This Kind Goeth Not Out…

A Reflection on the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

Beloved in Christ,

There are problems which can be solved by explanation, disagreements which can be resolved by patient argument, misunderstandings which disappear when the facts are made clear, and errors which yield when they are confronted with truth. The Christian ought never to despise these things. Christianity is not a religion of irrationality; the Church has always reasoned, taught, disputed, defined, distinguished, and explained. Yet there is another lesson which the Christian must eventually learn: not everything can be argued away.

The disciples learned this lesson painfully. A father brought his afflicted son to Christ, a boy terribly tormented and falling “often into the fire, and often into the water.” Before coming to Christ, however, the father had brought him to the disciples, “and they could not cure him.” This must have troubled them deeply. Christ had given them authority; they had preached in His Name and had confronted evil before. Yet this time they had failed.

Afterward they came privately to Christ and asked the obvious question: “Why could not we cast him out?” His answer must have been rather different from what they expected. “Because of your unbelief,” He told them, adding shortly thereafter: “This kind is not cast out, but by prayer and fasting.”

There is an important distinction here between error and evil. A man may hold an erroneous opinion quite sincerely. He may have reasons for believing it, even though those reasons are mistaken, his premises false, or his conclusions unsound. If he genuinely desires the truth, however, there is still somewhere to go. Two people may disagree profoundly and nevertheless come away from their disagreement with greater respect for one another, precisely because each recognizes that the other is honestly thinking and seeking to understand.

Not every argument, however, is really an argument. Sometimes a question is not seeking an answer; sometimes an accusation is not seeking an explanation. There are encounters whose purpose is not the discovery of truth, but destruction. In such a case, it is a mistake to imagine that somewhere there must be a sufficiently clever answer which will finally satisfy someone who has no intention of being satisfied. Reason is a wonderful instrument for seeking truth. It is a remarkably poor instrument for negotiating with malice.

There is something striking, in this regard, about the father’s description of his son. The demon casts the boy into fire and then into water. These are contrary things: one burns while the other extinguishes; one destroys by heat while the other can destroy by drowning. Yet the demon seems quite indifferent to the method, because the object in either case is the same. The object is destruction.

There is a spiritual principle here worth remembering. Evil is extraordinarily adaptable. If it cannot tempt a man through despair, it may tempt him through presumption. If it cannot destroy him through cowardice, it may destroy him through recklessness. If poverty does not separate him from God, perhaps wealth will; if suffering does not accomplish it, perhaps comfort will; if isolation fails, perhaps popularity will succeed. Fire or water, the devil has no particular loyalty to either.

We therefore make a dangerous mistake when we imagine that because one extreme is evil, its opposite must necessarily be good. The boy in the Gospel could perish in either direction. The Christian is not called merely to flee from one extreme toward another; he is called to Christ.

This makes the disciples’ question after the miracle all the more important. They want to know why they failed, but Christ directs their attention not toward the demon, but toward themselves: “Because of your unbelief.” Then He directs them to prayer and fasting.

There is something almost frustrating about the simplicity of His answer. Surely there ought to be some technique, some strategy, some more advanced instruction appropriate to so formidable an adversary. Instead, Christ gives them the ancient disciplines of the spiritual life: prayer, fasting, and faith. When the disciples encounter an evil which they cannot overcome, Christ does not first tell them how to become more effective combatants. He tells them how to become more faithful disciples.

This is a lesson easily forgotten. When Christians perceive evil, we naturally begin by looking outward. We study the enemy, catalogue his errors, formulate responses, construct arguments, and devise strategies. Some of this may be necessary. Yet it is entirely possible to become extraordinarily knowledgeable about everything that is wrong outside ourselves while remaining remarkably ignorant of everything that is wrong within.

We can know every heresy and neglect our prayers. We can recognize every corruption around us and never confront our own passions. We can become expert defenders of Christian morality while gradually becoming impatient, bitter, proud, and uncharitable. When that happens, something very strange has occurred: we may still imagine ourselves to be fighting the enemy, but the enemy has begun determining what sort of people we are becoming.

Saint Paul offers another way. Writing to the Corinthians, he describes the astonishing response of the Apostles to those who mistreat them: “We are reviled, and we bless; we are persecuted, and we suffer it. We are blasphemed, and we entreat.”

None of this means that Saint Paul thinks falsehood is true. He does not bless because the reviler is correct, nor does he endure persecution because persecution is just, nor entreat because blasphemy is harmless. Rather, Saint Paul refuses to permit the sin of another man to dictate his own conduct. The reviler may choose reviling, but Paul will choose blessing; the persecutor may choose persecution, but Paul will choose patience; the blasphemer may choose blasphemy, but Paul will nevertheless continue to behave as an Apostle of Jesus Christ.

And this is not weakness. It requires considerably more strength than retaliation. Anyone can become angry when provoked or return insult for insult. Anyone can allow an enemy to occupy his thoughts from morning until night. The harder thing is to remain free.

This may, indeed, be one of the subtler dangers of spiritual combat. We imagine that because we oppose something, it cannot possibly control us. Yet hatred can bind a man almost as thoroughly as love. An enemy may occupy our imagination for hours as we rehearse arguments, compose answers to accusations that have not yet been made, revisit conversations already finished, and imagine confrontations still to come. Eventually, the person or thing we oppose begins receiving more of our attention than God.

Then prayer becomes distracted, peace disappears, and charity grows cold, all the while that we assure ourselves that we are defending the truth.

At such a moment, the words of Christ become almost medicinal: “This kind is not cast out, but by prayer and fasting.” There are times when we must turn away, become silent, pray, fast, and attend to our own souls. We do this not because truth has ceased to matter, but because truth is not merely something to be defended. Truth must also make us holy.

The Gospel, significantly, does not end with the casting out of the demon. Immediately afterward Christ tells His disciples: “The Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of men: and they shall kill Him, and the third day He shall rise again.” In these words we find the final answer to everything that has preceded them.

Christ Himself will encounter irrational hatred. He will be falsely accused, mocked, and condemned by men who have already determined the verdict. No argument will satisfy those who have no desire for an answer, and so Christ will go to the Cross. Yet the Cross will not be the victory of irrationality; it will become the instrument of its defeat.

Christ does not overcome evil by becoming more evil than His enemies, nor does He overcome hatred by hating more effectively. He remains entirely Himself: the incarnate Son of God, obedient to the Father, loving mankind even unto death. And on the third day He rises.

That is why the Christian need not win every argument. We ought to speak when speech can serve the truth, explain when explanation can enlighten, and defend what is good when defense is required. But we must also know when to become silent. We must recognize when another answer will accomplish nothing except to feed anger – perhaps theirs, perhaps our own – and return instead to the older and harder work of prayer, fasting, faith, patience, blessing those who revile us, and entreating when we are blasphemed.

For there are indeed battles which argument can win. There are errors which reason can expose, misunderstandings which explanation can dispel, and honest disagreements through which men may together approach the truth. We should never despise these things.

But there are other battles before which Christ gives us a different command, calling us away from preoccupation with the enemy and back to the purification of our own hearts:

“This kind is not cast out, but by prayer and fasting.”

9 August 2026