Belief in demons was once nearly ubiquitous in the Western world. They were the “go-to” explanation for almost every bit of suffering we couldn’t explain, from diseases to natural disasters and much more. But finding nat- ural explanations for such things—viruses, bacteria, plate tectonics and the like—did not make belief in demons disappear. An alarming 63% of Amer- icans between eighteen and twenty-nine years old today believe in demonic possession, and that number is on the rise despite the fact that fewer and fewer Americans belong to an organized religion (Wilson 2013). Belief among Christians of any age seems to be around as high, and belief in the American population is just over half (BarnaGroup 2009). 1 Contrary to expectation, however, belief in demons is not reserved for the unlearned or the “ignorant layperson”. Christian philosopher J. P. Morgan (Biola) and Catholic philosopher Thomas Flint (Notre Dame) believe (Kuhn 2010), as does Asbury New Testament scholar Craig Keener (2011). 2 In 2014, the Catholic Church set to training more clergy in exorcism to deal with (what they see as) a rise in demon possessions (Catholic Online 2014). The church may no longer exorcise demons from infants because “every newborn [is] possessed by an indwelling demon because of its intimate con- tact with its mother’s birth canal” (Robinson 2010), and it may even admit that many apparent possessions are really just mental illness, but the church still takes the existence of demons very seriously (Robinson 2010). Why do so many still believe? Although some will point to the obvious causal explanation of cultural and religious influence, for epistemic justifi- cation many cite stories of demonic activity, such as that during exorcisms. During such episodes, it’s thought that the “possessed” writhe around and exhibit superhuman strength, speak and understand unknown languages, are averse to holy water, spit, curse—and perhaps even levitate. There cer- tainly isn’t a shortage of such stories—Father Gabriele Amorth, the Vatican’s chief exorcist, alone says that he dealt with 70,000 cases of demonic posses- sion in twenty-five years—and demonic possession is thought to be the best explanation for them (Owen 2010). Others don’t need stories; they’ve seen evidence of demons for themselves. Many have professed to have awoken from sleep, only to find a demon 10 Justified Belief in the Existence of Demons Is Impossible David Kyle Johnson 15032-0364-PIII-010.indd 175 15032-0364-PIII-010.indd 175 2/2/2017 2:53:34 PM 2/2/2017 2:53:34 PM