11:40

Very often the the only ones who recognize him as the son of God. The the disciples have no idea who he is. The demons are like, hail, son of God, please don't hurt me, right? Like they're just like instantly know exactly who he is and know believe exactly the right things about him. You know, like for instance, in the story of Legion, I think it's a really interesting one. Um, for thinking of demons, Jesus gets off the boat and there's this man who's been cutting himself and is isolated from the community, and they've tried to restrain him and they've tried to keep him captive and it doesn't work. And Jesus comes over to heal the demons in him. He says, Uh, who are you? What's your name? So right away he just approaches with curiosity, not with accusation at all. And the demons immediately recognize him for who he is, and they beg him for mercy, as one does, and they say, Please send us into the pigs. And all Jesus does is send them into the pigs. And we think of it as some kind of like he was punishing them, but they asked him to send them into the pigs. Oh yeah. And then Jesus does. And at no point in the entire story does he condemn them or hate them or do anything mean to them at all. He just Or destroy them. Or destroy them. No, he just asks inquisitive questions and then gives them what they tell them they need, what they want. And so even Jesus' relationship with demons isn't as harsh as we like, he expels them, he cat he challenges them, that kind of stuff, but he's he's not like you guys are the worst, I'm gonna punish you, you know. Yeah, um, he doesn't do that in the scriptures that I know of. So you're saying there is an argument then that Satan uh will, and then would you say must be saved? I think so, just based on my same theology around universal salvation in general, that to go back to the ancient world and how angels and archons and spiritual beings like that were understood. Remembering that demons are fallen angels, that means they had a purpose in creation, and that purpose is not being fulfilled because those demons have fallen and they've become they've they got lost into ignorance, uh, is usually how that's understood. They become ignorant of their true purpose, they've become ignorant of what is good, and so they're no longer functioning in the created order in the way that they're meant to. A restored created order must include a restored heavens, because heavens and the heavens and the earth are both the creation together. Um heaven is a creation of God, and so if all things are restored, then heaven has to be restored. And how could we have a healthy earth with a heaven that's still full of mixed-up demons and stuff? Like yeah, because the demons aren't all in hell in the strip in the Bible for sure. That's why Paul tells us to do battle with the Archons and the heavenly places, you know, and that kind of thing. He's not saying go down into hell and beat up the demons and get mad at them. He's saying the demon the fallen angels are in heaven causing problems, and you need to be up there participating in that, uh, which is just very contrary to what we think in the modern world and hard for people to wrap their minds around sometimes.

Jeromy Johnson 14:56

So similar to us when we're not aligned with God's kingdom and we're not aligned with what's happening here on earth, you're saying that there are angels, there are demons that they're not living in that kingdom, they're not part of the order of creation.

Justin Coutts 15:09

Yeah, and just like the the new creation can't be complete until all of the creatures are healed. It's just a remembrance that demons are creatures that weren't meant to be evil, they were meant to be good, and so why wouldn't they be brought back? Like if they were made evil, then I could see that they would remain evil, but that's not their nature. And the scriptures are clear about that. I I'm trying to remember in some of the the New Testament letters, I can't remember which ones offhand. I wish I'd looked them up. But it talks about how they've abandoned their heavenly dwelling places, um, these demons, and so they have a heavenly dwelling place they're supposed to be, and that's the the fullness of creation, and includes that. And like the prodigal son, you know, God's not gonna turn them away.

Jeromy Johnson 15:50

Yeah But uh at some point, many scholars and theologians, and I think you hinted at this is kind of where where you actually land, I begin to see Satan demons as less literal beings and more symbolic or maybe mythical representations. What changes when you move from that literal reading to more of a figurative or narrative one?

Justin Coutts 16:10

Yeah, for sure. That's that's definitely where my primary interest lies. In the ancient world, they didn't have a dichotomy like this, like either they're literal or they're metaphors. They were both. And the ancient writers are just clear about that. And so I think even if you want to retain a literal belief in demons and a literal interpretation of scriptures, that the things I'm about to say are still true and can still be true for you. And I think if you read the scriptures with an open mind, you'll see that it's clearly like all the Jesus' encounters with demons makes so much more sense in this framework. I didn't know what to do with those texts before, and now they're my favorite. Awesome. Well, good. I'm totally intrigued. My view, like on a personal level, where I've come to reading um theology and philosophy from the ancient and modern worlds, is I have a sort of in-between view. So I don't think of them purely as demons, purely as metaphor in the sense of like they're just a story that tells us about something else and they're not real in any way. Um, but I also don't think of them as external beings that are like attacking me or attacking anyone or walking around or anything. And I actually I have a saying from the Desert Fathers that I wanted to read that I think is really helpful. So this is from uh Benedict Award's translation of uh the sayings of the elders. Abraham, the disciple of Abba Agathon, which just means Father Agathon, one of the Desert Fathers, questioned Abba Poman, saying, How do the demons fight against me? Abba Poman said to him, The demons fight against you? They do not fight against us at all, as long as we are doing our own will. For our own wills become the demons, and it is these which attack us in order that we may fulfill them. But if you want to see who the demons really fight against, it is against Moses and those who are like him. That's pretty cool. So there's a few things in there that uh yeah, that stand out to me a lot and feel really important. One is he's definitely got this dual understanding, like he's not denying the literal demons, um, but he's also saying that there are demons that arise from our will, from our own will. And it's an interesting point to say that the literal demons, the external, if we want to call them maybe external and internal demons, the external demons he points at are only gonna bother with people who are doing God's will. Because if you're doing your own will, they don't care about you. That you're not you're not something they need to stop. They're trying to fight God in this in this sort of picture, right? Yeah. And so he says, unless you're like Moses and the prophets, they have bigger fish to fry, get over yourself, is sort of the modern way of saying what he said to the disciple there, right? Gotcha. Like uh you think the demons are fighting against you, you you you're not even close yet. What you have to realize is that the there are demons inside of you that are arising out of your own will and trying to make you fulfill that will. And so for me, I think I think of demons as habitual patterns of thought that are inside of our souls. I think our souls are made of patterns. And so sometimes our good natural habits that God has implanted in us, like angels, become twisted and get lost in ignorance. They they lose sight of what's actually good. They're trying to do something good, but they're doing it wrong. And so we end up with demons inside of us. Our virtues become vices, and we have these habitual patterns that are actually working against us. And it's really obvious to anyone who has ever tried to quit smoking or go on a diet. These are really obvious examples. You make up your mind, you have a good logical reason for it. It's the right thing to do. You want to do it, you actually want to do it. Um, and then you don't. Right. And you have all these thoughts coming into your head, and it's like, oh, we'll start tomorrow, or you're not good enough for that, or you know, well, just smoke the whole pack tonight and we'll figure it out the next day, or whatever, right? Like all these bad thoughts that come into your mind to try and stop you and obstruct your good path. Yeah, and so I think because these demons are made of mind, they have a kind of consciousness. It's like a subconsciousness, it's not like a like like a full consciousness, but they're made of mind, and so they have the ability to almost trick us. And that's what the Desert Fathers really hone in on is the way the demons trick us, uh the way we trick ourselves, the way that our own habitual patterns of thinking fool us into doing what's wrong. So today we call those like our inner demons, right?

Jeromy Johnson 20:20

And kind of air quote.

Justin Coutts 20:21

Yeah, yeah. And that classic cartoon where you've got like the demon on one shoulder and the angel on the other, um, is a really simplistic and makes it sound stupid, but it's actually sort of like the way that the ancient Christian world understood angels and demons, that we have these influences that are within us or without us, or both, that are sort of leading us towards various things. And our free will isn't as clear-cut as we want it to be. We actually have all these whispering voices, and not that we don't have free will, but we have all these voices whispering inside of us. Go this way, go that way. And and if we don't have the capacity to discern the discernment of spirits to decide what's an angel and what's a demon, then we end up getting lost. And that's addiction, and that's um, you know, somebody who abuses their family and thinks it's the right thing to do, and you know, those kinds of ways people get lost.

Jeromy Johnson 21:09

So then the chaos that we see in the world, not so much caused by Satan and their demons just running havoc.

Justin Coutts 21:17

Yeah, maybe. Maybe it's a different way of understanding that process. So for me, I think of Satan as our collective fallen nature, right? We have sort of demons speaking symbolically, we have our inner demons, and then we have this sort of Satan, and and there's a lot of things, a lot of evil in the world that is bigger than any one person. Um so for instance, you could talk about slavery, right? And you could say, well, slavery is evil, and you can say individual people who have participated in slavery have done something evil, but none of those people created slavery in the big picture. All of them participated in the slavery that was handed down to them, doesn't make it right, but it does mean that it's a different kind of category than just I made a bad choice, I'm a bad person. I'm actually participating in this larger sin, this bigger thing that has been going on for generations before me and continues for generations after me and is entrenched and built into my society and all of that. And so for me, Satan holds that role symbolically. And I think that helps to understand how we can have this idea of Satan tempting us and leading us in false directions and stuff. It's the fallen spirit of humanity as a whole that leads us to different sorts of things. And a modern language we might call that socialization and indoctrination, but there are ways in which there's a bigger evil that Shapes us from the time we're born. And I think it's fair to acknowledge that. And again, because it's made of minds, it's made of all our minds together, it has some kind of it preserves itself. That's the thing, is it it doesn't let you untangle it. It you try and dismantle it and it fights. And it every turn you go, it's got something to trick you and to come back. And it seems alive in a way. And anyone who's worked for peace in their life has seen how incredibly hard it is, despite how obviously better. Yeah. Right?

Jeromy Johnson 22:58

Like, yeah, no, that collective energy, I think, is is kind of what what we're hinting at. It's like there's just this this underlying collective energy. And do you know what the what the term Satan or Satan, do you know what what that means, what the what the origins of that are? Like it's been interpreted as a name of a being, but I think there's more to it.

Justin Coutts 23:18

Yeah, definitely. I mean, that means the opposer, um, or the the opposition, the the prosecuting attorney kind of vibe. The one who creates obstacles and trips you up. And yeah, I mean, Jesus calls Peter Satan, and he doesn't seem to be saying, Peter, you're acting like Satan. He doesn't address Peter and then say, Stop being Satan-y. He says, Get behind me, Satan. Like, like you are Satan, stop it. Uh, submit to my my authority as the Son of God, as Satan must, right? Getting back to the universal salvation, every knee will bend regardless. Yeah, so I mean, I think in that sense, it does, it means that which is opposing us and and and tempting us in the wrong direction and leading us um away from our natural orientation to what is good and beautiful, and instead orienting us towards something else like greed or uh vanity or whatever the case may be, hatred and bigotry, those things.

Jeromy Johnson 24:15

I would love to, I and maybe you would too, like just jump into that culture 2,000 plus years ago and just drop right in and really understand what some of these words, a actually what the words were, and then what they actually meant in that culture. Because we make our deductions based on other writings, we make our deductions based on things that have that have been passed on, but to actually be in that culture and understand what I think so many light bulbs would go on, and probably some of our yours and my ingests in theology would be like, oh wow, that's totally wrong. Because at least based on you know where they were at. And I think if in some sense, right, so there is the literal beings, but if in some sense Satan and demons are are not literal beings, but more symbols or energies or powers of chaos, accusation, violence, or god, even empire, right? Like there's just the spirit of empire. Yeah. Um, how does that reshape the question of salvation itself, which honestly is typically taught as salvation from Satan from hell?

Justin Coutts 25:16

Yeah, I mean, uh, I don't, and I never have, uh, because I grew up Quaker in Canada. So I never had a concept of like an eternal conscious torment hell to deconstruct it all. Um man, you're missing out on so much. Well, I do spiritual direction with a whole lot of people who are deconstructing evangelical American Christianity because God's funny, and a Canadian Quaker who grew up a super liberal hippie wiccan, um, just doesn't have a background for that. But I meet tons of people who are curious about what I do and I work with them through that process a lot. The truth is the My Quaker community just didn't talk about it. Um, but I have lots of thoughts about it now. I think it goes back to that question of um universal salvation, right? Because that's a different model from salvation as an escape ticket from hell, especially in a theology that says that you're predestined for hell and then you need this fancy golden escape ticket to get out of what you deserve by your nature, which is very, very much a modern idea. Even in the ancient debates about the salvation of Satan, you know, nobody was saying that uh, you know, you're born destined for hell and or anything like that. So I think, you know, salvation, um, you know, to really get back to the ancient mind frame, which I think part of the reason the modern world, so after science has has reshaped our understanding of the world for everyone, even the biblical literalists, they don't realize how much science has reshaped their mind, but it has. And the ancient world just had a different understanding of so much than we do in so many ways that unless you study ancient you know cultures, um, Christian, Jewish, otherwise, you're just not gonna have a good grasp on. And so these fallen archons, these fallen angels, the powers and principalities, as it often gets translated, which relates just sort of ethnologically, if you think, you know, an arch means means a ruler, a monarch, uh rule by one. Um and an archon is a uh a ruling power in the of the heavens, just like an archangel is a ruler over other angels. And so these archons they are responsible for the fabric of reality. Um and so the fact that reality itself is hard, like not just human failures, but like tsunamis and cancer, um, and sunburns and mosquitoes and all of the stuff that just sucks in life, that is no human being's fault. Um, and that you ask yourself, so why did God make the world like this? Right? Why did God create parasites that only exist in the eyes of children uh or whatever? Like, you know, there's all kinds of just crazy stuff out there. And so the ancient answer to that question was that the the cosmos itself is fallen, that the whole universe is fallen. And that is because, in part, at least, these archons have fallen. And so the way reality itself works is broken. The salvation of all things is actually primarily about the heavens and the restoration of these fallen powers, which govern how the universe works. When the universal salvation comes and reality itself changes, as the scripture's teaching, you know, the lion's gonna lay down with the lamb, it's a new heaven, it's a new earth, it's a it's a different reality. And that's because it's the way it's supposed to be, and all of these demons have returned to their heavenly places and are now orchestrating the way that they're supposed to. All of the middle management stopped slacking and being on strike and went back to their jobs, and now the corporation is working again. I don't know, that's maybe a bad, bad metaphor, but um yeah.

Jeromy Johnson 28:39

Well, here's another metaphor uh trickle, trickle down restoration. It starts from the top and affects everything down below it.

Justin Coutts 28:46

Yeah, and so Jesus, if Jesus saved everything um in the same way that Adam ruined everything, then uh in which in the ancient world is also Adam fell and then death and decay entered into the world. The nature of reality changed, the nature of our condition as human beings changed. Um, we became mortal. Um, we became subject to time and death and decay and all this stuff. So that's it's all part of the same theology. Yeah, I mean, the idea of of uh of escaping from hell is just sort of like hell will stop existing at the universal salvation, at the restoration of all things, because hell is a disordered part of heaven with a bunch of fallen archons and stuff. It's yeah, if that makes sense, it's like it's the way heaven's broken, it's not really a different thing from heaven.

Jeromy Johnson 29:27

Yeah, no, that that makes sense. So salvation becomes less about uh defeating an enemy, right? Or avoiding very bad outcome at the end, and more about would you say healing what's broken?

Justin Coutts 29:39

Yeah, yeah, definitely. And uh a salve is something that heals, and salvation is um was definitely traditionally and through the the church fathers and all through the Middle Ages, which gets um ignored unfortunately a lot of the time, a thousand years of church history, but was understood as as a practice of healing and using Jesus as the great physician, the healer of souls who heals as much illness as he does cast out demons. And in my mind, those are the same stories, right? When Jesus casts out a demon and when Jesus heals someone's blindness, it's the same thing. The demon was making you blind, and they're just uh variations of the same process of of restoring individuals and restoring the cosmos as a whole.

Jeromy Johnson 30:21

Uh and if God's restoring all things, like that language challenges and complicates honestly the traditional ideas of an irredeemable evil, whether literal or symbolic.

XXX 30:32

Yeah.

Jeromy Johnson 30:32

To me, there's just there's such hope in that. Looking back at my evangelical background, that felt like it was pretty hopeful, pretty loving, like God has provided a way out, right? Um, so just take the way out. And now it's almost like there was never a need for that. That separation was always in our eyes. But just like a dad, I won't ever feel in my heart like I am going to be separating myself from my kids. There may be times where I'll feel separate from them because of whatever, right? Time, distance, uh, choices. Um, maybe they choose not to. And so that separation can feel like it's there, but as far as my heart goes, as a dad, as a father, separation doesn't exist. I think the notion of evangelicalism was like the separation was father-induced.

Justin Coutts 31:20

Yeah, makes God a bit of a monster. It makes you feel sympathetic for Satan rebelling if that's the God that he's rebelling against. Yeah, exactly.

Jeromy Johnson 31:29

He's like, Yeah, well, I kind of repeat.

Justin Coutts 31:31

I don't believe that's the way God is, and I don't believe in that all at all. But just exactly, exactly.

Jeromy Johnson 31:36

But yeah, if if that was, it kind of makes sense. Like, geez, dude, that's bad. I'm out.

Justin Coutts 31:42

You're you're making these people unable to love you and then punishing them for not loving you.

Jeromy Johnson 31:46

Yeah, then you're pinning on and you're pinning it on me. And and honestly, like if that theology, in that theology, it makes God the enemy, like it just does. It just makes God the enemy, and Satan is a tool of this God who's created this whole system, right? Created the system of sin, it created the system of separation, it created the system of of hell and eternal damnation. Like, that is all something that was created by God. And then, like, we go, yeah, but Satan's the bad one.

Justin Coutts 32:17

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, I I love a lot of the Celtic medieval stuff, and there's one text in particular that talks about um when hell was created and how it was created out of the substance of heaven when the angels fell. That the when God made the world as it was meant to be, there it didn't include hell, which makes sense, right? Like, why would God make the world in a good way with hell as part of it? But rather, when angels with free will fall, hell is the like the collective state of their fallen chaos. Once all of the people, the um the intelligences, let's say, so human beings and angels is the way the ancient world would say, the intelligent beings, uh including both of us.

Jeromy Johnson 32:56

Well, speak for yourself. But I appreciate the compliment.

Justin Coutts 33:01

You at least have the capacity for intelligence. What you do with it is up to you.

XXX 33:05

Uh yes, I I have been told, I have been told, I have that continuity.

Justin Coutts 33:10

But yeah, I mean, I don't think hell is part of God's plan at all. I think it's uh a byproduct of sin and not the source of sin. It's not the place that sin comes from, it's the byproduct of sin, it's what sinning creates in us. Yeah it's it's that feeling of separation from God that comes from the shame of sin. Um, you know, but it's not not a real separation.

Jeromy Johnson 33:36

Yeah, who told you you were naked? Yeah.

Justin Coutts 33:39

How do you know this? You ate something, didn't you guys? Yeah, but like you were saying too with the father metaphor in the kids, you know, like you might send your kid to their room if they need some time to work things through, some distance from you will help them learn, but it's never a long like you don't sentence them to live the rest of their lives, and not just the rest of their lives, but actually something way beyond that, an eternal life in their room by themselves, separated from you, because you know, as a father or as a parent in general, that that's not gonna help them. The only reason you sent them to their room was to help them, and so maybe that helps people see like if it's an eternal separation from God, then God's not helping anyone. And if God's not helping the sinner, then what who is God who loves the sinner? Who you know that's also scripture. Let God love sinner.

Jeromy Johnson 34:27

Go figure, and I mean God hung out with sinners, and so I always point out that like you know, they say God cannot be in the presence of sin. It's like, well, you know, he spent good 35 years in the presence of sin and seemed to do just fine. In fact, embraced it. So that's kind of a weird whole mythology right there.

Justin Coutts 34:45

Anytime anyone says God can't do anything, I always think it's a a bad starting place. Well, God can't do this and that. It's like, well, I don't know how you got that information, but I don't know what God can do, and I assume it's anything.

Jeromy Johnson 34:58

Yeah, and people go God, God cannot save all, you know. It's like, oh, okay. Or God has a desire. So you're saying God's not gonna get what God desires? Yeah, it's uh it breaks down. It does. So this question, I think it was someone from Anchorage, Alaska, who asked this. So they they had a lot of time on their hands. It might have been during winter, whether they're just hold up. But this question, do you of can can Satan be saved? Um, do you think it's actually a stand-in, maybe for a deeper fear or deeper question? Maybe.

Justin Coutts 35:28

I mean, I think it does kind of stem from that like how merciful can we really be? There must be a limit to mercy, that kind of like feeling a lot of people have. Um, but do you have a thought there or like yeah?

Jeromy Johnson 35:38

I mean, I I I I feel like everything comes down to fear. It's one of my my life theologies that I have that you can almost point any negative behavior and point to its root fear. I think this notion that can Satan be saved. I think it echoes that. If we think so poorly of ourselves, and if we think so crappy and shitty of ourselves, and we think we're depraved, we're not deserving, our fear creates separation. Like if I'm afraid of you, Justin, I'm gonna separate myself from you. And so if I'm afraid of all these things are out of my control, well, I'm gonna separate that. There's gonna be a place for that. There's gonna be I don't want to spend eternity with this thing. Is there anything beyond God's reach?

Justin Coutts 36:19

I mean, I don't think there can be anything beyond beyond God's reach because God is the substance of all things, the the source of all things, he's the cause of all things. And so anything that is completely separated from God, not just partially, but completely separated from God, would just not exist. Where from whence does their existence come? Their own power? No. And so that's part of the reason I think like theologically, it's really important to remember that evil can't be eternal, right? Because evil is a privation of good, it's not a thing in itself, it's it's just when you're not good, then you're evil, and good is the thing that God has has created and defined and calls us to. Um, and evil is just a lack of that, uh, sin is a falling short, a missing the mark, you know, all of that language. And so a mistake isn't eternal, you know, uh a missing the mark isn't eternal. It's uh in the same way that goodness is eternal. And so evil is yeah always destined to become good, I think, because just by nature, because it's contingent, it's it's it's not a real eternal force in and of itself. It's just a little chaotic, swirly thing on the side that's eventually gonna fizzle out uh or return home or something, but it can't it can't be God itself, the eternal, the good.

Jeromy Johnson 37:36

Well, he said like anything that's truly sep separated from God just doesn't exist. And so I guess that kind of points to another belief is that maybe Satan won't be restored and will just be annihilated.

Justin Coutts 37:48

Yeah, I mean, I like that better than eternal conscious torment for for Satan and for people, it's uh it's a step in the right direction in my mind. It seems Yeah, it's crazy that that's more merciful, right? Yeah, I mean it's a whole lot better than consciously tormenting people for eternity. I mean, that's just literally the most evil thing anyone could think of, and that's why it got associated with hell. Yeah, I mean, with annihilationism, the question to me then is just like, what's the what's the point of it all? Like, didn't Satan have a place in heaven that was important? And don't we have a place in heaven that's important? Doesn't every rock and tree have a place that's important? And and why would God just wipe everything out when God could restore things as just a better outcome? That's not proof that that's what's gonna happen, but like if we think God is good and is going to act good, then we can say, well, what is the good outcome? And that's likely what God's gonna choose.

Jeromy Johnson 38:43

It's a beautiful picture of asking a question: what is Satan's role even in restoration? No one I think really thinks about it that way. It's almost like Gollum in Lord of the Rings. He had a role in this whole story where the rings would ultimately be destroyed. Like asking that question, what is Satan's ultimate role in the restoration of all things? Like, he's playing a part of the story. Again, like that's just a cool, beautiful thought.

Justin Coutts 39:07

Yeah, and it's definitely the book of Job. Like, if you read Job and you don't try and put all the other theology on top of it, you just read it as it is. Um, it's very clear, you know, you've got it's written like a play, basically, and you've got this intro scene of the gods talking in heaven before it all starts, and you a few things get said very explicitly. Uh well, I mean, kind of. The way it's presented, it's one of the older books, and yeah, um, it does have that sort of ring of well in the Genesis they do say uh we right. So yeah, and you are gods in the Psalms. Um, and that's because in the ancient world, like I said before, it's a small g god, angel, demon, um, daimon, fairy. These were all sort of vaguely synonymous terms that were culturally contingent and had their own stories that were different, but they're all describing the same uh middle management, that that intermediary power, it's not the ultimate source of all that is, and it's not the ineffable god who we can never know, but who is ultimately knowable, you know, all that kind of stuff, the Trinity. Um, but it's not squirrels and rocks and trees and people, the uh something in between. And so when the Bible says you are gods, and when the Bible says, Let us make human beings in our image, and when Job opens with the council of the gods, um, you have um Yahweh as the head of the gods, and you have Satan as the uh essentially presented as the prosecuting attorney um in the story, and they're debating is Job a good person or not, and they're having a sort of philosophical debate about it because God says authoritatively, Job has done nothing wrong, he's blameless. Uh so for anyone out there who says there's no such thing as a person who is blameless, and as a biblical literalist, you'll have to go back to Job and ask, why does God say Job is blameless and never done anything wrong his entire life and is perfect? Then Satan says, okay, so so then but maybe it's just maybe maybe it's just he's good because you're nice to him. Like, what if we weren't nice to him? Would he still be good? And that's an important theological question, you know. Like, are we only actually good when our lives are easy and when things fall apart and our nation starts to crumble, do we turn against one another? Do we become greedy or do we hoard all the toilet paper? Whatever the case may be. Um so it's asking an important question. You if you take the literal out of it, right? If you just remember, think of it as a story that's helping you ask these kinds of questions. But Satan the whole time works for God and is uh under God's authority and does nothing without God's permission, um, literally has to get God's permission to ruin Job's life. And God says, okay, go and give him the stamp of dispensation, and Satan's allowed to go out and ruin his life. And whether that's a good thing or not, a good picture of God, I don't know. But it's certainly a different one of than God and Satan in this battle against one another. And I think the idea of an opposer of a prosecuting attorney is someone who creates stumbling blocks in our lives to help us grow is of value in the world. If you know, if you have a good coach, there they might make you run till you puke or something. I don't play sports, but this is what I've heard. I just watched Ted Lasso. Um and and in a sense, they're creating obstacles for you. They're they're it feels like they're punishing you, um, but they're doing so from a place of your of a desire for your growth, of that kind of thing. And that's different from a Satan who's just malicious. Yeah. And I don't think I don't think anyone is ever purely malicious. I think all of us are always have goodness as our starting and our foundation, and we get lost. We get confused about what is good. We think this is good, and therefore I'm gonna do this bad thing. But we it's because we're confused. Even you know, the Nazis, as to go back to the classic example, had some kind of theology and internal ideology about how they were doing a good thing for the world. They were wrong, and they're trying to defend them, but they thought they were doing something good, right? Yeah. And everyone who does evil thinks they're doing something good. Um, they think the person deserves it, they think you know they deserve it, whatever.

Jeromy Johnson 42:59

Yeah.

Justin Coutts 42:59

They think their motivations are pure and good. Yeah, and so the Dionysius, one of my favorite church fathers, he talks about how the demons um retain their original beauty because and that's what I was saying before, if they didn't have it, then they would cease to exist altogether. So they have some kind of connection still to God just by their being, and to be is to good is good, and so their existence is good, and they have goodness within them, and they can return to that goodness, and that goodness is what's eternal, and so that's why they have to be saved one day.

Jeromy Johnson 43:32

No, that's cool. And I think if we can view, you know, I'm gonna use hell in quotes, if we uh view hell as a place of ultimate redemption, right? Like there's redemptive purpose for that, if it exists. It begins to transform our world, you know, in America, I'll speak for America, if the majority be prison as simply punishment, there's no restoration involved in it. And I think that comes from our notion of hell. Like if we believe there is this that God Himself has created a prison that the majority of humans are gonna go to and spend eternity being punished, then let's create that here on earth. And so we have these prison systems that are literally exist for punishment purposes, not for restoration. And then there's other countries who view view that like, yeah, we're gonna separate you almost like we're gonna give you a timeout, we're gonna put you in this prison, but we're gonna do everything in our power to help you be restored at the end of this. And that's just it's it's the same building, it's the same. Word prison, but the goal is so different. And so I think these two different theologies of one is just punitive and separation, right? We don't want you to be restored because you're you're done, you messed up. Sorry. Three strikes, you're out. And then another one is nope, you're gonna be brought back into the full. And so if what might change in how we see God ourselves enemies in even the darkest part of the story, if we really understand that God's love is wider and broader and more slutty. How does that change how we see ourselves, our enemies, and our stories?

Justin Coutts 45:05

I think it gives us hope. It gives us hope that uh, you know, like if we're if we're just awful to start with, and our only hope is some external force which is arbitrary in some sense and not of our own volition in any way, then that's a hopeless situation. Like you're you're you're just born damned, and you are lucky if you get saved, and there's just there's no in-between and there's nothing for you to do. And I'm not sure why you're even supposed to believe things, because that's doing something to win God's favor. If it's truly arbitrary, it's just arbitrary. Just go live a hedonistic life or you know, whatever you want to do. But in the in the model of understanding hell is something within us as a as a state of mind, and demons as something within us in that same state of mind, we can harrow hell, like in the in the ancient church and still in the east um today. There's this idea of harrowing hell. On the Saturday, Jesus was crucified on the Friday. The Saturday, which gets uh skimmed over, is when he goes down into hell and he sets all the prisoners free. And I think that whole narrative plays out for us on a personal level. Our own hells can be harrowed, we and they're not eternal, and they're not forever. And actually, they're destined for goodness and they're destined for beauty. We are going with the stream when we try to heal. We're not going against it. And that gives us a lot more hope. That one of my favorite writers, Pelagius, who gets uh accused of a lot of things that he didn't say, he uses the analogy when he's arguing against original sin with Augustine. He says, You don't send a soldier out into battle telling him he's already lost the fight because he's weak and stupid. You you send him into battle telling him that he's strong, that he's able to accomplish his goals. Otherwise, what's the point? And I'm not a fan, you know, growing up quicker. I'm a pacifist, so I'm not a fan of soldiers. But uh it's true of uh sports too, for instance, like you know, you're a coach, you're not gonna be like, listen, guys, you're the worst bunch of headed little losers I've ever seen, and you can't play for any luck at all. And if you win, it's gonna be only because of me and nothing you did. And then they're all gonna go out there and just suck. Right? They're not gonna play well. And so we need that hope. And I think that this alternative view has a lot of different angles in which we can start to instill hope in people who have been provided a theology that's supposed to give them hope, but actually makes them just dependent and unsure and terrified of hell. And the number one thing that I hear from people of the over the years that I've been doing it now, of meeting with ex-evangelicals and people deconstructing that kind of theology is they don't believe it anymore. They've explored other religions. By the time they're talking to me, they've already explored Buddhism and how to come back to Christianity, usually, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah. Um, but they still, after all of this logical deconstruction, after definitely not believing any of that stuff, are terrified of hell. And and and when we really get down to the heart to heart, they cry and they say, What if I'm wrong? What if I'm wrong? And I end up in hell because I believed all this stuff. What if I didn't believe the right doctrines? It's the fear of hell. It's that fear of that eternal hell, you know, beaten into people since they're kids. And so I think we need a different theology that isn't eternal hell. And I think the only theology that makes sense is universal salvation. And I think universal means universal to bring it full circle in, so it must include Satan as well as uh trees and rocks, and I mean that literally. But yeah.

Jeromy Johnson 48:30

Do you want to just take a quick second and talk about New Eden, your ministry?

Justin Coutts 48:34

Yeah, sure. Thanks. I appreciate that. I have just started back into school and I got two kids at home, and my life keeps changing, and so New Eden ministry keeps changing. I write primarily and I do spiritual direction. Uh, I've got another book coming out soon, and one book um self-published that's already available and about 300 essays. What's the new one that's coming out? It is a book of spiritual practice based in um the Christian monastic tradition, but drawing insights from modern stuff, and it lays out a whole sort of framework for a new monastic contemplative life and the cultivation of virtue in this sort of framework. And actually talks about uh demons in this way and and the ancient practices of talking back to our demons and learning to enter into dialogue with our demons to help to heal them and restore them to their goodness, as well as how to live in community and a bunch of different stuff like that. It it covers a pretty wide range. Been working on a long time, so it's fun. And we also have an online community, which I have been not as much a part of the last couple years, if I'm being honest, as much as I would like to, as my life's been difficult. But they're just an amazing group of people, the virtual chapel, and it's free. And you just show up and you click the zoom link, and that's all you have to do, and then we meet twice a week. If you go to newedenministry.com and go to the our community tab, you'll get all the info you need to check that out if you want to. And you can peruse the 300 plus essays I've put up there, and they're all free too. So, yeah.

Jeromy Johnson 50:01

Well, thank you, Justin. Last word to our audience is yours.

Justin Coutts 50:05

Oh well, thank you. Um You're not damned to eternal hell because it doesn't exist, and and the eternal is only for the good and the beautiful. So just remember to remember that. Justin, thank you so much for hopping off. I appreciate you. It's my pleasure, Jamie. It's wonderful.

Jeromy Johnson 50:27

Maybe the question was never really about demons. Maybe it was about you, about us, about the parts of us that we've labeled too far gone, too broken, too opposed, too late. And whether grace has a stopping point. As you leave this conversation, maybe you question the limits you've placed on love. Maybe you notice where fear still is drawing hard lines, and maybe you begin to imagine a God who doesn't just tolerate the broken, but restores it. Even the parts we were taught to give up on. Hope you enjoyed this episode. Remember to walk in grace, and if you can, share that grace. See you in a few weeks.