Below is a thread at BSA with great insight from Charles Bledsoe and Mike Waddell. They even liked my feeble input.
Does Believing in God Necessarily Mean that One Must Believe in the Reality of a Devil? I Say Not At All, What Say You? Charles Bledsoe – BSA Super Apostle, Apr 18
In anticipation of BSA’s next university-length course, “Demons and Ghosts in the Bible” I’ve been reflecting on the assumption of many believers that being a theist means being a demonist, someone who believes in the existence of demons and a devil. I don’t agree, and thought I’d share my opposing point of view.
If one is a theist, subscribes to the existence of God, does it then necessarily follow that one also subscribes to the reality of a devil, a higher evil power and counterpart of God along the lines of Christianity’s Satan? Well, empirically speaking the answer is of course no. The ancient Israelites don’t seem to have needed to include a devil in their belief framework to go along with Elohim or Yahweh. If the devil was a part of their theology they strangely omitted him from the Hebrew Bible. And of course there have been plenty of theistic philosophers who have devised systems that include, or feature God, but that have no place for the devil.
But what about logical entailment, is belief in a devil logically entailed by belief in God? Firstly, that would of course depend on one’s concept of God. The aforementioned theistic philosophers who have done without a devil envisioned God in ways that didn’t logically entail putting any stock in the veridicality of a spirit of evil. But what about a God not of the philosophers and scholars, but of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (to quote Pascal)? That is, what about a more traditional version of the God-idea; or the generic definition of God found in a dictionary like the OED: “the Supreme Being, regarded as the creator and ruler of the universe”?
I would first point out again that the theism of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob doesn’t seem to have logically entailed the devil if the authors of the Bible were any kind of logicians. But perhaps they weren’t, so I’ll push on. I’ll first preface the argument that I’m about to advance by stipulating, as lawyers say, that the various cosmological and teleological arguments have their weaknesses, such as the fallacy of composition; and to the minds of many stand refuted. And for the modern scientific mind theories such as evolution have diminished, if not eliminated any explanatory need for God. That said, I would argue that in the case of God one might at least see, as the cosmological and teleological arguments and their adherents do, a conceivable need for God to account for the origin of the cosmos, of the order in the world, and of life. But with the devil we face a very different situation.
This is because even withouth modern scientific enlightenment it isn’t really necessary to posit a devil to explain human moral evil. We don’t have to imagine a supernatural being or force influencing the choices and conduct of those who commit immoral and evil acts. Even to a scientifically illiterate or anti-science jury it would fall flat if a defendant in a criminal trial were to use a literal “the devil made me do it” defense, and for good reason. We all realize that human bad actors don’t need to be manipualted by a malignant spirit, that they routinely arrive at their decision to do something naughty all on their own. And so we automatically apply the principle parsimony and rather than multiplying evil entities we attribute evil to the human perpetrator whose hands carried it out.
As well we should, there’s no need to reach for a supernatural explanation such as Satan when it’s as plain as the noses on our faces how human psychological and sociological factors such as egoism and selfishness, will to power and domination, fear and hate, poverty and degradation, poor socialization, and being socialized with the wrong values (as we are in a capitalist society) can cause behavior that might be described as morally evil. Subscribing to a supernaturalistic explanation of evil, such as demonic influence, only servese to mystify evil, not to explain it.
And assigning blame for evil not to a supernatural being but solely to human beings is not new to minds shaped by secular modernity. Judaism has long recognized that we have all of the explanation for human evil we need in what it terms the yetzer hara, the “evil impulse”, which is not an external demonic influence but rather human egoism, selfishness; the capacity and tendency to succumb to self-interest and do something injurious to another for one’s own profit or pleasure.
Free will + yetzer hara = the potential to do evil, and is a ponerological equation that does away with any need for the devil. What this means is that the rational, explanatory need to posit God does not also hold for the devil. One can believe in God and see God’s hand in the goodness in the world without being logically obliged to explain the evil in the world with a supernatural Lord of Evil known as Satan. The logical entailment of belief in the devil is undercut to the point that theism is entirely cut loose from it. Believers in God are cut loose from the superstition of demonism.
There’s another argument against belief in the devil being entailed by belief in God that I don’t care for, and that I doubt many contemporary theists would care for, but it’s one that the authors of the Hebrew Bible would have signed onto. In this line of thought, conceiving of a devil to give a reason for evil is obviated by understanding the all-powerfulness of God to include God being the power behind the destruction that befalls us. After all, the devil is not needed or logically entailed if divine omnipotence means that God is Lord in charge even of all the bad stuff. Yes, the ancient Israelites preferred such an omnipotent God to imagining another supernatural power in control of evil. They only eventually resorted to inventing a devil and apocalyptic dualism when it became obvious that the evils befalling them during the Hellenistic era were undeserved and not being visited on them by a just God.
But of course the most basic argument against the entailment of belief in the devil is simply that it’s bad logic; it just doesn’t follow from the existence of a God that there has to be a devil. The thinking that would make a devil a logically necessary counterpart of God goes that if God is responsible for good then there must be a being of an opposite nature who is responsible for evil. But this reasoning lacks the crucial element of a causal or necessary link, and therefore is something of a non sequitur. And when it’s advanced by the average believer it usually begs the question, it doesn’t adequately take account of alternative explanations—a naturalistic explanation of evil as the result of psychological and social factors; or a yetzer hara built into our human nature by God; or Augustine’s privation theory, according to which evil is the absence or perversion of good, and the devil just an instance of perversion, not the source of evil; etc.—and naively assumes its conclusion.
For all of the above reasons I hold the view that it’s entirely possible, consistent, and logical to be a theist without entertaining, let alone buying into the existence of the devil. If you disagree, please feel welcome to share your thinking. And a related question, is the fact that (as an apocalypticist) Jesus believed in demons and attributed the evils in the world to their power all you need to confirm you in a belief in supernatural evil? Or are you willing to find fault with one of his basic beliefs?
Michael L Waddell – Super Apostle, Apr 19
There’s a lot in this post, and lots to respond to. Is belief in the devil compatible with monotheism? If someone believes in God’s complete sovereignty, that all evil and all good are from his will, what understanding of God results? What different understandings of evil are present in different biblical books? I’d like to turn each of these into a post of its own!
Here, I’ll just say that I agree completely, that belief in God no more implies a belief in the devil than it does a belief in elves or human rights or love at first sight or life after death or any of the many other things people sometimes believe in. In fact, I can imagine a culture believing in the devil, but not God. It’s not logically inconsistent. They might think that the universe is inherently good, and that mankind is naturally good, without the need for an entity to encapsulate that goodness. But they could still believe that evil is real, that it came into being due to a malevolent devil character, and that it’s the duty of mankind to oppose that evil and restore the goodness that was there from the beginning. I don’t know of any religious systems that see things this way, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
Michael L Waddell One thing that can result when people believe that the absolute sovereignty of God means that God is the cause of the evils that befall us is blaming the victim, and internalizing blame. We see this in the Deuteronomistic history and morality of ancient Israel and the authors of the Bible, for whom the evils that befell Israel were not the work of the evil powers believed in by later apocalypticists but rather a divinely-inflicted just consequence of faithlessness. When God is good, and the evil that afflicts us comes from God, what gets inferred is that evil is condign punishment for disobedience and infidelity to the divine. This is an understanding that results, and that alas is still with us today. Although modern-day evangelicals also believe in the devil and attribute evil to him we still find this Deuteronomistic morality cropping up in their thinking when they blame AIDS on its victims, interpreting it as their comeuppance for the sin of homosexuality; or when televangelists blamed 911 on America’s godlessness, etc. Believing in the omnipotence of God doesn’t make for the nicest kind of theism.
Charles Bledsoe – Super Apostle, Apr 19
Michael L Waddell As for the question is belief in God compatible with belief in the existence of a devil, I would say that it depends on one’s conception of God. Certainly we know empirically that it’s compatible in some theologies, because there are indeed a great many theologies that allow for the existence of a devil. Is it logically compatible with a generic dictionary definition of God as “the Supreme Being, regarded as the creator and ruler of the universe”? Although it doesn’t necessarily rule it in, I don’t think that this definition of God really rules out the existence of a devil either. There’s really no logical reason in conventional theism why the reality of both God and the devil can’t be the case. But the argument in my post just concerns the commonly held idea that belief in God necessarily entails belief in a devil. As you’ve gathered from my argument, I don’t think that it does, and my own theology certainly doesn’t require me to subscribe to a supernatural source of evil.
This is a very interesting topic. You guys deserve more that just a “Super Apostle” badge for the many hours you put into these discussions. From the perspective of a guy-in-the pew and perhaps a simpletons approach, IMO “the devil made me do it” is the reason for a devil so that “I” am not responsible for the bad behavior. Combine that with the need to believe in a God who does not do evil and hence a third party, Satan, steps into the drama. Now, God is not responsible for evil; and one day God is going to destroy Satan…per Revelation, et al.
Michael L Waddell – Super Apostle, Apr 20
Tom Davis I love this! We made the devil to let us off the hook for evil, and then we made him ever more powerful until he could let God off the hook for evil. It’s almost Nietzschean.
Tom Davis Thanks for your reply. I think that you’ve astutely identified some of the underlying motivations for people’s devil-belief. But the idea of a devil in the Judeo-Christian tradition seems to have first originated in Jewish apocalypticism, where it was an explanation for the historical evils befalling God’s people in the Hellenistic era even when they were not being unfaithful.
Previously the view of the Deuteronomistic history had been that the bad stuff that happened to Israel was divine punishment for not keeping up its end of its covenant with God, for its infidelity and disobedience. But during the Hellenistic era many Jews looked around and in the mirror and did not see infidelity or any good reason why God should be visiting “His” retributive justice upon them, and so they needed an alternative theory. But if it wasn’t God that was responsible what was? That’s when some minds began developing the idea that there were evil powers, such as Sin and Death, which were personified as actual powers operating in the world; and Satan, who might be the real culprits.
This was the view that was central to Jewish apocalypticism, a religious vision in which these malignant powers currently rule and have their way in the world, hence the evils in it and bad things happening to good people; but eventually God would supernaturally intervene and destroy these powers, and restore Israel to its rightful condition and place. So Devil-belief emerged in the apocalyptic worldview as a solution for the problem of the tendency of evil to unjustly be the fate of Israel, and those who deserve better; and it was a part of apocalypticism’s fantasy of an ultimate liberation from evil, and the destruction of Israel’s enemies—something that served as a coping mechanism.
But of course the belief has gone on to develop a life of its own, apart from apocalypticism, and continues to have appeal to a great many Christians for other reasons, some of which you’ve identified.
Michael L Waddell Actually it seems that the devil was invented by Hellenistic-era Jewish apocalypticists who had already come to the conclusion that God wasn’t on the hook for the evils befalling Israel, that they were no longer divine retribution. These apocalypticists then needed an alternative explanation, and came up with the idea that the world was ruled by evil powers, personified Death and Sin, and Satan. At first then devil-belief wasn’t really about letting anyone off the hook for evil, it was about accounting for the continuing domination and oppression of Israel by foreign powers even when it wasn’t guilty of infidelity to its covenant with God. It emerged after God had already been excluded as the cause of evil. Then eventually of course people who held a belief in the devil began using it in the ways you describe, and using the ole the devil made me do it defense. But its historical beginnings were specific to Israel’s historical situation, and not about exonerating God
This post inspired my latest query: So what is monotheism anyway?
I believe in the Biblical God yet I don’t believe in a Devil the way popularly defined, i.e., a sort of demigod so powerful that God has not been able to defeat the Devil after many thousands of years.
But the Book of Genesis only described a serpent who told Eve the truth in a Divine Duty to tempt her. (This is proved since God’s words in Gen 3:22 match the serpent’s words in Gen 3:4). The Book of Job described Satan as a heavenly being who approached God with a proposal to tempt Job. We next encounter Satan tempting Jesus (which was Divinely required to prove Jesus’ fitness).
This is less scary than a Hollywood movie. The Biblical duty of Satan was to be a Tempter. That’s the Devil, I say. And everybody will admit the reality of temptation.
Beyond that, however, we must explain the existence of Evil. If there is no Satan, then obviously Evil exists because God permits it.
Yet, for many like Bart Ehrman, to say that is to deny a God of Love. Logically, then, History itself tends to contradict Christianity. That, I take it, is somewhat the argument that led Dr. Ehrman to quit Christianity as he knows it.
So does God permit Evil to exist, or is the Devil the equal of God in power? I ask because with or without the Devil, I’m very sure that Evil exists. I’m speaking, of course, about War.
The human tendency to invade other nations seems nearly universal — as universal as the human tendency to combat invaders. So, history has been largely the history of wars between nations, punctuated by civil wars.
Evil exists. Christianity, the Religion of Loving, claims to be the solution to the problem. It looks good on paper. Will it finally work?
Paul Trejo The Hebrew Bible’s ha-satan is not the devilish Satan of Christian belief. That figure emerged later in apocalyptic literature, he isn’t to be found in the Jewish scriptures. As for the serpent in the Garden, I prefer the Jewish view that it’s a personification of the yetzer-hara, the human capacity and inclination to take wrong, bad, and evil choices and actions, not a guise of the devil.
I disagree that it’s obvious that evil exists because God permits it to. That’s only an obvious assumption if one believes in divine sovereignty and omnipotence, if one conceives God’s power to be controlling and unlimited. There’s an alternative theological view, which accords primacy in God’s nature to love, noncoercive and noncontrolling love, rather than to power; and, further, which views God as in and of nature, an ultimate individualization and factor of the universe’s creativity and creative freedom, not something that transcends and controls and sometimes cancels it to impose “His” will. According to this view it isn’t the case that God chooses to allow evil; rather, God can’t prevent it, and instead God’s MO is to try to persuade us against perpetrating it, and when unsuccessful at that to try to bring renewal and something constructive out of our destructive actions. To my mind this is a much better theology than any theology that puts God on the hook for permitting evil and suffering.
In this theology then history, its terrors and tragedies, doesn’t at all contradict or discredit belief in a loving God, it only goes to show that that God is not also a God of controlling and dominative power.
As for Christianity being the potential solution for the problem of war and evil, my view would be that historical, traditional, orthodox Christianity has a track record that already answers that question in the negative. If it’s ever going to become a part of the solution rather than the problem of evils such as bigotry, racism, patriarchy, authoritarianism, capitalism, imperialism, war, et al., it’s going to have to become a lot more woke (for me that word only has positive connotations).
Charles Bledsoe …So, we agree that the Hebrew Scriptures do not portray the traditional Christian portrait of Satan, but rather the yetzer-hara of Temptation.
Still, I believe in God’s Omnipotence — and I’m surprised if somebody uses the word “God” without the idea of Omnipotence (though Omnipotence to me is not synonymous with obsessive control).
Natural Law (God’s Design) does account for every minute detail of existence. Yet I see Natural Law as “Unconscious control” rather than the “deliberate control” that some erroneously ascribe to God (e.g., “Why did God do this to ME?”)
Your conclusion, that “God cannot prevent Evil,” sounds strange to me. I prefer to say that God created Free Will in us and then permits us work out the consequences in full freedom — with God knowing full well the countless disasters that could bring.
We agree that God is Love, but in what way? King James’ poet-priest John Donne wrote that we know God loves us, “because God feeds us — not only with meat but with fat, and not only with fat but with marrow.” I agree that the enormous physical, moral, artistic, intellectual pleasures we enjoy in life (which we wish would never end) are ample proof of God’s Love for us.
Our monotheism tells us that One God created the world on Earth — yet it is a food chain with predators and prey. This existed before Humans existed (as GENESIS says). Science has uncovered the remains of dinosaurs (not mentioned in GENESIS) with evidence that even these creatures were divided into predators and prey.
So, it seems the terrors of a food chain were plainly God’s Design. It was God’s good pleasure to create that, as the ancients would say.
Further, says Genesis 6:3, each human being has a maximum of 120 years to live. (I’ve seen no verified exception to that in history.) This means that physical Death is built-in to Creation – including the great sorrow of watching our family members die.
I don’t call that Evil; simply Natural. And though human death has been conquered by Jesus Christ, that implies eternal SPIRITUAL Life, not eternal PHYSICAL Life, so, even Christians must endure PHYSICAL Death.
So, True Evil must be beyond the food chain and beyond individual death — and that’s why I say True Evil is war, terrorism, sadism, insane power, slavery, and oppression. In a word, inhumanity.
Why did God create a world with these possibilities? It seems to me that our duty as Christians is to Fight Evil at all costs, and help enact God’s Will for World Peace. We are still trying and still failing.
Paul Trejo Thank you for your reply. Your theology is somewhat more conventional than mine. I subscribe to an admittedly, and unabashedly radical theology. But although some of our fundamental views are quite different, your heart is very much in the right place; and I certainly don’t take issue with your view that God desires world peace.
