The False Tagline of The Last Exorcism
The new movie The Last Exorcism has the tag line, "The bible is filled with Demons, if you believe in God than you believe in the Devil." This is an interesting argument that a lot of people would make, but I disagree with.
As usual, there are a few things I have to detail before I get into arguing why that isn't the case. For the sake of this discussion, I'm going to use the strictly biblical sense of God, the Devil, demons and demonic possession. Now I think that there is enough contradiction within the biblical belief of these terms to really create the reasonable ability to say that belief in the Bible doesn't mean belief in a Devil or in demonic possession.
It might have been noticed that I have linked the idea of the Devil to demons and demonic possession, and it could seem like I am shifting the argument to a different meaning than the tag line of the movie intended, but that is not the case. The tag line is trying to create the premise to make an Exorcism believable, due to the biblical belief in God and the Devil, so that doesn't change the meaning of what is being argued.
The main point of contention I have is that God is omnipotent and can do whatever he likes. Job 1:6-2:10 demonstrates that standard and so does Matthew 19:26. In the book of Job, it is God who is in control the whole time, and Satan does his bidding (aka follows God's plan), while in Matthew it is declared by Jesus that, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."
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