By Jeffery M. Leonard, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Religion, Samford University
The Paranormal
Deuteronomy 18:9–18
In Ecclesiastes 3:11, the preacher tells us God has “set eternity in the human heart.” God has made us in such a way that we are aware of a world much larger than our own. We look past the present and wonder what lies beyond. We consider, we question and we want to know more. As humans we are bound together by a seemingly universal desire to gain a glimpse into the unknown.
This desire to know the unknown manifests itself in ways too numerous to count. When we want to know who ought to go first in a sporting contest we flip a coin. When we want to know who should take on a difficult and dangerous task we draw straws. So compelling is our desire to know what the future (or even the present) holds that we often make bizarre connections between two entirely separate events. If we find a penny on the ground (heads up!), we tell ourselves it is our lucky day. If we drop our keys when our hands are full, we say, “It’s going to be one of those days.” If we play our best game and later discover we did so wearing socks that didn’t match, those become our lucky socks.
Although some may disagree, I find most of these sorts of practices to be harmless. There is a related class of practices, however, that the Bible takes very seriously. We find one of a number of passages that condemn these practices in Deuteronomy 18.
Our culture is full of paranormal practices. (9–11)
Deuteronomy 18 warns the Israelites that when they enter the promised land, they must not follow the practices of the Canaanites. Alongside child sacrifice, the practices the Deuteronomist singles out as especially abhorrent are divination, soothsaying, augury, sorcery, casting spells and consulting the dead. While the names of some of these practices may seem especially ominous — sorcery, consulting the dead — in many ways they overlap with practices as innocent as flipping a coin or plucking flower petals. They are all attempts to gain access to hidden knowledge.
Paranormal practices are condemned by God and should be avoided. (12–14)
What is it then that makes these practices so particularly abhorrent? At a very basic level, it is the fact that the Canaanites’ practices move beyond the realm of chance and probability and move into the spiritual realm. In the minds of the Canaanites (and in the minds of the Israelites who displaced them), practices like sorcery, divination, soothsaying and consulting the dead were attempts to gain spiritual knowledge by tapping into and even trying to control the spiritual world.
The direction we seek — and need — is found in God. (15–18)
For the Israelites, this was a bridge too far. While they acknowledged the reality of the spiritual world, the Israelites balked at the notion that humans should try to control or manipulate that world. For them the spiritual world was one presided over by a sovereign Deity, the God of Israel, and it was humanity’s responsibility to serve, not attempt to control, that Deity. It is this conviction that explains the Deuteronomist’s command: “You must remain completely loyal to the Lord your God” (v. 13).
God desired that Israel remain loyal to him, to serve him rather than seek to control him. For this God gave Israel a different kind of guide, prophets not diviners. It was the prophets who would give the Israelites the knowledge they needed about God’s plan for the future but they also would challenge the Israelites to remain faithful to the God who had sent them.
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