One of the most persistent phenomena in the theological thought of our era is the resistance to belief in a personal agent of evil—a devil—who masterminds the morally destructive forces in our world. Even some who find no difficulty in believing in a personal Deity seem to face immovable mental barriers to the acceptance of the biblical understanding of Satan as a personal prince of evil. Theological polls show that the majority of clergy in our time doubt whether such a being as Satan exists.
Should this majority opinion among theologians and clergymen prove to be wrong, it might well be the supreme irony of our time that those trusted to warn the people against the evil one should seek to surpass one another in denying his existence.
This bold departure from historic belief seems to demand some substitute tenet. Merely to deny the existence of a prince of evil has evidently been insufficient. Nor has it been enough merely to assert that the scriptural understanding of a personal devil was derived from the mythology of Babylonia and Persia, or more specifically, from the dualistic system of Zoroaster.
One of the fashionable evasions has been substitution of the concept of “the demonic” for that of the devil. The term has frequently remained imprecise, even undefined. In general, however, it suggests that the structures of the world embody elements of an impersonal sort that coerce or even compel men to evil.
At times, the “demonic” is held to operate primarily in individuals. In other cases, it is said to be manifested in collective “entities” or situations. Whether regarded as individual or social, it is often held to inhere in a wrong-headed assertion of human power or ambition.
Reinhold Niebuhr in his Gifford Lectures (I, pp. 180 f.) sketches a correct understanding of the “Biblical satanology”—but of course without himself accepting that view. While tracing the scriptural view of Satan to Babylonian and Persian sources, he feels compelled to recognize elements of profound truth in this view, especially the insight that something preceded human transgression.
But Niebuhr does not clearly define what this something may have been. He seems to say that some positive drive or force preceded the sin of humans, a force summed up in the formula “sin posits itself.” This of course drains the scriptural understanding of its propositional accuracy, and leads him to his conclusion that sin is not a “perverse individual defiance of God.”
Sin is thus held to pre-exist, but only, it seems, as a possibility inherent in the structures of finiteness and freedom. In this view, actual transgression would stem from a wrong and prideful assertion of autonomy, rather than from a voluntary yielding to an external solicitation to evil. Thus there seems to be in prominent theological circles a studied distaste for any belief in a personal tempter who solicits men and women to undertake a voluntary and willful contravention of God’s known will.
What is held, rather, is that the whole of historical reality bears a contagious admixture of sin, and prompts individual transgression. Man is led astray by his rootage in nature and the involvement of all his institutions in the relativities of history. And the demonic quality of institutions, especially economic and political ones, stems, not from their corruption through their inclusion of corrupt persons, but from their false claim of absoluteness for themselves.
It is remarkable that theologians feel no need for a concrete embodiment of evil in a person. Even many poets and dramatists who are far from Christian in their outlook sense a practical requirement at this point. Goethe’s Faust would have been ineffective as a drama and unrealistic as a portrayal of life without its Mephistopheles. Wagner’s Lohengrin has its Ortrud, his Parsifal its Kundry. It does not detract from the force of this argument that Mephistopheles was hardly an “orthodox” devil, or that Kundry was eventually shown to have been redeemed. Writers of genius often reflect the common sense of the plain man; and so it seems to be in this case.
One is inclined to ask upon what basis leading theologians feel they can without loss dispense with belief in a personal devil. It scarcely explains the phenomenon to suggest that this denial is a part of a larger rejection of dualism. After all, the duality of good⸬evil persists; it seems in no way deprived of its sting by being depersonalized. Nor is the explanation that the doctrine of Satan is of pagan origin satisfactory, for it is possible that sources other than our Judeo-Christian tradition may have an adequate grasp upon certain essential and realistic elements in the moral area.
Rejection of what Niebuhr calls the “Biblical satanology” is clearly the result of a pattern of deeper spiritual apostasy. There has been in our time a lessening of the sense of man’s spiritual emergency. Once his lostness without Christ was sensed vividly within Christian circles, but recent decades have brought a sharp decline of this emphasis. Closely related to this, and indeed underlying it, is the loss of the belief that sin causes a breach between the sinner and God.
With the loss of these poignant awarenesses, the critical problem of temptation as a solicitation to sin coming from outside the individual became less serious. Some have maintained that the supposed existence of Satan jeopardizes the proper understanding of human freedom, and thus weakens man’s sense of personal responsibility. In reply, we would suggest that the temptation of our Lord is a highly instructive paradigm for understanding the question in hand. The records of this event bear unequivocal witness to the reality of a personal Tempter who had access to the inner mental processes of Jesus Christ.
Nothing is more clear in this account than the fact that Christ experienced the temptation as from a personal being of great wisdom and deep malice. It is further clear that this was no sham battle but an encounter that shook his divine Person to the depths. Thus those who reject the existence of a personal embodiment of evil in a concrete and malicious being must cast the most serious aspersions upon our Lord’s understanding and integrity. Interestingly, no one has ventured to suggest that the circumstances surrounding his temptation compromised his freedom or his personal responsibility.
The rejection of belief in a personal agent who masterminds the massive forces of evil in our world is part of a larger package of theological denial. Involved is the integrity of the Word, the credibility of our Lord, and the larger understanding of the issues of sin and of redemption. Certainly no one would wish to make belief in Satan an explicit item in the Christian creed. But those who regard the concept as expendable face major theological difficulties.
HAROLD B. KUHN
