Who or what is satan?

[eckadimmock]

I would be interested in the thoughts of the Christians here as to the identity or nature of Satan. Is he (or she or it)

1. A fallen angel
2. Some other sort of evil spirit thingy
3. A literary device representing the dark side of human nature
4. something else?

I tend to incline toward 3, but at a church I've been going to he popped up in a sermon, with the minister saying "Satan wants us to (do something naughty)" which raised the question anew.

[element771]

I have wondered about this myself. I think that it may be a combo of 3 and 2. It definitely represents the dark side of human nature but I sometimes wonder about the "influence" it may have. It may very well just be the dark side but I think that it has the power to pull you in a certain direction....almost like an active force in the world. I know that I may be personifying simply a product of our own human desires but does it really matter how we perceive it. It matters more to how we respond to it.

Read the Screwtape Letters and Mere Christianity by C S Lewis. He actually deals with satan and the more I read anything written by him, the more I realize his brilliance. He is undeniably the thinking man's Christian.

[Mike D]

I think that what you believe about Satan is strongly correlated with your view of the Bible and how you interpret certain passages therein.

For example, if you believe the bible to be the authoritative guide in all matters, then you would most probably believe in Satan as an actual being - not necessarily, but probably in my opinion.

However, even if this is the vase there are a number of areas that need to be resolved in order to answer the question, "What is Satan?". For example, do you think that the Satan mentioned in the Old Testament (Job, Zechariah) to be the same being as mentioned in the New Testament? Do you think that passages in the prophets that some in the church have historically attributed to Satan (Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28) have anything to do with the subject?

My own take is that it is an area about which I remain agnostic - I find the image of Satan a powerful and compelling one, but have not come across anything in my experience to date to suggest that there is an actual evil spirit with armies of demons ranged against me.

Mike

[eckadimmock]

Yes, I generally see him as a device rather than as an evil spirit. I fact, I prefer Augustine's view of evil as an absence of good (as darkness is absence of light) than as an actual force.

In the old testament, Job is I think a literary work rather than history, and Satan appears to be on friendly terms with God, in fact seems to have been allocated the role of prosecutor in Job and Zechariah.

The snake in Genesis seems to play Satan's role but is not identified as such, which to me supports the literary device view. The snake, rather like a ham actor in the series pilot, never reoccurs and the role is left vacant for a while (Israelites are wicked to the point where God destroys the Earth, but Satan is not blamed) until Satan appears in Job and keeps the part thereafter.

The NT is more of a problem, since Jesus speaks to Satan directly, and talks about him as an actual being. But again, this could be Jesus simply using first century semantics, and the conversation in the desert could be Jesus wrestling with his own conscience.

[James Hannam]

I sometimes wonder if the temptation of Jesus is not him battling with the human side of his nature. He is without sin but, as he is also human, perhaps he is not automatically without sin.

I know the doctrine of the immaculate conception is supposed to explain how Mary manages to produce a sinless child but, um, its not my favourite bit of Catholic doctrine.

Just some idle speculation. I should avoid theology.

Best wishes

James

[humphreyclarke]

The key to me seems to be the idea of good and evil being interdependent. The absence of one produces the other. I think during the enlightenment Satan was downgraded from being an actually existing being to a metaphor for moral evil. If one looks at the idea of a divine command moral system then the divine law giver, as the originator of the good must be omni-beneficent and this must remain unchanging. In this picture, as one moves towards the good, one moves towards God. It stands to reason that at the opposite end of the scale there must be an ultimate evil which one moves towards through gradual moral failings. The tragedy of being an independent moral agent is that you are free to move from one end to the other, this can cause great good or unspeakable evil.

For example, serial killers usually start murdering and torturing animals before moving on to human beings. The Eugenics movement started off with the positive eugenics of Galton (moving one race up) and ending up focusing on the sterilisation of the unfit and the extermination of other races under Hitler's empire. Communism promised to end inequality and the exploitation of the working classes and ended up killing millions through successive acts of repression. If you go too far down the scale, as the Nazis and their devotees did, then you end up becoming virtually inhuman. Contemporary writers claimed that events like the holocaust could only be understood if evil were recognised as a real property in the world and I think that fits pretty well with the view in the NT and OT.

[eckadimmock]

Yes, Jesus facing sin and overcoming it is a more meaningful act than never suffering from it IMHO.

I agree about Satan, I generally see him as an anthropomorphic representation of the "dark side". If we were led astray by a fallen angel, sin would be his fault and not ours, right?

So Humphrey, do you see this ultimate evil as having a will of its own? Is there something that "wants" serial killers to kill? I must admit that Himmler or Jack the Ripper seem different to everyday sinners in more than just degree: they were evil because it was evil, literally for the hell of it.

[humphreyclarke]

Yeah, the Judeo-Christian tradition depicts humanity as being in 'the image of God', meaning that we have capacity for reason, free decision making and dominion over nature. This gives the individual human being immense importance, but also great responsibility. According to this view one can only be separated from God (or in other words, the ultimate good we tend to strive for) by our own free actions. It gets a bit more complicated than this because often people commit acts of unspeakable evil when they are striving to do good.

[humphreyclarke]

Sept 4, 2008 12:13:04 GMT eckadimmock said:

So Humphrey, do you see this ultimate evil as having a will of its own? Is there something that "wants" serial killers to kill? I must admit that Himmler or Jack the Ripper seem different to everyday sinners in more than just degree: they were evil because it was evil, literally for the hell of it.

I would tend to place all the emphasis on the individual, rather than depicting human beings as the playthings of capricious deities. The world has been created by natural laws in order to make it more than just some cosmic puppet theatre where everything changes at the whim of a deity. I think if one looks at certain types of moral evil you find that those acts are the product of a persons world view rather than some kind of neuronal misfiring. Hitler, for example, believed in a kind of remote deistic creator God who had established a struggle for supremacy between the races, which the Germans as the master race were destined to win. Biological laws were thereby given religious significance. It was ok to slaughter millions of Jews and Slavs because they were subhuman beings and carriers of the Bolshevik virus. When you see the world in those terms it is fairly easy to rationally justify gunning down 20,000 people in one day.

[rfmoo]

To reduce the Devil to a trope represented the projected dark side of the human psyche is a strategy parallel to that of Ludwig Feuerbach, who famously reduced God to an projection of the best in human beings. Feuerbach was an atheist. I am not. The Devil (or rather the devils) is a finite created spirit who said no to his Creator. I find it just as easy to believe in a finite spirit as I do to believe in an infinite One. To do otherwise would require me to throw away the testimony of the Bible (especially the New Testament), the doctrines of my Church, and two thousand years of Catholic mystical experience.

Best,

Richard Moorton

[eckadimmock]

Well, the difference between God and the devil is that God is a necessary being: if he exists at all, he must be fundamental to everything else. The devil seems to have no such logical necessity.

Yes, he is mentioned frequently in the Bible, but as far as I can recall only in individual contexts: he does not stage demonstrations to crowds (like God or Jesus do) but whispers and tempts secretly. To me this suggests human nature rather than a separate being.

[element771]

rfmoo,

Could you please elaborate on the 2000 years of Catholic mystical experience?

As a fellow Catholic, I would like to hear your insight on this matter.

Element

[humphreyclarke]

I think I'm going to stick to my theological guns so to speak and continue to see Satan as a manifestation of human nature. Unfortunately, as an Anglican I'm drawing on over 470 years of heresy.

[rfmoo]

Dear Element 771,

I was at work when I chanced upon your entirely reasonable question, and unable to coherently reply under the circumstances. I must admit that my heart sank at the thought of summarizing a vast body of spiritual reportage of varying credibility under changing cultural conditions in any concise way. I say by way of prologue that this answer is not meant to convince the incredulous but simply to give an account of some of the factors that induce me to belief. Obviously I depend upon the goodwill of the reader. He/she who does not believe that demons MAY exist can stop reading now.

The Church approaches mystical experiences with two guides, the scriptures and the tradition of the church, i.e. the accumulated wisdom of generations of catholic clerics and laymen wrestling with the significance of the faith. The biblical evidence seems to me to be very powerful. Jesus was tempted by the Devil and spoke of and to demons often, for example, those sent into the Gadarene swine. If we say this is merely figurative language than I don't see why we shouldn't say that the account of the resurrection is figurative language. In for a penny, in for a pound.

One of the strongest statements in Paul is in Ephesians 6.10ff:

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Likewise 1 Peter 5.8ff is very emphatic:

Be sober, be watchful, . Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

From the beginning of Christianity there have been reports by holy people about very palpable, often visionary battles with the devil, sometimes involving apparitions of hell. We can include, among many many examples, St. Anthony the desert father, Blessed Julian of Norwich (of all people!), Saint Catherine of Sienna, Saint Theresa of Avila, Saint John Vianney, Catherine Emmerich, the Fatima Visionaries, Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, and Padre Pio (who thought that people who didn't believe in the devil were insane). For those who wish a non-Catholic witness, there is the famous example of Luther. These experiences fall under the classification of private revelations, and no Catholic is required to believe any but the public revelations of scripture. But I find it arresting that so many gifted souls, including the founder of our religion, experienced the devil as a personal, malignant evil agent. The accounts of many of these mystics are in accord with Catholic, I had almost said Christian, doctrine.

I am answering a question, not settling an issue. But the Catholic Church has from the days of the Apostles (who seem quite clear on their belief in demons) insisted on the existence of personal, evil, disincarnate beings and from what I see in myself and the world, the claim is a reasonable one.

We must make up our own minds and make our own way. This way is mine.

Best,

Richard Moorton

[hawkinthesnow]

Sept 4, 2008 10:11:29 GMT James Hannam said:

I sometimes wonder if the temptation of Jesus is not him battling with the human side of his nature. He is without sin but, as he is also human, perhaps he is not automatically without sin.

I know the doctrine of the immaculate conception is supposed to explain how Mary manages to produce a sinless child but, um, its not my favourite bit of Catholic doctrine.

Just some idle speculation. I should avoid theology.

Best wishes

James

I like it when you don't avoid it! My view about the Temptation stories are that Jesus is facing up to alternative ways of carrying out his mission. All the methods he rejects involve using the powers available to him in a way that shortcuts what he perceives to be the way of love and humility. They are ways that involve some form of coercion, physical or pyschological. Maybe he saw them as devilish temptations - maybe that is just how they have been written up. That doesn't matter really. What matters is that Jesus chose the only right way, the way that led via the cross.

As to whether there really is a devil - I don't know. I have known a number of people who shortly after they became Christians had very scary experiences of some demonic kind that were utterly terrifying, and which stopped when they called on the name of Jesus. I had such an experience myself within weeks of conversion. Was it an evil spirit? Was it just a psychological glitch? I have absolutely no idea, but I would certainly not want to repeat it!

Unless one is an atheist I see no metaphysical reason why there should not be evil spirits, although how they came to be so is a mystery to me.