Beyond the Pitchfork: A Process-Relational View of Demonic Evil

A week ago today, I published my fourth book. It is entitled The Death of Supernaturalism: The Case for Process Naturalism. In it, I explore the problems supernaturalism (which I define as the "idea of a divine being who can, and perhaps does, occasionally override the world's most fundamental causal processes") creates for theism.

In my book, I posit that the problems of theodicy, divine hiddenness, biblical literalism, and the divide between science and religion, can be best addressed by jettisoning the conception of supernaturalism in favor of a religious naturalism, which I call process naturalism.

This past Thursday, I was given the opportunity to present the major concepts of my book in Minneapolis at Theology Beer Camp.

To my surprise, the most frequent question I received after my talk had nothing to do with defending theism without conceptualizing supernaturalism. (Hopefully, I was able to make that case!) Rather, the question went something like this: If there is no such thing as a supernatural realm, what do you do with the concepts of angels and demons?

I welcome this question, as I can't think of a more imminently relevant question in our world today. Thankfully, the same person I turn to in my book to explicate process naturalism, has also written extensively on the subject matter of demonic evil. (1)

What is Demonic Evil?

In a world where evil often feels overwhelming, whether in the form of war, oppression, or ecological collapse, David Ray Griffin offers a compelling lens through which to understand its deeper roots.

Drawing from process naturalism, Griffin reframes “demonic power” not as a supernatural force, but as a real and destructive dynamic embedded in our collective life.

For Griffin, this demonic evil, "diametrically opposes divine power and does so with such strength as to destroy divine creation in a way that threatens divine purposes." (2)

This conception goes beyond the cartoonish mysticism of horns and pitchforks. For Griffin, demonic power is far more insidious. It’s the seductive pull of systems, ideologies, and institutions that override empathy, suppress moral agency, and resist the gentle persuasion of divine love.

Key to Griffin's proposal is the idea that demonic evil exists as a creature. But it is a creature of humanity's making. Griffin calls that which demonic evil has aggregated into a 'quasi-soul.' (3)

The Anatomy of the Demonic

Griffin identifies several key features of demonic power:

• Systemic Entrapment: Institutions like bureaucracies, or economic systems can take on a life of their own. Once established, they often prioritize survival, efficiency, or dominance over compassion and justice.

• Idolatry of Partial Goods: Demonic power elevates limited values—like loyalty, profit, or national pride—to ultimate status. When these partial goods become absolutes, they distort moral vision and justify harm.

• Resistance to Divine Persuasion: In process theology, God does not coerce but persuades. Demonic power resists this persuasion, choosing control, exclusion, or violence over relational harmony.

• The Holocaust as Paradigm: Griffin points to the Holocaust as a chilling example. Here, ideology, bureaucracy, and collective will, fused into a machinery of death, despite the presence of divine influence urging otherwise. (4)

The Rise of the Demonic: A Creature with Psychic Reach

If demonic power is more than a system (if it behaves like a creature) then its rise and spread can be imagined as a kind of spiritual infection (I have to get my pharmacy background in here somehow!). Griffin’s theology allows for this metaphor: demonic power is not merely institutional, but psychic. It moves through minds, cultures, and histories with eerie precision.

• Clairvoyant Seduction: Like a person with clairvoyance (shout out to all my peeps who also enjoy The Conjuring Series!), demonic power anticipates our weaknesses. It knows which fears to amplify, which desires to distort. It doesn’t force, it whispers. It sees the fault lines in our moral resolve and exploits them with surgical subtlety.

• Telepathic Contagion: Demonic power spreads through thought-forms. It doesn’t need armies, it needs ideas. Racism, nationalism, greed are its vectors. Through media, rhetoric, and ritual, it implants its logic into the collective psyche, bypassing reason and hijacking empathy.

• Spiritual Mimicry: It mimics the divine. It offers belonging, purpose, even transcendence. But this always comes at a cost. It builds communities of exclusion, rituals of domination, and myths of purity. It feels sacred...but ends up being hollow.

• Evolutionary Adaptation: Like any creature, demonic power evolves. It adapts to new technologies, new ideologies, new crises. What began as tribalism becomes fascism. What began as economic ambition becomes ecological collapse. Its genius is its flexibility.

This creaturely metaphor doesn’t imply a literal demon. However, evil is intelligent, adaptive, and relational. It’s not just what we do, it’s what we become when we stop listening to the divine lure toward love, justice, and mutuality.

Why It Matters

Understanding demonic power this way shifts the conversation. Evil isn’t just about bad people doing bad things. It’s about how good people get swept into systems that suppress their better angels. It’s about how ideologies can blind us to suffering, and how divine love can be drowned out by the roar of collective momentum.

A Call to Discernment

Griffin’s theology invites us to ask hard questions: What systems are we part of? What values have we elevated beyond their rightful place? Where might we be resisting the quiet call of divine persuasion?

In naming the demonic, we’re not just diagnosing evil, we’re reclaiming our agency. We’re remembering that even in the face of systemic darkness, the lure of love still whispers. And we can choose to listen.

(1) Much of the content referenced in the following post has been pulled from David Ray Griffin, Process Theology: On Postmodernism, Morality, Pluralism, Eschatology, and Demonic Evil. (Anoka, Mn: Process Century Press, 2017). See also David Ray Griffin, Panentheism and Scientific Naturalism: Rethinking Evil, Morality, Religious Experience, Religious Pluralism, and the Academic Study of Religion. (Anoka, Mn: Process Century Press, 2014.) and David Ray Griffin, God, Power, and Evil: A Process Theodicy. (Louisville, Ky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004.)

(2) Process Theology, 139.

(3) Process Theology, 146.

(4) Process Theology, 149-153.