Perspectives : Resolving Genesis - Partus Tres

Last week's session covered three main subjects:

I. The Appearance of Age Argument
II. Against the Big Bang
III. Undermining the Evidence for Transitional Forms

I felt there were a couple of questionable points that he was making, that either seemed factually inaccurate or quite the logical leap. It would also help if the speaker treated the opposition more level-headedly, instead of seizing on every opportunity for an argument ad hominem. However, overall, there are still points worth considering. The shaky edifice of evolutionary cosmology looks shakier than ever.

I. The Appearance of Age Argument

The primary point this argument makes is that if God did indeed create a full and complete universe, it would not appear to be young, but rather, mature. This approach holds that when an evolutionist looks at the universe, they naturally assume that it must have taken eons to develop because, first, there is no supernatural power to shape the universe such, and second, known naturalistic process could not have formed it so without eons to work with. Contrariwise, when a theist gazes upon creation, since he accepts that there is an omnipotent Creator, he is not puzzled by what appears to be an old creation, as it could simply have been created as such.

II. Against the Big Bang

I think the largest problem with the Big Bang, that modern science does not have a good explanation for, is the matter-anti-matter asymmetry. This was duly brought up by the speaker, and is yet another example of a little exception that the layman is asked to make because the mathematics is simply too incomprehensible. The speaker also discussed the apparent uniformity of the universe in temperature, which immediately recalled the cosmic background radiation image. The speaker holds that the temperature differences are too minute to be worth consideration, which I found rather suspect, since, once again, neither of us are privy to the infallible mathematics behind all these predictions. The speaker attributes such minute differences to interstellar material, gravitational interference and a host of other cosmic factors. The speaker refers to the expansion of the universe being adverse to astrogenesis, as the expansive forces would have overwhelmed gravity. The redshift in light is supposedly also attributable to a rotation of the universe rather than an expansion, and is also rendered weak if the speed of light is not constant as we would like to assume.

The Big Bang is also reliant on dark energy and dark matter for the model to work, which is admittedly, as of yet unproven and only a logical consequence of naturalism. The speaker takes this chance to transition into a long tirade on how evolutionists and cosmologists are constantly conjuring up new ideas to salvage the Big Bang theory to make it work. He claims that no other field would find such behaviour scientifically acceptable, especially as the more recent ideas such as dark energy and matter are not even readily detectable. The Big Bang theory is another case of using present day observations to extrapolate backwards into the far distant past. Again, if we were to chart change and make predictions like so in any other field, it would hard to establish credulity. 

It is a little bit of expansion on my own part, but I feel it ought to come in about here. It is impossible to be certain that just because the universe behaves in a predictable and regular manner now, in the few hundred years that we have observed it systematically, it has always done so. In terms of the timescales that evolutionists claim are involved, it would be like someone monitoring their body temperature over the day, using the data from the last few microseconds and extrapolating backwards in a best fit trend. In all likelihood, he will end up with a reading that suggests he was suffering a terrible fever or must have awoken from some bizarre cryonic. Admittedly that is a rough analogy. Regardless, no matter how sensitive and accurate the instruments we design now, the fact remains that we cannot go back in time to observe what has actually taken place. To extend what data we have is speculation, not science. Science should have repeatable observations, done under controlled conditions.

The speaker also chose to go into several points about the nature of the solar system, which did not seem relevant to the Big Bang per se, but I shall include them here all the same. He points out that the substances of the solar system are arranged strangely and not uniformly at all. The compositions of moons and planets do not suggest a common origin, and atheistic cosmologists are at a loss to explain the differing rotations of Venus and Uranus (Ουρανοσ). There are some theories, and moons could have been captured in orbit. However, it either requires a lot of little exceptions here and there, and strange coincidences, which are no stranger to the evolutionist because it must have happened somehow, and it must have happened without the intervention of a Creator.

Ultimately, the Big Bang fails to answer the question of origins. It is a theory of change, development from one state to another, but it does not answer how the energy of the universe comes into existence.

III. Undermining the Evidence for Transitional Forms

This section can basically be summarised as - Every transitional form from unintelligent primate to the wise man was either a hoax, a misinterpreted animal skeleton, or a human skeleton. Other transitional forms in other branches of the tree of life are of extinct species or do not actually fit the supposed order of evolution in the fossil record. We hear more about the supposed claims rather than the embarrassing retractions. Furthermore, if evolution happens gradually, we would expect large populations of such transitional creatures and they should be comparatively abundant. Evolutionists may argue with the theory of punctuated equilibrium, but that is an argument from a lack of evidence to support a preconceived conclusion.

Perspectives : Resolving Genesis - Partus Duo

The class went through three 45 minute lectures today, which one can partition into the following sections :

I. Perspectives on Creation and Evolution (Part Two)

1. The Failures of Gap Theory

2. The Impossibility of Theistic Evolution

3. The Day-Age Theory

4. Other Compromise Theories

II. The Age of the Earth

1. The Evolutionist's Perspective

2. The Creationist's Perspective

3. A Refutation of the Evolutionist Evidence

4. A Presentation of Creation Science's Evidence for a Young Creation

I. Perspectives on Creation and Evolution (Part Two)

This was a continuation of last week's sharing on the gap theory and other Christian attempts to explain the biblical creation account.

1. The Failures of Gap Theory

The speaker's main point was that the Gap Theory is ultimately superfluous as it calls on us to read around the literal meaning of the creation account, introducing many events on a speculative basis when much of the evidence that we see can be explained by creation science and the flood of Noah. Ultimately, the gap theory and its proposition set the precedent for reading around and reinterpreting scripture, which places the interpretation of man above the dictation of God, and this attitude of pushing the literal meaning of the Bible has eroded the authority of God's Word. The speaker still acknowledges the well-intentioned spirit behind the Gap Theory - that it still denies the veracity of evolution and attempts a reading of the creation account that allows each verse to remain intact.

2. The Impossibility of Theistic Evolution

Basically, this doesn't work. Theistic evolution is the position which holds that the evolutionary epic holds true, but God was behind it all and used these natural processes to create the universe as evolutionists explain it. The speaker argues that this is a lazy compromise, that doesn't think about the heretical implications that result. He points out that the order of Genesis and the evolutionary order don't at all match up. One goes: Light, Sky and Seas, Land, Plants, Sun, Moon, Stars, Fish, Birds, Animals, Man, while the other goes: Light, Stars, Sun, Earth, Moon, Seas, Prokaryotes, Eukaryotes, Plants, Fish, Insects, Reptiles, Mammals, Birds, Man. Theistic evolution implies a heap of death before sin, man and woman emerging simultaneously, and fluidity of kind, which contradicts with the Genesis account. He also notes that a theistic evolution dispenses with a literal Adam, which contradicts the words of major authors of the Bible, Moses and Paul, and the words of Jesus Himself.

3. The Day-Age Theory

The speaker notes that while 'yom', the Hebrew word for 'day', does occasionally indicate an indefinite period of time, its grammatical context in Genesis 1, placed next to a numeral, indicates a literal 24 hour day. This is similar to how one might say 'back in the day' in contrast with 'on day one we went hiking'. Furthermore, the creation days are days with evenings and mornings, and it would seem rather strange for plants to go by for a millennia or more without a sun, or that Adam lived out two ages of day 6 and day 7. If God defines a day with the sun here, but we choose not to say it was a literal day, then we also challenge God's definition of things.

4. Other Compromise Theories

The speaker goes through several more bizarre compromises that I've mostly never heard of before. The revelatory day theory (the days are the days when God told Moses what happened), the alternative day theory (the days are 24 hour days, but there were long gaps in between), the progressive creation theory (all the oddities of evolution are explained by miracles and divine intervention). The speaker notes that all these theories, the gap theory included, are trying to wrap the scriptures around the idea that the earth is an old planet, with millions of years of development. He then goes on to challenge the evolutionist doctrine of an old earth in the next section.

II. The Age of the Earth

The speaker mentions that while Christians remain mum about the age of the earth, the outside world, schools and documentaries are all telling children and students that the earth is an aged aged sphere, undermining the credibility of the Bible not only in creation but in everything else.

1. The Evolutionist's Perspective

The earth is about 4-5 billion years old, and this age is necessary to grant the time for evolution to take place. Although, in the speaker's opinion, no matter how old the universe is, evolution wouldn't have gotten started or produced anything noteworthy.

2. The Creationist's Perspective

The earth is between 6,000 to 10,000 years old, dated from biblical genealogies and matched up with archaeological evidence.

3. A Refutation of the Evolutionist Evidence

The speaker argues that the evolutionists have a preconceived notion that the earth is very old because their worldview demands it, and then they assume uniformitarianism and that present day processes can be extrapolated backwards to suggest the age of the earth. He takes radiometric dating and demonstrates how many assumptions really go into such a technique.

a. We know the original composition of the rock.
b. The rate of radioactive decay is constant,
c. The system is closed, so no substances enter or exit.

None of which we can say for certain, and definitely not over the supposed age of the rock in question. The speaker also pulls on studies that show how rocks of known ages were dated to wildly inaccurate times of formation.

Because of the unreliability of radiometric dating, most evolutionists rely on index fossils, which are supposedly from species that lived for a short geological period of time, to tell how old the rocks they are embedded in are. Unfortunately, the biologists in turn take the geologist's description of the age of the rocks to date their fossils, resulting in a circular chain of fossils dating rocks and rocks dating fossils. In addition, the fossils are not arranged by anything more than their supposed evolutionary tree, based on biological complexity. This also implies that evolution is being used to support the dates and ages that are being used to support evolution. Another circulus in probando.

4. A Presentation of Creation Science's Evidence for a Young Creation

The speaker now goes through evidence, much of which I have not heard previously, for how the universe ought to be young. This ranges from the helium levels in earth's atmosphere, the abundance of carbon 14 in certain coal beds and in diamonds, the decay of the earth's rotation, the shrinking of the sun, the concentration of minerals in the oceans, the erosion of geological features, the abundance of hydrogen in the universe, the increasing orbit of the moon, the instability of spiral galaxies and saturn's ring system, and population statistics and records for human activity.

Perspectives : Resolving Genesis - Partus Unus

I'm very excited to begin a series with the Faith Bible Institute on the creationism and evolution debate. I've actually put my thoughts on Eldwan's mythology on hold for awhile to see if the elective course will offer any fresh perspective to this over-analysed and irrationally charged ground. The first of eight classes is today, and I'll update this post once I've had the time to digest what they present there.

~

Outline of Lesson 1

I. Why the Creationism and Evolution issue matters for the Church

II. Explaining Evolution

III. Explaining Creationism

I. Why the Creationism and Evolution issue matters for the Church

Content
The FBI preacher begins by raising awareness of why this issue is something that the Church needs to address head on. His primary thrust is that because what our culture accepts as truth contradicts what is in the bible, many Christians, particularly youth and young adults, come to view Christianity's position on Creation as an outdated fallacy. By extension, the rest of the doctrine becomes unreliable as the Church doesn't seem to address or have a solid position on how the world was created and how that meshes with empirical evidence.

He also points out that the Gospel requires the Genesis account to be true in several ways: There could have been no human death before the fall, or death would be part of the natural cycle and we are discrediting the apostle Paul, who teaches that death entered by Adam's sin. If there is no Creator God, there is also no standard for moral absolutes, no standard for sin and no standard for forgiveness.

A wishy-washy understanding of the Creation account has been a contributing factor for a diminishing view of who God is and what He intends for us.

Comments

I agreed with this section for the most part, and certainly with the idea that the Church has, for the most part, failed to address key issues with the current generation, which is why we are experiencing such a great time of apostasy. Where is God's voice in the debate? I was particularly struck by speaker's point that America is approaching a point where ten times more babies have been killed by abortion in the United States than Jews were killed by the Nazi regime. He was using it to illustrate the extent of moral degradation and how far the USA has left God's Law as a result of the lies that the Church's silence and failure to represent God has allowed to infiltrate popular culture.

II. Evolution

Content

Atheistic Evolution - Completely undirected evolution was sufficient to give rise to the complexity we see today.

Religious Evolution - Evolution incorporated into some larger superstructure of religious belief.

The speaker points out that the majority of religions have no particular objection to evolution. He then provides a list of religions that are compatible with evolution. He also takes the argument that evolution should not be taught in schools and pushes it further, suggesting that the facts of Creationism should be publicised just as much and that people should be allowed to evaluate the evidence personally, instead of being presented with only one perspective on the issue.

Comments

I didn't really know what to make of the claim that evolution is also religious because other religions incorporate evolutionary ideas. Personally I do know that Buddhism and Confucianism have no objection, because they don't claim to have any authority on where things come from. However, with other religions like Animism, Bahaism, Spiritualism and so on, which he lists as 'structured around evolutional theories', I don't know enough about those beliefs to be able to accept that statement at face value. Of course, the idea that people would see the truth and past the lie of evolution once they are presented with all the evidence, or that evolutionists are afraid to let creationists stand up for themselves, smacks of the initial assumption that creationists have the truth in the first place, which isn't a very good place to start when addressing a skeptic.

III. Explaining Creationism

Content

The Young Earth Perspective - The earth is but several thousand years old, literal 7 days of creation. Supported by creation science and flood geology. The speaker claims that the majority of evidence that we have empirically supports a young earth, but evolutionists choose to rely only on the ones that can be interpreted to imply an old earth. 

As part of a defence of creationism, he then goes on to attack what is traditionally used to support evolution, beginning with the sketchy nature of the fossil record and geological strata. He then moves on to untangle the observable examples and points that have been used to support evolution. Evolution is too slow to be observed - Seems more like a cover than anything else. Peppered moth - Doesn't demonstrate evolution, but only population dynamics. Mutations in subject animals like fruit flies - Doesn't demonstrate that evolution can drive increases in complexity, but rather overwhelmingly that mutation is negative and results in loss or corruption of information. Minor variation in a species does not imply evolution, just variety. 

In other areas, there is no convincing theory for the origin of life. Darwin thought that the cell was a simple part of a complex organism when he proposed the leap from non-life to life, but we now know that cells and life, even the simplest prokaryotes, are already densely packed with complexity. If anything, the leap from non-life to life is larger than ever. Without God, we also have no convincing answer for the origin of the universe, as the Big Bang also doesn't return to T=0, and also offers no reason why it should have happened in the first place. The Big Bang is a theory of change, not of creation. He also suggests that the fossil record is not a result of evolution, but rather of the flood in Noah. The reason why the fossil record has been misinterpreted is that no one really took the time to consider what a catastrophic worldwide flood would produce. He argues that such a flood would indeed produce millions of dead creatures, all over the world, that are buried under layers and layers of silt compressed into rock, which is what we see with fossils.

The Old Earth Perspectives

The Gap Theory - Tries to stick with a literal interpretation of Genesis, but finds sections of the text that could allow for vast ages of prehistory. This gap is generally taken to be between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2. Dinosaurs and the fossil record fit into this extended period that was hastily glossed over. The speaker argues that the gap theory begins with the assumption that an old earth is correct. The age of the earth is only necessary to explain gradual geological and biological change. Since the gap theory rejects evolution, which requires millions of years, and still proposes a massive flood, which can explain the fossil record, there is no need for such a convoluted explanation. In addition, the idea of the gap theory was initially proposed as an explanation for when Lucifer's fall took place, and that the gap theory only works with science as it was understood 150 years ago, when gap theory was first proposed.

The content on the gap theory and old earth ideas continues into next week's lesson.

Comments

This section might be better titled: Arguments against evolution. I felt it was a little premature to bring some of what he did. It would make more sense to present the various creationist stands in an overview before going into arguments against evolution, or internal contradictions in the stands. Anyway, since this was what he did, I shall have to tag along in my reflections.

It was funny to see classic biological examples used to support evolution overturned. In truth, if one thinks critically, they often only demonstrate the premises of evolution, such as population drifts, genetic change, variation within a population and so on, but fail to demonstrate macro-evolution itself. It is of course compelling to claim that all these observations must add to up evolution on a long and large scale, as many people have done, but it does seem that we haven't observed it empirically. 

A long standing issue that I have with evolution, and this was addressed by the speaker, is that evolution demands that coherent, complex information is able to emerge from randomness. The evolutionist argues that out of the pool of mutations, one in some improbably high number is beneficial and proliferates within the breeding population. I accept that as true, and we have seen it with traits like lactose tolerance. However, I don't think we have examples of new information actually emerging, rather than just existing information being modified. In the case of lactose tolerance, it has to do with extending the time in which lactose is expressed, a far cry from something like the emergence of the lactose enzyme in the first place. It seems to me that in our daily experience, new information does not arise from an unintelligent source, but existing information can be modified or corrupted, and the result of that may even be beneficial, but the information itself is not genuinely new. 

If one takes a simple image, and photocopies it, and copies the copy, ad infinitum, we do not expect that a final product will somehow acquire the same complexity as Da Vinci's Last Supper or Van Gogh's Starry Night. Rather, errors that do creep in distort the image and one eventually ends up with a streaky, blurry mush. If one makes a copy of an audio track ad infinitum, we don't expect it turn into Debussy's Arabesque or Dvorak's New World. Even if there are some snatches of randomly generated good music from copying errors, and even if there was a 'natural selector' looking out for those good melodies, the sheer rate of bad mutation would overwhelm any snippets of sense. In our everyday experience, information as a net whole is lost in repeated replication. I never liked the idea that evolution wants to make an exception in this area.

Another major exception that the atheistic evolution worldview begs us to make is that of the transition between non-life and life. The speaker touched on the idea that when early evolutionists made their suggestion that a cell could have arisen from non-life, we knew much less about cells than we know now. Cells are not simple building blocks in a complex arrangement, they are complex building blocks in a doubly complex system of a whole organism. What we have learned about cells in recent decades should, if anything, convince people about how difficult it is to make that transition from the inorganic to the organic. All these recent studies that have had research teams making artificial genomes and advances in what we might call artificial life are subject to the same problem. They do not prove that life could have arisen by chance. If anything, they show how much thought, experimentation, planning, resources and calculation have to go into creating even a single cell. What they do prove is that human beings are acquiring the technical capacity to craft life. In my opinion, such advances do not do away with the need for a designer, any more than the experiment could have succeeded without a dedicated researcher.

Ecclesiastical Order

It would be useful for me to codify the positions that exist within the organisations of the Temples in Eleris, both for my own reference and for any of you who have hopped on over to my wordpress blog to read the first few chapters of my draft.

Service in the Temples was equivalent to service in the public sector in Radiant society. The Temples were responsible for social policy, taxation, safety regulations, formal education, the military et cetera, distributed between the five temples. Emerging from the compulsory education track, graduates so inclined could submit their applications to the Temples for whatever field caught their interest. In exchange for access to what was, often verifiably, the best equipment and resources for research, the Temples required additional duties of their staff.

A breakdown of the ranks within the religious hierarchy is given below, along with their canonical average duration and age, although it is worth noting that the Radiant education system was primarily concerned about mental development than physical development; it was not unusual to find exceptional sparks ascending through the progression far faster than the norm.

Initiate (36 - 37): Fresh out of school, they spend a year learning about the organisation of the temple they are posted to, various responsibilities of prayer and basic exercises of the mind and body, as well as appropriate manners and mores for their temples. They are also introduced to the temple's infrastructure in preparation for their next phase.

Servant (37 - 42): In these five years, a Servant is tasked with the maintenance of temple grounds, from the landscaping, to the architecture, research equipment, dormitories, cleanliness and so on.

Disciple (42 - 114): Shifting away from a rank of responsibility, the Disciples begin a lengthy phase of study. At this stage, they learn about the many years of history and developments of the cultural traditions of the Temples. Religious and philosophical texts and ideas are studied, compared and debated to ensure a complete understanding of each Temple's ethos and how they integrate to form the supporting pillars of Radiant Society. In this phase, mental training is accompanied by physical and magical training, and greater Aleric powers are unlocked for Disciples than for the average populace.

Devotee (114 - 180): Devotees begin to specialise in a certain department of the Temple they are with. They study it in more detail, with more rigour and are subjected to the scrutiny of superiors that comes with perceived ownership. They are often given the menial ends of research work for their departments, and greater magical abilities are unlocked for them.

At this point, the career progression bifurcates. In the story, Lelia is a Senior Devotee, which is one of the two options available to those in Temple service.

Senior Devotee (180+): Those who are content at this level of power and responsibility will choose to remain as quieter, dutiful servants in their respective departments. They may be permanently attached to one Priest as a full time assistant, but they are also granted the freedom to pursue small independent projects. They may stay with the Temple indefinitely and are held to have completed their obligations at the age of 216. Some oversee the younger servants, or serve as substitute teachers for Disciples.

On the other path, there are the ordained ranks, which will progress on to higher positions of management. The first of these are the Acolytes.

Acolyte (180 - 240): An ambitious Devotee must catch the attention of a fully ordained Priest and bid to be chosen as their Acolyte. At this point, the Acolyte receives personal attention and guardianship from the Priest, and is trained in that specific realm of responsibility or interest. Acolytes are also burdened with the responsibility of planning and coordinating for ceremonial events and routine Temple duties. The three most promising Acolytes, in line to replace the High Priest, are specially designated as the First, Second and Third Acolytes.

High Priest (240 - 252): The High Priest is responsible for the overall management and policy decisions of Radiant Society. The five High Priests from the five Temples form the High Council and are at the top of the hierarchy for the active public service. This is a phase of intense societal responsibility and the High Priest often has to put aside any personal pursuits, right from when he was in training as First Acolyte. The term in this office lasts for a duodecade, or twelve years. Once the High Priest steps down, he is accorded priority in the temple above the other priests as recognition of the work he has done. This position is increasingly occupied by younger Priests, as it allows one to bypass the age threshold of 240 that is canonically required for a full Priesthood.

Priest (240/252 - 864): A Priesthood is granted upon an Acolyte reaching the age of 240, or upon the completion of a High Priest's term of twelve years. At this point, Priests are able to lead full research projects, are required to perform or participate in many ceremonial duties for the temple, and full magical autonomy is granted. Of course, they also have the responsibility of teaching the younger generation and possibly having to adopt a personal Acolyte.

Bishop (864 - 1296): A Bishop is exempt from any teaching duties, unless they wish to do so. They are granted the right to pursue what they will, directing Temple departments and research projects, reserving veto power for the Priests under their charge. At this point, most Temple servants will spend their days in poetry, philosophy, theatre, sculpture, worship or language construction, although some choose pursuits considerably more esoteric. They are no longer required or expected to have concerns for the basic functions of the world.

Elder (1296+): Elders are granted no longer required to participate in any duties both temporal or spiritual, absolved from any ceremony or responsibility to the Temple. They, while free to use any of the Temple facilities, are typically more engaged in virtual realities and abstract projects. A sizeable number choose to adopt the post-corporist stance and discard their physical bodies entirely. An Elder may also express interest in joining the Elder Council, though they are largely a dormant political body with most of the work left to the discretion of the High Council.

At any point along this progression, a servant of the Temple may decide to leave to join the private sector, though there will be penalties for those who either do not complete their time as Senior Devotees or as Priests. Furthermore, the ordained ranks will have their magical abilities restricted to those of a Senior Devotee, which may seem quite debilitating to them after centuries of growing accustomed to a high degree of magical sensitivity.

Vignette: Urbs Musicae

Tangled streets gird ornate palaces and pale townhouses, plastered over with classical divinities and emblems of victory. Each one plays a variation of the imperial theme in its symbolically infused facade. Wings and robes, kotinoi and trumpets resound in an enduring efflorescence. Every anthropomorphic pilaster and corinthian capital romantically suggesting far more than any current amalgamation of ferrous alloy and brittle silicon. When Nox arrives, the organic generation of multifarious melodies by composers long inhumed put the artificial perfection of present popularity to sonorous shame.

Yet, globalised modernity rises like a tide to drown bastions of antiquated practice. The majestic mirage is disillusioned by the commercial proliferation of 'Kassa'; reinventing itself as a curiousity to maintain a voided existence.

Perspectives : Ostensible Counterproductivity

It's always struck me as rather odd that the demons in the gospels declare that Jesus is the Son of God. Just some references for you - Mark 1: 23-24 / Mark 5: 6-7. Isn't it somewhat against the grain to lend credence to someone you logically should be discrediting? Surely, if even the demons are declaring Him to be the Son of the Most High God, this man is worth paying attention to.

It has been conventionally proposed that the demons are helpless when they encounter Jesus. As they are beings who can see through this fuzzy physical shell that we call reality, they recognise Jesus immediately for who He is and they respond by declaring His Sonship in fear and compulsion. Jesus, wanting nothing to do with unclean spirits, drives them away, that His ministry would not be tainted by their demonic testimony. 

What follows may be but idle speculation, but perhaps someone could advise me of its veracity and plausibility. I suppose that when the rebellious forces of Satan noticed that the Son had descended to earth in the form of a man, they would have been highly suspicious and perplexed by the unexpected play from heaven. This is evident from the questions that they confront Jesus with:

And they cried out, saying, 'What business do we have with each other, Son of God? 

Have You come to torment us before the time?'

- Matthew 8: 29

They don't really know why He has come, the divine salvation plan was hidden from them. They know their time of judgement will eventually fall, but they also seem to know that this was not yet the right time for that final judgement. I gather that there must have been an attitude of puzzlement and curiousity. There was an increase in demonic activity around the time of Jesus; perhaps all these spirits were all watching anxiously, wondering why the Creator of the universe was in a fragile human body and sanding away at wood in Nazareth.

Now, they would certainly have noticed Jesus' baptism, and perhaps after this, they took extra note of Jesus' activity, with Him having emerged from a hiding of sorts. It certainly seems the case as the father of lies himself came to tempt Jesus after that incident. I'm sure the darkened light-bringer must have been wringing his wits to figure out what the Light of the World was up to. This time of temptation must have been an opportunity for the enemy to probe and figure out how he could derail the divine directive.

One thing that would have been very apparent would be Jesus' reluctance to declare Himself publicly. In the temptation on the temple, Jesus resisted what would effectively have won the allegiance of the people by claiming the promises of God. He didn't want to demonstrate Himself as the Son of God openly, but countered Satan's challenges to 'prove' Himself with reservation and steadfast resolution to obey God. Thus it could have been revealed to Satan that Jesus was resisting a glorious unveiling that would overwhelm the people into rapturous submission.

If my train of thought was accurate, Satan could have communicated this information to the rest of his unholy hierarchy and instructed them to toy with it a little more. In this fashion, the demons' declarations would be a rather more sophisticated attempt to undermine the success of Jesus' first coming. I think we get traces of this when Jesus is more well known as a miracle worker than as the Messiah. The crowds have their own expectations of Jesus that are not in line with God's purposes. 

Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, 

withdrew again to a mountain by himself.

- John 6: 15

The exhortations from the demons would have added to that detrimental revolutionary impulse. They might not have known the whole plan, but they knew enough of it to latch on to whatever they did suspect and aim for those characteristics. Of course, at the end, the Lord prevailed with the amazing resurrection of Christ.

Then again, perhaps, as my father remarked, that coordinated attack in this mode might be giving the enemy forces too much credit. I don't really know, part of me is wary of underestimating the fallen morning star. If you've got any ideas, let me know what you think.