The modern strategy for dealing with addiction is to reduce addiction to a problem of chemistry and biology. In other words, addiction is a disease. The solution is to find the cure. One hears of new evidence almost daily that various addictions can be linked to genetics, chemical imbalances, vitamin or mineral deficiencies, and so forth.  A few years back — I heard or read this from multiple sources, but cannot remember exactly which ones — I learned that viewing pornography releases chemicals in the brain that actually change the physical make-up of the brain much the same way that drug addiction does. Thus, even viewing pornography can be described as a physical addiction. 

 Classically, however, addiction was not described this way, but usually was viewed as simply repetitive choices. One had a choice to drink a beer as simply as one had a choice to drink twelve of them. So while modern research searches for a “cure” to addiction, the common approach used to be, “just make better choices.” We tried to educate the heroine addict about how damaging his addiction was, in the hopes that he would wake up one day and decide to quit.

Here is the problem. Neither of these two “models”— the modern disease model nor the classical choice model — describes the phenomena of addiction very well. Most alcoholics report that if quitting were simply a matter of making better choices, they would have made that choice long ago. Consider the following haunting account of a young female alcoholic:

"I picked up a half gallon of whisky one day after work and drank over one-third of it in less than four hours that same night. I was so sick the next day, but I made it to work. When I got home from work, I sat on my parents’ sofa and knew, I knew, I would start working on the half gallon, despite the fact that I was still very ill from the night before. I also knew that I did not want to drink. Sitting on that sofa, I realized that the old “I could stop if I wanted to, I just don't want to” didn't apply here, because I did not want to drink. I watched myself get up off the sofa and pour myself a drink. When I sat back down on the sofa, I started to cry. My denial had cracked; I believe I hit bottom that night, but I didn't know it then; I just thought I was insane. I proceeded to finish the half-gallon."[1]  

On the one hand, there is more going on here than merely making better choices. But, on the other hand, addiction cannot simply be reduced to purely disease and medicine. Most people who manage to quit their addictions do so without medical intervention of any kind! That doesn’t happen with cancer or diabetes.

Addiction might be best described, neither in moral nor scientific terms, but theological. The various twelve-step programs discovered this long ago, their various theological weaknesses notwithstanding: Addiction is a spiritual problem.

Cancer and diabetes are not sins. Drunkenness, heavy smoking, sexual addiction, and the like, are. Addictions make us guilty, no matter what science might be otherwise involved. And, the fact that those with addictions may want to quit, but describe themselves as unable to, is proof of the coercion of sin. It is proof of what Luther called the bondage of the will. Addiction involves our will, and our will, teaches the Bible, is broken.

We need to be very careful about our prescriptions for the solution to this brokenness. The devil encourages us toward these addictions for two very distinct reasons. First, he wants to ruin lives and families and wealth and reputations and nations. He wants to destroy things, and addiction is destructive. Second, he wants to afflict and destroy consciences through addiction. The temptation is to make light of this second danger. We have tended to concern ourselves with the first one, and understandably enough, but I wonder if the devil isn’t more pleased with the destruction wrought by the second one.

Consider the havoc the devil executes against a person’s conscience through addiction. When the sinner tries to resist the sin, the devil likes to use “disease” models of addiction to break down his resistance. He must do this. He has no choice. This is the way God made him. The more often his willpower caves, the less “guilty” he feels for doing it the next time. His conscience grows more and more calloused and his resistance seems more and more futile.

At the same time, when God in His mercy would comfort his conscience with the Gospel and forgive his sins, the devil prefers to flood the conscience with a “choice” model of addiction. He is tempted to believe that if he were a true Christian, he would be making better choices, exercising more discipline. He remembers the occasional times when his willpower resisted the temptation, and he wonders why he cannot always have such willpower. He takes his condition as an indication that God has forsaken him and the Holy Spirit has left him. This is a lie of the devil, but it is a lie that the conscience of the addict finds incredibly difficult to resist.

When it comes to matters of the conscience, the Gospel, the forgiveness of sins and salvation, the predominate models of disease and choice are tools of the devil. They are not helpful. They mask the real spiritual problem, and thus they mask the only solution — the blood of Jesus and the power of the Gospel. The poor sinner needs the treatment of the Law and Gospel. The Law will break his excuses and rationalizations, and the Gospel will forgive him and encourage him. No sin — not one single sin nor decades worth of the same sin — will dissuade the Lord Jesus from keeping him and bringing him to heaven.

But note this well. The Law and the Gospel are given to fix consciences. They are not given to fix addiction. I have known addicts who continued to be convicted by the Law and comforted by the Gospel through years of addictive behavior. The Word of God didn’t “work” to remove the behavior. But it did keep them in the true faith.  

That being said, Christians wants to be free of the actual behavior. Even if they have the Law and the Gospel, though they live in the freedom of the Gospel in the midst of addiction, the behavior is still dangerous, not only to their consciences, but to themselves and their families. So, ironically, in that realm, they should use whatever resources are available — medications, nutrition, external discipline, internet filters, 12 step programs, accountability groups, counselors, detox facilities and the like. These things are not the Gospel, and they cannot deliver a person to a clean and free conscience, but they are good, and if they help, there is no shame in using them.

While I think it’s important to keep matters of behavior and matters of the conscience distinct, I make one exception — Individual Confession and Absolution. The individual absolution is particularly useful for these kinds of addictive and besetting sins. It will relieve your conscience, and in some instances, it even helps to resist future sinning. This gift of Christ has served Christians very well.

The ultimate solution all around is the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Alcoholics are trained to forever designate themselves as “recovering alcoholics.” This is true of all sinners. On this side of glory, the best we can hope for is “absolved sinner.” But glory is coming. Jesus will return. We will be free from afflictions of the conscience and free from sinning.


NOTES:
[1] Dunnington, Kent. Addiction and Virtue: Beyond the Models of Disease and Choice. Intervarsity Press, 2011. Page 54

Raised, as most of us were, in an age of spiritual skepticism, we find it difficult to believe in, or at least take seriously, the reality of things that we cannot see. This, as you can imagine, offers convenient cover for the spiritual beings that the Bible considers our greatest enemies – the demons. 

1. Demons: what are they?
The demons are angels that lost their position in heaven, and were thus cast down. The chief of the evil angels is named variously throughout the Scriptures, but his most common designation is “Satan” or the “devil.” Remember that, even though Satan and his evil angels are “spirits” (Luke 24:39, Ephesians 6:12), they are not omnipresent like God. Satan cannot be in multiple places at once. So when the Bible speaks of Satan tempting or attacking people, it must generally mean that he is working through the agency of the demons under his control. This makes sense because, just as there are many, many angels (Daniel 7:10), there are also many demons, presumably an easily sufficient number to pester every person in the world. Furthermore, the Scripture describes this conglomeration of demons as though it were strategically arranged into a massive system to carry out the will of the devil. The Bible uses terms such as principalities, powers (Ephesians 6:12), thrones, dominions (Colossians 1:16), princes (Daniel 10:13), gods, lords (1 Corinthians 8:5), angels (Romans 8:28), spirits (Matthew 8:16, 12:45), unclean spirits (Matthew 10:1), evil spirits (Luke 7:21), seducing spirits (1 Timothy 4:1), and elemental spirits (Galatians 4:3). Granted, nothing in the Bible teaches how the kingdom of the devil is arranged, but we must conclude that Satan is not merely formidable, but also very well organized. Thus, when we are told that the devil prowls around like a lion looking for whom he might devour, the agents doing the actual prowling are usually subservient demons.

2. Their power
The New Testament is immensely concerned with the subject of the devil and demons, even if the modern American church is not. This makes sense. The devil is very powerful, according to the Bible. His power (or that of his demonic henchmen) can extend to influencing nature (Mark 4:39, Job 1:19), stirring up crowds into riots (John 8:44,59), putting men into prison (Revelation 2:10), enacting signs and wonders (2 Thessalonians 2:9), possessing humans (Luke 22:3, John 13:27), perpetrating false teaching (1 John 4:1, 1 Timothy 4:1), attempting to destroy the church (Matthew 16:18), controlling city councils (1 Thessalonians 2:18) and even manipulating entire nations (Daniel 10)!

But the most characteristic device of the devil is his capacity for temptation. Paul even names the devil “the Tempter” (1 Thessalonians 3:5). Here we confront one of the more unnerving traits of Satan: he has access to our mind. In Luke 8:12, Jesus says the devil can take the word of God away from our hearts. John 13:2 reports that the devil prompted Judas to betray Jesus. In fact, the devil has managed to blind the minds of all unbelievers from the light of the Gospel (2 Corinthians 4:4). The devil has access to our minds and hearts.

Surprising though it might sound, the Bible never teaches that either angels or demons can read our minds. Some have suggested that demons know what is on our mind by studying our body language. Centuries of studying the human condition has made them better students of human gestures than the best of our own law enforcement interrogators. But, though they cannot read our minds, they can make tempting suggestions to our minds.

Lest we underestimate the danger of such mental suggestion, consider Paul’s very significant warning in 2 Corinthians 11:3: “But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.” The serpent deceived Eve by tempting her audibly. He spoke into her ears. So also, when Satan tempted Jesus (Matthew 4), he spoke audibly. In other words, the devil has the capacity to speak into our human ears. However, for purposes which are his own, he hardly ever does it. Rather, Paul warns that the devil wants to corrupt our thoughts. The devil doesn't speak into our ears, but he tempts us in the same way he tempted Eve, only in our minds. To put it even more specifically, the devil avoids battling us in our ears and prefers the battleground of our conscience (1 Timothy 1:18,19).

3. Our Defense Against Demons
The devil is not merely interested in tempting us to various sins, but rather is our “accuser” (Revelation 12:10). This is the meaning of the word Satan – “accuser.” So he tempts us and accuses us in our minds or consciences. His temptations are to break commandments, his accusations are to give up our faith and hope in Jesus Christ and the forgiveness of our sins. The devil would drive us to despair of God’s mercy and turn again to our own resources and resolutions for our spiritual safety.

Thus, over and over again, the Bible urges us to fight against the devil using weapons which are external and objective. While the devil avoids tempting us audibly, the Lord’s counter strategy is to speak to us as audibly as possible. We are to hear his words. Consider how many of Paul’s suggested spiritual weapons in Ephesians 6:13-18 are various manifestations of the spoken Word of God: “the belt of truth,” “the gospel of peace,” “the sword of the Spirit, which his the Word of God.” Nothing in there about performing strange exorcisms or séances. Nothing urging us to use rabbit’s foot-like formulas. Just hear the word of God in your ears. Hear the Law of God to tenderize your conscience and hear the Gospel of God to encourage you against the devil’s false accusations. This is our chief defense against the devil.

Finally, the Bible urges us to pray against the demons (Mark 14:38, Luke 21:36, Ephesians 6:18, Colossians 4:2, for instance). I am surprised by how sparsely the weapon of prayer is used by Christians as a defense against the devil. Consider that when Our Lord dictated to us the prayer He intended for us to pray daily, the final petition is against the “evil one.” We are supposed to do this. Pray daily that you would stand firm against the temptations of the demons. If you struggle against some specific temptation like alcohol or depression or pornography or gossip, then pray specifically for strength to resist the devil in that area. If you are discouraged or bored with the Gospel, pray for a new heart, for strength and comfort. And, do not be afraid to pray out loud. A woman said to me once that when she prays, she whispers so that devil will not hear her. But when David or Paul, Moses or John, or even Jesus, prayed, they generally prayed out loud. They didn’t care if the demons could hear; they might have even desired for the demons to hear. For their prayers were damaging the stronghold of the demons.

Conclusion
The Bible teaches that the demons are real, and they are strong, and they hate you. But Jesus, His death and resurrection and promise of forgiveness are also real, and in the end the demons will be cast out, and you will be brought to the light and joy of the Lord’s life.