In a grad school course on Milton we found critics of “Paradise Lost” who believe Satan was so well depicted in that epic as to be a tragic hero. Wm. Blake noted that Satan was so well drawn in “Paradise Lost” because Milton was a member of the devil’s party without knowing it.
Satan falls from heaven and becomes God"s adversary. In “Job” Satan gets God to bet on Job’s soul. In the desert Jesus is tempted by Satan. I would ask here if God needs an adversary and what, if anything, does this need say about the Christian religion.
Methinks that to Christians if you don’t believe in Satan you may as well be an atheist.
The need for an adversary is not evident.
To some, Satan is almost an equal. Manichaeism was still an influence in the mind of Augustine, perhaps the most influential Christian after Paul.
But Augustine rejected that early influence, perhaps unintentionally too strongly, and made Satan, quite frankly, superfluous and unnecessary.
Satan, like other symbols, was interpreted in many ways. Not as much a necessary adversary, he was a necessary scapegoat. It answered the question: wherefore evil? If he was logically unnecessary for the religion, he was still necessary for the perplexed.
It’s amazing how much rests on Paradise Lost.
I remember one time realizing something I thought from the bible, was from some Milton poem.
Please expand on Augustine’s belief. I read “Confessions” and must confess that it left me cold. Here was a man, confused by his own sexuality (Fox), who sublimates that confusion into religious dogma. Did he really rid us of the God/Satan duality? Or did he merely expand on his own psychological conundrums?
Many things people say about the Bible come from Shakespeare.
For many religious conservatives there are three books to be read: the Bible, Paradise Lost, and Pilgrim’s Progress.
Milton was an intellectual. For me it was surprizing to read how he thought all pagan dieties were Satan’s generals. He had no concept of the evolution of beliefs. For him the war between God and Satan explained Christianity. Of course this belief goes back to Zoroaster and Manes, but it is still accepted by many Christians.
Yes, to most Christian conservatives that’s the case.
The devil really plays havoc with those that sincerely seek to “Follow the Father” thru the Holy Spirit. I know one such sister as we speak. We talk frequently. She shares her efforts to only listen to God in her daily decisions.
And she’ll get something. God speaks to her. But it’s thru symbolism, and what secular people would call synchronicities. So she begins to cipher the message. She calls me to help understand what God is trying to tell her. My typical response is that I don’t have a clue what God is trying to tell her.
She works on the problem for days. And then she calls asking me if it could be the devil trying to trick her. This has happened so many times that I’ve lost count. Of course I tell her I don’t know what the devil is up to either.
Sad thing is, following God in this way has had serious consequences, and has produced a lifetime of tragedy and extreme hardship for both her and her son.
So maybe it is Satan talking to her … that tricky SOB
It never occurs to people that we’re our own devil. The devil(s) of lore are our pathetic attempt to externalize and scapegoat our potential for evil.
tentative: it never occurs to people that we’re our own devil. The devil(s) of lore are our pathetic attempt to externalize and scapegoat our potential for evil.
K: tentative has the right idea and pathetic just about covers it.
Kropotkin
“Satan” was merely the earlier version of the CIA, “the Serpent”, to allow the Godwannabes to control both the seen and unseen, thus always shrouded in mystery. Because what was is seen is always what is accused, the agency is only used to do the bad that is to be blamed on someone/thing else. Once Adham’s version was seen, Adham had to hide his “nasty doings” behind “fig leaves”, the sign of good fruit.
“Satan’s greatest trick was to convince the world that he/it didn’t exist.”
Keeping Secrets
Someone has to pay for that World Intelligence Agency. You know, that one that “doesn’t exist”.
He was retained, yes, but in Augustine’s haste to distance himself from Manichaeism, he made Satan irrelevant. He placed God alone as the one power in reality and resolved to abstain from questioning God and merely submit, in spite of the mystery that evil remained. Satan remained, like us, as an effect of a mysterious will.
Voice,
Perhaps the speaker is one part of her psyche and the listener is another.
Hi, JT,
I agree with this to some extent. But–I’d go more into the psychology of a need for an adversary as we witness in wars. For primitives the drive to survive entailed interaction with what is other than the Self. The Other became the force that could deny survival, hence the adversary. This seems to me to be a more direct account of the origins of the Adversary than our modern psychological assessments of the Shadow or the Scapegoat can make.
Surley Augustine was smart enough to realize that if evil is God’s will it’s here for a the Good.
Back to Milton–He describes the Fall of Man as “fortunate” in that it proffered salvation. I don’t know about you, but for me the idea of being allowed to be ill in order to be healed later is nonsense. Why couldn’t we just have stated out with original blessing, as Matthew Fox notes instead of with original sin? For Milton, and for many Chritians today, the snake in Eden, the deceiver, was Satan. The adversary is still seen as Other, not Self.
P.K. Good to see you here!
So you see the whole problem of the adversary as a lingering conspiracy?
We did start out perfect, but with a free will, just as Lucifer was created. Lucifer was the most beautiful, powerful angel created by God. [All angels are male, by the way] Angels also were given a free will and Lucifer [Satan] rebelled against God and was cast out. All the angels that followed him, [became his demons] were also cast out of heaven. He is the father of lies and the great deceiver. Adam was not tempted, but the woman. Adam’s sin was that he decided to believe what Eve told him instead of obeying the instruction of God, thus, all humanity was plunged into sin. Adam became prideful when he thought that he could be like God [just as Satan thinks-that’s why the rebellion] “Their eyes were opened.” Yes, they were deceived, however, they DID commit the sin by making the decision to choose to. We all now, as Adam’s descendents, have to deal with our own sin nature every day. We had it all in the garden! Perfect health, environment, provision, etc, but we wanted more!
Yes, the Bible does produce such schizophrenia in some believers. As it’s impossible to coincide writings from the bronze age with reality today.
No. I see the “adversary” is merely a logical consequence.
I see Satanism is a conspiracy, more commonly referred to as the “Occult”.