"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist" is a quote from the 1995 movie by Bryan Singer called The Usual Suspects and is an old adage from responses to the Enlightenment-era philosophers and advocates of Higher Criticism of the Bible regarding the Devil. This "A Case for the Devil" is to advocate for his personal existence and to argue against him as being merely a narrative foil. From Britannica we discover: Since the Enlightenment, Christian theologians who found the mythical pictures of Satan to be irrelevant,
HERMENEUTICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY
Dr. Zuckerman belittles his audience, first with caricatures of Satan or of demons and then, with rhetorical weapons that are intent on discrediting any individual who posits the existence of not only Satan but also of angels, of Heaven and of God, by writing: "Demons? Really? What, with horns? Tails? Yellow teeth? Or are they invisible demons?" That is overt caricature.2 Mocking one's opponents does not win the argument. Those who believe in Satan, as learned in Scripture, do not believe in a cartoonish, embarrassingly-silly figure, but as the spiritual Enemy of God and of His special creation. We do not portray him as possessing yellow teeth, red skin, two horns and a pointed tail.
But we must always consider one's hermeneutic in our criticism: Zuckerman is a naturalist, one who advances evolution proper, and denies the existence of the spiritual / metaphysical and to this presupposition he must remain faithful. His hermeneutic cannot even remotely consider the possibility of God, gods, angels, demons, spirits / souls. All that exists is the natural. So, for him, any notion of "the Devil" is, according to his own words for those who argue for the existence of such, "magical," "wrong," "infantile," "unscientific," and "irrational." Zuckerman's is not a winning strategy. I could use these expressions to mock his self-refuting presuppositional naturalistic ignorance but that would neither advance knowledge nor create the atmosphere for rational and critical thinking and open and fair dialogue.
Dr. Zuckerman naturally concludes: "How can anyone with even a basic knowledge of history and psychology, science and anthropology, mythology and logic, believe that there is an immortal evil being running around doing evil things? It is so absurd as to be pathetic." His emotional response borders on the logical fallacy of ad hominem. He offers not an ounce of actual substance to support his screed. He is intent on degrading anyone who thinks otherwise and he is in need of a lesson on avoiding abuse of logical fallacies. He imagines that, because he cannot study what others refer to as the metaphysical, then the metaphysical cannot, does not, and must not exist. But how can he possibly know this from an epistemological stance? How can he be absolutely certain about the absence of the metaphysical and render such emotionally-driven, fundamentalistic, and dogmatic conclusions? Does stomping one's proverbial feet now make screeds to be true?
SATAN AS THE PERSONIFICATION OF EVIL
There remain well-meaning persons vying for both the position of Satan as being merely the foil of a narrative throughout the scriptures, without him actually (substantively yet metaphysically) existing, and Satan as a personal fallen angel who opposes God and God's creation. Passing moral, ethical, and intellectual judgments upon those of any position echoes far more volume about the character of the individual rendering such judgments than upon those espousing their respective views. Believing in the existence of Satan does not render one an uneducated baboon (and since when has anyone felt threatened over anyone believing in legends and fables?) any more than not believing in the existence of Satan renders one a proverbial godless devil. Can we not think and speak better about those from whom we differ?
Even those of us who are dogmatic about belief in the existence of Satan as a spiritual entity can agree that he is the personification of evil--even though advocates of the Satan-as-the-personification-of-evil position deny his actual and personal existence. The latter proffer that, poetically, "the Snake," "the Devil," "Satan," "Beelzebul" (or "Beelzebub"), "the Beast," "the Dragon," &c. refer to the existence of evil (though evil does not exist ontologically3). In the history of world religions, with gods, goddesses, angels, demons, and other metaphysical creatures of legend or myth, evil occurrences are explained in narrative form with various epithets. Ancient peoples reserved a god for nearly every instance of life: e.g., the need for rain, crop-growth, child-bearing, industry, war, food. Good is ascribed to gods (God) and evil to demons.
There is another philosophical position to consider. From Britannica we learn: "According to the 20th-century Russian philosopher Nikolay Berdyayev, like the Germans Friedrich Schelling and Franz von Baader before him, the Devil has no true personality and no genuine reality and, instead, is filled with an insatiable 'hunger for reality,' which he can attain by stealing reality from the people of whom he takes possession." I fail to see how non-reality can possess reality. That appears to be a contradiction. If this philosophical Devil possesses no character traits, no personality and no ontological persona, then how is this Devil defined or characterized? If this philosophical Devil "has no genuine reality" then he does not exist in an effort to possess a personality or existence in human form. This is, simply, nonsensical.
HERMENEUTICS AND THE BIBLE
Not only does one's hermeneutic determine one's view of Satan, as either a personal reality or a mere literary figure, but so does one's view of the Bible. I view the scriptures as history regarding historical accounts. I view the poetry in the scriptures as just that, poetry, and not always to be taken literally. Form matters. Whether we consider the Garden narrative of Genesis, or the discussion between God and Satan in the book Job, we are obliged to consider form and narrative in our interpretation. The snake of Genesis, then, need not be an actual snake in poetic form but merely representative of the Person or Entity of Satan talking with Eve (Rev. 12:9). Moreover, given that Job is the oldest book in Hebrew Scripture, the fact that the narrative of Genesis is chosen as the opening book in the canon grants us a clue as to how we might approach this library of books.4 The Bible, we must insist, is not a theological textbook (and certainly not an "owner's manual").
The issue of inspiration and authority aside, as many books are available on the subjects, I consider the Bible to be the Word of God and not merely the opinions of man. I agree with B.B. Warfield: "The Bible is the Word of God in such a way that, when the Bible speaks, God speaks." Whether or not the snake in the Garden is a literal talking snake is irrelevant to one's spiritual state or salvation. Whether or not Satan is a real entity is also irrelevant to one's spiritual state or salvation. May we neither demonize those who believe in Satan as a real entity, as do I and others, nor anathematize those who reject the same. All regenerate people are brothers and sisters in Christ by grace through faith.
A CASE FOR SATAN
I. THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES
I can understand the perspective of Satan as a literary figure perceived throughout Scripture without him being an person. Often, in the Hebrew scriptures, satan refers not to the person / entity Satan but to an enemy.5 The legend of Satan being a fallen angel who rebels against God is first presented by Origen (185-254 CE), who allegorizes Isaiah 14:3-23 and Ezekiel 28:1-10; while Jerome (345-420 CE), author of the Latin Vulgate, translates "the Morning Star" as "Lucifer" (Isa. 14:12; Revelation 22:16). "The Bible tells us nothing of Satan's origins."6 We do ourselves and others a service to think critically and not be careless or presumptuous when engaging the scriptures on the subject of Satan.
Moreover, from The Baker Illustrated Bible Dictionary, we discover that, in the Hebrew Bible, "evil spirit" may also refer to some semblance of a "heavenly" being sent by God for His purposes (1 Sam. 16:14-23; 18:10; 19:9; 1 Kings 22:22-23). Is that entity demonic? Furthermore, in those scriptures, extensive rebuke is warranted toward those who engage in "the superstitions of the surrounding nations that included belief in [or worship of] demons (Deut. 32:17; Ps. 106:37; perhaps Isa. 13:21; cf. Rev. 18:2)."7 In other words, when Gentiles worship and offer sacrifices to false gods, they sacrifice to and worship actual demons (cf. 1 Cor. 8:1-6). Right theological belief, in fact, matters.
II. THE CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES
The New Testament offers clarity, I and many others throughout Christian history think, with regard to Satan as a person (a real entity) and his followers we call demons or devils. Jesus' recorded encounters and conversations with Satan do not appear mere literary form. We might accept the notion that Satan represents a foil within the narrative of the life of Jesus. Satan, then, is viewed as Jesus' personal enemy--the one attempting to thwart His mission to heal and to save fallen humanity--but a person regardless. But Jesus does not speak of Satan in mere literary terms: He treats Satan genuinely as a real rational and personal being with whom one may converse and personally interact.
Jesus is led by the Holy Spirit into a desert area for forty days and is, in that area, tempted by the Devil (Luke 4:1-2). The Devil--διάβολος, i.e., the slanderer, the false accuser, the one who innately criticizes unjustly in order to harm, the condemner, the relationship-severer--tests the veracity of Jesus. This enemy of all good tempts Jesus to trust in Himself rather than God His Father (Luke 4:3), to gain authority by declaring Satan worthy of worship (Luke 4:5-8), and then to prove His divinity as the Son of God by attempting to commit suicide in order to be rescued by God His Father (Luke 4:9-12). Jesus answers Satan contrariwise in every instance with the Word of God ("It is written"). "When the devil had finished every test, he departed [as a personal being] from Him until an opportune time" (Luke 4:13). He will return.
Whether we consider Satan, the Devil, or demons (fallen angels), Jesus addresses each of them, and interacts with them, neither as mere literary figures nor as mythical legends but as authentic and personal entities. Kevin J. Conner notes that personal pronouns relating to Satan evince "intelligence, knowledge, will and action" (cf. Matt. 4:6; 25:41; 2 Cor. 2:11; 11:14-15; 2 Tim. 2:26).
Jesus depicts Satan as the original murderer and the father or originator of Lies (John 8:44). Paul suggests that Satan blinds the minds of those who remain in their unbelief (2 Cor. 4:4). He is called the enemy (Matt. 13:39), the wicked one (1 John 5:18-19), and, among other names, the adversary of the people of God and of God in Trinity (1 Pet. 5:8).8 If one suggests that impressions such as these belong to the age of superstitions among the uneducated then he is de facto charging the eternal and omniscient Creator, Jesus, as much the uneducated fool as any mortal. I can imagine a non-believer proposing such a conclusion, because that is natural for the non-regenerate in his fallen condition, but not the professed believer in Jesus, who should know better. Read the Word, believer, and believe Jesus' perspective on this issue.
In the New Testament, Jesus encounters demons (devils), and people who are possessed by demons (as occurs even today). Such passages are immediately discounted as silly by most psychologists today, granting, rather, diagnoses of schizophrenia or other cognitive disorders by way of explanation, diagnoses firmly based upon the hermeneutic that Satan and demons do not exist. After a night in prayer, Jesus descends from a mountain and heals a man who has leprosy (Matt. 8:1-4), heals the servant of a Centurion (Matt. 8:5-13), heals a group of people with various illnesses at the apostle Peter's house (Matt. 8:14-17), and then encounters two men possessed of demons (Matt. 8:28-29), casts the demons out of the men, allowing the demons to possess a herd of pigs who then plunge off of a steep hill and into the water to their death (Matt. 8:29-34). Shall we choose which to believe in this chapter: believe that Jesus cures those in need of healing but disbelieve the demonic encounters? By what standard? Who is authorized to believe one but not the other? Believe Jesus in the Word, believer.
Luke records the occasion of the above-referenced demonic activity in the following manner: Jesus encounters a man possessed by multiple demons and converses with a spokesman of the demons: "Then Jesus asked him, 'What is your name?' He replied, 'Legion,' because many demons had entered him. And they pleaded with him not to order them to depart to the abyss" (see Luke 8:26-31). Thomas Schreiner comments that "the abyss would be the realm of the underworld where some demons were confined (Rev. 9:1-11)"9; cf. the fallen angels cast into hell by God at 2 Peter 2:4. The textual footnote of the New American Bible revised edition reads: "Abyss: the place of the dead (Rom. 10:7) or the prison of Satan (Rev. 20:3) or the subterranean 'watery deep' that symbolizes the chaos before the order imposed by creation (Gen. 1:2)." The place is real and the subjects are real. Otherwise we are arbitrarily choosing what to believe. Are we smarter than Jesus--the eternal Creator of all (John 1:1, 2, 3; Col. 1:16)? Are we more informed than the Holy Spirit (2 Tim. 3:16)?
At another occasion, Jesus grants a judgment about the disbelieving culture of His day, suggesting an insidious outcome: "When a demon has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless [desert] regions looking for a resting place [within, preferably, a human being--or perhaps an object connected to a person], but it finds none. Then it says, 'I will return to my house from which I came.' When it comes, it finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there; and the last state of that person is worse than the first" (Matt. 12:43-45). Who among sincere believers in Jesus Christ is willing to arrogantly insist that Jesus has not one clue as to what He is referencing regarding the activity of demons? Shall the student now inform the Teacher?
FAITH AND EPISTEMOLOGY
Quoting Scripture is futile to the one who does not believe in its divine inspiration--to the one who does not believe in any god or any metaphysical reality. I might as well be quoting from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and attempt to convince the reader that its contents are fact and not fiction. Even the "skeptic believer" could suggest that quoting Jesus is not directly quoting Jesus since what we have in Scripture is what authors proffer as the words of Jesus. Belief in Satan, then, requires as much faith as belief in God as Creator, in Jesus as Messiah, and the Holy Spirit as the One who indwells the believer, enlightens the hearts and minds of non-believers, and restrains the Evil One from destroying humanity (2 Thess. 2.6). The Bible is akin to a fairy tale to such persons--or, at the very least, mere opinions of the uneducated.
But, I argue, how much more faith is required in believing in gods and and angels and demons than in the eternality of an uncaused universe--that something sprang into being from nothing? No one can know exactly the age of planets and solar systems and stars. No one can know exactly their origin. What of the Grand Elephant in the Room of the missing animal-link between apes and human beings? Is faith not required here also? Is the late Dr. Thomas S. Kuhn not correct in assessing that, at times, we are "at liberty to suppose that somewhere along the way the scientist has intuitively abstracted rules of the game for himself, but there is little reason to believe it" (emphasis added)?10 The Big Bang theory does not explain the origins of life--only that the universe is expanding. But where did matter derive its existence?
Moreover, apart from immense and direct revelation, how could ancient prophets, ancient authors of Scripture, know that the universe is expanding (Job 9:8; Ps. 104:2; Zech. 12:1)? Perhaps the Creator of the universe, which He spoke into being (Gen. 1:1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, 26; John 1:1, 2, 3; Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:2, 3), which He maintains (Col. 1:17; Heb. 1:3), the universe He is expanding, is the One who revealed such mysteries to them. Is this not at least possible? I can think of None else. Can you? Without modern technology they could not have known.
CONCLUSION
I believe in the actual and spiritual reality and personal existence of Satan, and of demons and angels and other heavenly beings mentioned in the scriptures (Rev. 4:6-8), because I trust in Jesus--and Jesus is why I trust Scripture. I cannot know with any degree of certainty--under the strict scientific rules of observation--because I cannot go back two millennia and observe Jesus and hear the words He spoke and watch the authors record those general words as He spoke them in the Christian scriptures (just as none of us can do with the writings of Plato, Aristotle, Zeno of Elea, Diogenes, Archelaus, Plotinus, Epictetus, Cicero) and still I have faith that those words are the words of Jesus because of the eye-witness accounts of Jesus, His Words, and His Life. I do believe, however, to have had an encounter with a devil.
I was attending a Bible College in Columbus, Ohio, when my doormmate and I encountered the presence of an evil spirit in our room. We both had finished our homework, just before midnight, and went to bed. We had to rise early for class. We could hear two guys across the hall from us praying rather loudly, and we scoffed at first, asking whether they had to be up at midnight praying so zealously. The praying came to a crescendo and then there was silence. Just then, I felt the presence of an entity enter the room, though I could see no one (there was a nightlight on so we had some light in the room). I said to my roommate: "Do you feel that?" He said: "I thought it was just me." I said: "Well, we are covered by the blood of Jesus, and no harm will come to us." The presence left and we were quite startled. The next day we asked and discovered that one of our neighbors had gone to those two guys to pray for him because he felt oppressed by a devil. The devil, we believe, departed from him and then went in search of someone to inhabit--as Jesus said devils do (Matt. 12:43, 44, 45).
I believe the words in Scripture purporting to be the words of Jesus (and the words of God and that the Bible is God's Word) to be His actual words because of the meticulous tradition of transcribing in the first century11 and the promise of Spirit-oversight from Jesus (John 14:26; cf. 1 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:16-21). Allow this closing thought to challenge you at this juncture: Literary critics do not maintain any suspicions regarding the authenticity of the works and of the words of Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus or Homer, the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, or Euripides, or the histories of Herodotus and Thucydides. But an entirely different hermeneutical method, with accompanied suspicion, is assumed with regard to first-century authors of the Christian scriptures. This, I think, is telling--and the telling ain't good. Think on it.
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1 The method of demythologization originates in theological circles with Rudolph Bultmann. "He understood the word 'myth' to be a way to communicate one's faith to others in a time- and culturally-dependent way." So, if we today imagine that notions of Satan and demons are silly and irrelevant, then we re-imagine them as, for example, literary forms and cast them in a new role--that of representation. "Some critics have argued that the term 'demythologize' should be changed to 'remythologize,' admitting that any interpretation today is just as limited and time-constrained as an interpretation from an earlier century in the history of the church." An Episcopal Dictionary of the Church: A User-Friendly Reference for Episcopalians, eds. Don S. Armentrout and Robert Boak Slocum (New York: Church Publishing, Inc., 2000), 144.
2 Rather than a vision of a red-skinned being with horns and hooves, the scriptures present Satan as an angel, albeit an angel who decides, freely, to rebel against God and God's creatures. There is no indication that the rebellion of Satan, or Lucifer, caused a manifest change in his appearance. As a matter of fact, Paul states that Satan and his fallen angelic followers can appear as an angel of Light, or Righteousness, and thus deceive people. So, the red-horned caper is quite the cartoonish figure of one's colorful imagination. That Dr. Zuckerman mockingly asks, "Or are they invisible demons?" only begs the question, "Would not all metaphysical sentient beings be invisible?" Given that, theoretically, spirits do not possess physical bodies, their metaphysical existence as spirits would, by necessity, require their innate invisible qualities (unless they, by the power of God, are capable of revealing their presence, cf. Gen. 16:7-11; Luke 1:11-19).
3 "Evil" is a name given to negative circumstances, bad and unwanted occurrences, and a malicious intent on promoting or carrying out harm and suffering. Such must be accomplished by an individual or a substance. Evil does not exist in itself. Evil is not a substance. The same can be said of sin. Sin only exists with reference to entities. Even some Episcopalians believe in sin, evil, and Satan as a real entity. Samuel Wells, Dean of Duke University Chapel and Research Professor of Christian Ethics at Duke Divinity School, contextualizes sin as "living as if there were no God, no grace of God, no creation to remember or kingdom to hope for, no forgiveness to redeem the past or eternal life to focus the future, no faith, no hope, no love." All of these contexts require a living being and, hence, sin cannot exist, like evil, apart from any entity. Dr. Wells continues: Sin is "living outside the narrative of God--without regard to the creation, the covenant with Israel, the revelation in Christ, the existence of the church, the consummation on the last day--and making one's own narrative instead." See Samuel Wells, What Episcopalians Believe: An Introduction (New York: Morehouse Publishing, 2011), 22.
4 Recall that the primary purpose of the books we call Bible is the outlining of salvation history from conception to fall to redemption to ultimate consummation. The authors and editors and collators of the Hebrew scriptures are concerned more so with the salvation and triumph of the God of Israel than with a chronological history. Drs. H.L. Ellison and D.F. Payne note, of Genesis, "In [chapters] 1-11 we have the beginnings of man's history, in which we are told all that need be known to understand God's purposes of salvation; in [chapters] 12-50 we are told of the beginnings of Israel. But what we are given is virtually only salvation history (Heilsgeschichte, cf. Theology of the OT, p. 65). Even as the first book gives a minimum outline, so it is in the second, which is concerned mainly with the primacy of faith and of individual response." See H.L. Ellison and D.F. Payne, "Genesis," in The International Bible Commentary with the New International Version, eds. F.F. Bruce, H.L. Ellison, G.C.D. Howley (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986), 111.
5 "Satan," in the Old Testament, also refers to an opponent--"in war, an enemy; in court, an accuser. The verb satan means 'to be an adversary, to oppose' someone or something. Most commonly, satan refers to human enemies, and so 1 Chron. 2:1 simply refers to 'an enemy' (not 'Satan,' as the NIV reads) who 'rose up against Israel' (cf. 1 Kings 11:14). It is only as 'the satan' (Job 1-2; Zech. 3:1-2; NIV: 'Satan') that we meet the one we know from the NT as 'the devil.'" See "Devil/Demons" in The Baker Illustrated Bible Dictionary, ed. Tremper Longman III (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2013), 426.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid.
8 Kevin J. Conner, The Foundations of Christian Doctrine: A Practical Guide to Christian Belief (Portland: City Christian Publishing, 1980), 105-06.
9 Thomas R. Schreiner, "Luke," in The Baker Illustrated Bible Commentary, eds. Gary M. Burge and Andrew E. Hill (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2012), 1078.
10 Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Third Edition (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996), 47.
11 That statement may seem unwarranted to some given the existence of copyist errors among so many manuscripts; and, as well, the fact that we do not possess even one original manuscript (or, at least, we do not think we possess such a manuscript). With over 5,3000 New Testament manuscripts at our disposal, we are better able to see where a copyist erred, by comparing readings from other manuscripts. Neil Lightfoot comments: "The New Testament books have been handed down to us by means of thousands of copies. Although God inspired the New Testament writers [2 Tim. 3:16 ESV; 2 Pet. 1:19, 20, 21], he did not miraculously guide the hands of the copyists. Textual criticism seeks to counteract inevitable scribal errors [that do not effect doctrine] and recover the true form of the text. Many mistakes in the manuscripts crept into the text unintentionally and are not difficult to detect. Other textual modifications were made intentionally, usually by well-meaning scribes, and these do not stand out so clearly. Yet even in these cases a textual critic is equipped with a multitude of aids to overcome the problem." See Neil R. Lightfoot, How We Got the Bible, Third Edition, Revised and Expanded (New York: MJF Books, 2003), 93.
distorting, or confusing in Christian thought and experience have set out to demythologize1 this [historical-biblical] figure [cf. Job 1:6, 7, 8, 9, 12]. Apologists such as the British literary figure C.S. Lewis and the Russian philosopher Vladimir Solovyov [1853-1900], however, have written cautionary words against this trend. They conceive that it would represent the Devil's most cunning attempt at self-camouflage to be demythologized and that camouflage would [actually serve to] be a certain new proof of his existence.I think Solovyov and Lewis are right. Among certain believers in Christ, as well as agnostics, atheists, and naturalists, an inane superstition and puerile naïveté is automatically attached to anyone, no matter her or his degree of credibility and biblical evidence, who advances belief of Satan as an actual Entity and Personality. For example, Dr. Phil Zuckerman, Professor of Sociology and Secular Studies at Pitzer College, writing for the notably helpful site Psychology Today, publishes his insulting, demeaning, and insubstantial screed against those who believe in Satan or demons as metaphysical persons, real entities, fallen angels, originally created by God, who now have evil wills and minds.
HERMENEUTICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY
Dr. Zuckerman belittles his audience, first with caricatures of Satan or of demons and then, with rhetorical weapons that are intent on discrediting any individual who posits the existence of not only Satan but also of angels, of Heaven and of God, by writing: "Demons? Really? What, with horns? Tails? Yellow teeth? Or are they invisible demons?" That is overt caricature.2 Mocking one's opponents does not win the argument. Those who believe in Satan, as learned in Scripture, do not believe in a cartoonish, embarrassingly-silly figure, but as the spiritual Enemy of God and of His special creation. We do not portray him as possessing yellow teeth, red skin, two horns and a pointed tail.
But we must always consider one's hermeneutic in our criticism: Zuckerman is a naturalist, one who advances evolution proper, and denies the existence of the spiritual / metaphysical and to this presupposition he must remain faithful. His hermeneutic cannot even remotely consider the possibility of God, gods, angels, demons, spirits / souls. All that exists is the natural. So, for him, any notion of "the Devil" is, according to his own words for those who argue for the existence of such, "magical," "wrong," "infantile," "unscientific," and "irrational." Zuckerman's is not a winning strategy. I could use these expressions to mock his self-refuting presuppositional naturalistic ignorance but that would neither advance knowledge nor create the atmosphere for rational and critical thinking and open and fair dialogue.
Dr. Zuckerman naturally concludes: "How can anyone with even a basic knowledge of history and psychology, science and anthropology, mythology and logic, believe that there is an immortal evil being running around doing evil things? It is so absurd as to be pathetic." His emotional response borders on the logical fallacy of ad hominem. He offers not an ounce of actual substance to support his screed. He is intent on degrading anyone who thinks otherwise and he is in need of a lesson on avoiding abuse of logical fallacies. He imagines that, because he cannot study what others refer to as the metaphysical, then the metaphysical cannot, does not, and must not exist. But how can he possibly know this from an epistemological stance? How can he be absolutely certain about the absence of the metaphysical and render such emotionally-driven, fundamentalistic, and dogmatic conclusions? Does stomping one's proverbial feet now make screeds to be true?
SATAN AS THE PERSONIFICATION OF EVIL
There remain well-meaning persons vying for both the position of Satan as being merely the foil of a narrative throughout the scriptures, without him actually (substantively yet metaphysically) existing, and Satan as a personal fallen angel who opposes God and God's creation. Passing moral, ethical, and intellectual judgments upon those of any position echoes far more volume about the character of the individual rendering such judgments than upon those espousing their respective views. Believing in the existence of Satan does not render one an uneducated baboon (and since when has anyone felt threatened over anyone believing in legends and fables?) any more than not believing in the existence of Satan renders one a proverbial godless devil. Can we not think and speak better about those from whom we differ?
Even those of us who are dogmatic about belief in the existence of Satan as a spiritual entity can agree that he is the personification of evil--even though advocates of the Satan-as-the-personification-of-evil position deny his actual and personal existence. The latter proffer that, poetically, "the Snake," "the Devil," "Satan," "Beelzebul" (or "Beelzebub"), "the Beast," "the Dragon," &c. refer to the existence of evil (though evil does not exist ontologically3). In the history of world religions, with gods, goddesses, angels, demons, and other metaphysical creatures of legend or myth, evil occurrences are explained in narrative form with various epithets. Ancient peoples reserved a god for nearly every instance of life: e.g., the need for rain, crop-growth, child-bearing, industry, war, food. Good is ascribed to gods (God) and evil to demons.
There is another philosophical position to consider. From Britannica we learn: "According to the 20th-century Russian philosopher Nikolay Berdyayev, like the Germans Friedrich Schelling and Franz von Baader before him, the Devil has no true personality and no genuine reality and, instead, is filled with an insatiable 'hunger for reality,' which he can attain by stealing reality from the people of whom he takes possession." I fail to see how non-reality can possess reality. That appears to be a contradiction. If this philosophical Devil possesses no character traits, no personality and no ontological persona, then how is this Devil defined or characterized? If this philosophical Devil "has no genuine reality" then he does not exist in an effort to possess a personality or existence in human form. This is, simply, nonsensical.
HERMENEUTICS AND THE BIBLE
Not only does one's hermeneutic determine one's view of Satan, as either a personal reality or a mere literary figure, but so does one's view of the Bible. I view the scriptures as history regarding historical accounts. I view the poetry in the scriptures as just that, poetry, and not always to be taken literally. Form matters. Whether we consider the Garden narrative of Genesis, or the discussion between God and Satan in the book Job, we are obliged to consider form and narrative in our interpretation. The snake of Genesis, then, need not be an actual snake in poetic form but merely representative of the Person or Entity of Satan talking with Eve (Rev. 12:9). Moreover, given that Job is the oldest book in Hebrew Scripture, the fact that the narrative of Genesis is chosen as the opening book in the canon grants us a clue as to how we might approach this library of books.4 The Bible, we must insist, is not a theological textbook (and certainly not an "owner's manual").
The issue of inspiration and authority aside, as many books are available on the subjects, I consider the Bible to be the Word of God and not merely the opinions of man. I agree with B.B. Warfield: "The Bible is the Word of God in such a way that, when the Bible speaks, God speaks." Whether or not the snake in the Garden is a literal talking snake is irrelevant to one's spiritual state or salvation. Whether or not Satan is a real entity is also irrelevant to one's spiritual state or salvation. May we neither demonize those who believe in Satan as a real entity, as do I and others, nor anathematize those who reject the same. All regenerate people are brothers and sisters in Christ by grace through faith.
A CASE FOR SATAN
I. THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES
I can understand the perspective of Satan as a literary figure perceived throughout Scripture without him being an person. Often, in the Hebrew scriptures, satan refers not to the person / entity Satan but to an enemy.5 The legend of Satan being a fallen angel who rebels against God is first presented by Origen (185-254 CE), who allegorizes Isaiah 14:3-23 and Ezekiel 28:1-10; while Jerome (345-420 CE), author of the Latin Vulgate, translates "the Morning Star" as "Lucifer" (Isa. 14:12; Revelation 22:16). "The Bible tells us nothing of Satan's origins."6 We do ourselves and others a service to think critically and not be careless or presumptuous when engaging the scriptures on the subject of Satan.
Moreover, from The Baker Illustrated Bible Dictionary, we discover that, in the Hebrew Bible, "evil spirit" may also refer to some semblance of a "heavenly" being sent by God for His purposes (1 Sam. 16:14-23; 18:10; 19:9; 1 Kings 22:22-23). Is that entity demonic? Furthermore, in those scriptures, extensive rebuke is warranted toward those who engage in "the superstitions of the surrounding nations that included belief in [or worship of] demons (Deut. 32:17; Ps. 106:37; perhaps Isa. 13:21; cf. Rev. 18:2)."7 In other words, when Gentiles worship and offer sacrifices to false gods, they sacrifice to and worship actual demons (cf. 1 Cor. 8:1-6). Right theological belief, in fact, matters.
II. THE CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES
The New Testament offers clarity, I and many others throughout Christian history think, with regard to Satan as a person (a real entity) and his followers we call demons or devils. Jesus' recorded encounters and conversations with Satan do not appear mere literary form. We might accept the notion that Satan represents a foil within the narrative of the life of Jesus. Satan, then, is viewed as Jesus' personal enemy--the one attempting to thwart His mission to heal and to save fallen humanity--but a person regardless. But Jesus does not speak of Satan in mere literary terms: He treats Satan genuinely as a real rational and personal being with whom one may converse and personally interact.
Jesus is led by the Holy Spirit into a desert area for forty days and is, in that area, tempted by the Devil (Luke 4:1-2). The Devil--διάβολος, i.e., the slanderer, the false accuser, the one who innately criticizes unjustly in order to harm, the condemner, the relationship-severer--tests the veracity of Jesus. This enemy of all good tempts Jesus to trust in Himself rather than God His Father (Luke 4:3), to gain authority by declaring Satan worthy of worship (Luke 4:5-8), and then to prove His divinity as the Son of God by attempting to commit suicide in order to be rescued by God His Father (Luke 4:9-12). Jesus answers Satan contrariwise in every instance with the Word of God ("It is written"). "When the devil had finished every test, he departed [as a personal being] from Him until an opportune time" (Luke 4:13). He will return.
Whether we consider Satan, the Devil, or demons (fallen angels), Jesus addresses each of them, and interacts with them, neither as mere literary figures nor as mythical legends but as authentic and personal entities. Kevin J. Conner notes that personal pronouns relating to Satan evince "intelligence, knowledge, will and action" (cf. Matt. 4:6; 25:41; 2 Cor. 2:11; 11:14-15; 2 Tim. 2:26).
Jesus depicts Satan as the original murderer and the father or originator of Lies (John 8:44). Paul suggests that Satan blinds the minds of those who remain in their unbelief (2 Cor. 4:4). He is called the enemy (Matt. 13:39), the wicked one (1 John 5:18-19), and, among other names, the adversary of the people of God and of God in Trinity (1 Pet. 5:8).8 If one suggests that impressions such as these belong to the age of superstitions among the uneducated then he is de facto charging the eternal and omniscient Creator, Jesus, as much the uneducated fool as any mortal. I can imagine a non-believer proposing such a conclusion, because that is natural for the non-regenerate in his fallen condition, but not the professed believer in Jesus, who should know better. Read the Word, believer, and believe Jesus' perspective on this issue.
In the New Testament, Jesus encounters demons (devils), and people who are possessed by demons (as occurs even today). Such passages are immediately discounted as silly by most psychologists today, granting, rather, diagnoses of schizophrenia or other cognitive disorders by way of explanation, diagnoses firmly based upon the hermeneutic that Satan and demons do not exist. After a night in prayer, Jesus descends from a mountain and heals a man who has leprosy (Matt. 8:1-4), heals the servant of a Centurion (Matt. 8:5-13), heals a group of people with various illnesses at the apostle Peter's house (Matt. 8:14-17), and then encounters two men possessed of demons (Matt. 8:28-29), casts the demons out of the men, allowing the demons to possess a herd of pigs who then plunge off of a steep hill and into the water to their death (Matt. 8:29-34). Shall we choose which to believe in this chapter: believe that Jesus cures those in need of healing but disbelieve the demonic encounters? By what standard? Who is authorized to believe one but not the other? Believe Jesus in the Word, believer.
Luke records the occasion of the above-referenced demonic activity in the following manner: Jesus encounters a man possessed by multiple demons and converses with a spokesman of the demons: "Then Jesus asked him, 'What is your name?' He replied, 'Legion,' because many demons had entered him. And they pleaded with him not to order them to depart to the abyss" (see Luke 8:26-31). Thomas Schreiner comments that "the abyss would be the realm of the underworld where some demons were confined (Rev. 9:1-11)"9; cf. the fallen angels cast into hell by God at 2 Peter 2:4. The textual footnote of the New American Bible revised edition reads: "Abyss: the place of the dead (Rom. 10:7) or the prison of Satan (Rev. 20:3) or the subterranean 'watery deep' that symbolizes the chaos before the order imposed by creation (Gen. 1:2)." The place is real and the subjects are real. Otherwise we are arbitrarily choosing what to believe. Are we smarter than Jesus--the eternal Creator of all (John 1:1, 2, 3; Col. 1:16)? Are we more informed than the Holy Spirit (2 Tim. 3:16)?
At another occasion, Jesus grants a judgment about the disbelieving culture of His day, suggesting an insidious outcome: "When a demon has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless [desert] regions looking for a resting place [within, preferably, a human being--or perhaps an object connected to a person], but it finds none. Then it says, 'I will return to my house from which I came.' When it comes, it finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there; and the last state of that person is worse than the first" (Matt. 12:43-45). Who among sincere believers in Jesus Christ is willing to arrogantly insist that Jesus has not one clue as to what He is referencing regarding the activity of demons? Shall the student now inform the Teacher?
FAITH AND EPISTEMOLOGY
Quoting Scripture is futile to the one who does not believe in its divine inspiration--to the one who does not believe in any god or any metaphysical reality. I might as well be quoting from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and attempt to convince the reader that its contents are fact and not fiction. Even the "skeptic believer" could suggest that quoting Jesus is not directly quoting Jesus since what we have in Scripture is what authors proffer as the words of Jesus. Belief in Satan, then, requires as much faith as belief in God as Creator, in Jesus as Messiah, and the Holy Spirit as the One who indwells the believer, enlightens the hearts and minds of non-believers, and restrains the Evil One from destroying humanity (2 Thess. 2.6). The Bible is akin to a fairy tale to such persons--or, at the very least, mere opinions of the uneducated.
But, I argue, how much more faith is required in believing in gods and and angels and demons than in the eternality of an uncaused universe--that something sprang into being from nothing? No one can know exactly the age of planets and solar systems and stars. No one can know exactly their origin. What of the Grand Elephant in the Room of the missing animal-link between apes and human beings? Is faith not required here also? Is the late Dr. Thomas S. Kuhn not correct in assessing that, at times, we are "at liberty to suppose that somewhere along the way the scientist has intuitively abstracted rules of the game for himself, but there is little reason to believe it" (emphasis added)?10 The Big Bang theory does not explain the origins of life--only that the universe is expanding. But where did matter derive its existence?
Moreover, apart from immense and direct revelation, how could ancient prophets, ancient authors of Scripture, know that the universe is expanding (Job 9:8; Ps. 104:2; Zech. 12:1)? Perhaps the Creator of the universe, which He spoke into being (Gen. 1:1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, 26; John 1:1, 2, 3; Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:2, 3), which He maintains (Col. 1:17; Heb. 1:3), the universe He is expanding, is the One who revealed such mysteries to them. Is this not at least possible? I can think of None else. Can you? Without modern technology they could not have known.
CONCLUSION
I believe in the actual and spiritual reality and personal existence of Satan, and of demons and angels and other heavenly beings mentioned in the scriptures (Rev. 4:6-8), because I trust in Jesus--and Jesus is why I trust Scripture. I cannot know with any degree of certainty--under the strict scientific rules of observation--because I cannot go back two millennia and observe Jesus and hear the words He spoke and watch the authors record those general words as He spoke them in the Christian scriptures (just as none of us can do with the writings of Plato, Aristotle, Zeno of Elea, Diogenes, Archelaus, Plotinus, Epictetus, Cicero) and still I have faith that those words are the words of Jesus because of the eye-witness accounts of Jesus, His Words, and His Life. I do believe, however, to have had an encounter with a devil.
I was attending a Bible College in Columbus, Ohio, when my doormmate and I encountered the presence of an evil spirit in our room. We both had finished our homework, just before midnight, and went to bed. We had to rise early for class. We could hear two guys across the hall from us praying rather loudly, and we scoffed at first, asking whether they had to be up at midnight praying so zealously. The praying came to a crescendo and then there was silence. Just then, I felt the presence of an entity enter the room, though I could see no one (there was a nightlight on so we had some light in the room). I said to my roommate: "Do you feel that?" He said: "I thought it was just me." I said: "Well, we are covered by the blood of Jesus, and no harm will come to us." The presence left and we were quite startled. The next day we asked and discovered that one of our neighbors had gone to those two guys to pray for him because he felt oppressed by a devil. The devil, we believe, departed from him and then went in search of someone to inhabit--as Jesus said devils do (Matt. 12:43, 44, 45).
I believe the words in Scripture purporting to be the words of Jesus (and the words of God and that the Bible is God's Word) to be His actual words because of the meticulous tradition of transcribing in the first century11 and the promise of Spirit-oversight from Jesus (John 14:26; cf. 1 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:16-21). Allow this closing thought to challenge you at this juncture: Literary critics do not maintain any suspicions regarding the authenticity of the works and of the words of Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus or Homer, the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, or Euripides, or the histories of Herodotus and Thucydides. But an entirely different hermeneutical method, with accompanied suspicion, is assumed with regard to first-century authors of the Christian scriptures. This, I think, is telling--and the telling ain't good. Think on it.
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1 The method of demythologization originates in theological circles with Rudolph Bultmann. "He understood the word 'myth' to be a way to communicate one's faith to others in a time- and culturally-dependent way." So, if we today imagine that notions of Satan and demons are silly and irrelevant, then we re-imagine them as, for example, literary forms and cast them in a new role--that of representation. "Some critics have argued that the term 'demythologize' should be changed to 'remythologize,' admitting that any interpretation today is just as limited and time-constrained as an interpretation from an earlier century in the history of the church." An Episcopal Dictionary of the Church: A User-Friendly Reference for Episcopalians, eds. Don S. Armentrout and Robert Boak Slocum (New York: Church Publishing, Inc., 2000), 144.
2 Rather than a vision of a red-skinned being with horns and hooves, the scriptures present Satan as an angel, albeit an angel who decides, freely, to rebel against God and God's creatures. There is no indication that the rebellion of Satan, or Lucifer, caused a manifest change in his appearance. As a matter of fact, Paul states that Satan and his fallen angelic followers can appear as an angel of Light, or Righteousness, and thus deceive people. So, the red-horned caper is quite the cartoonish figure of one's colorful imagination. That Dr. Zuckerman mockingly asks, "Or are they invisible demons?" only begs the question, "Would not all metaphysical sentient beings be invisible?" Given that, theoretically, spirits do not possess physical bodies, their metaphysical existence as spirits would, by necessity, require their innate invisible qualities (unless they, by the power of God, are capable of revealing their presence, cf. Gen. 16:7-11; Luke 1:11-19).
3 "Evil" is a name given to negative circumstances, bad and unwanted occurrences, and a malicious intent on promoting or carrying out harm and suffering. Such must be accomplished by an individual or a substance. Evil does not exist in itself. Evil is not a substance. The same can be said of sin. Sin only exists with reference to entities. Even some Episcopalians believe in sin, evil, and Satan as a real entity. Samuel Wells, Dean of Duke University Chapel and Research Professor of Christian Ethics at Duke Divinity School, contextualizes sin as "living as if there were no God, no grace of God, no creation to remember or kingdom to hope for, no forgiveness to redeem the past or eternal life to focus the future, no faith, no hope, no love." All of these contexts require a living being and, hence, sin cannot exist, like evil, apart from any entity. Dr. Wells continues: Sin is "living outside the narrative of God--without regard to the creation, the covenant with Israel, the revelation in Christ, the existence of the church, the consummation on the last day--and making one's own narrative instead." See Samuel Wells, What Episcopalians Believe: An Introduction (New York: Morehouse Publishing, 2011), 22.
4 Recall that the primary purpose of the books we call Bible is the outlining of salvation history from conception to fall to redemption to ultimate consummation. The authors and editors and collators of the Hebrew scriptures are concerned more so with the salvation and triumph of the God of Israel than with a chronological history. Drs. H.L. Ellison and D.F. Payne note, of Genesis, "In [chapters] 1-11 we have the beginnings of man's history, in which we are told all that need be known to understand God's purposes of salvation; in [chapters] 12-50 we are told of the beginnings of Israel. But what we are given is virtually only salvation history (Heilsgeschichte, cf. Theology of the OT, p. 65). Even as the first book gives a minimum outline, so it is in the second, which is concerned mainly with the primacy of faith and of individual response." See H.L. Ellison and D.F. Payne, "Genesis," in The International Bible Commentary with the New International Version, eds. F.F. Bruce, H.L. Ellison, G.C.D. Howley (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986), 111.
5 "Satan," in the Old Testament, also refers to an opponent--"in war, an enemy; in court, an accuser. The verb satan means 'to be an adversary, to oppose' someone or something. Most commonly, satan refers to human enemies, and so 1 Chron. 2:1 simply refers to 'an enemy' (not 'Satan,' as the NIV reads) who 'rose up against Israel' (cf. 1 Kings 11:14). It is only as 'the satan' (Job 1-2; Zech. 3:1-2; NIV: 'Satan') that we meet the one we know from the NT as 'the devil.'" See "Devil/Demons" in The Baker Illustrated Bible Dictionary, ed. Tremper Longman III (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2013), 426.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid.
8 Kevin J. Conner, The Foundations of Christian Doctrine: A Practical Guide to Christian Belief (Portland: City Christian Publishing, 1980), 105-06.
9 Thomas R. Schreiner, "Luke," in The Baker Illustrated Bible Commentary, eds. Gary M. Burge and Andrew E. Hill (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2012), 1078.
10 Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Third Edition (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996), 47.
11 That statement may seem unwarranted to some given the existence of copyist errors among so many manuscripts; and, as well, the fact that we do not possess even one original manuscript (or, at least, we do not think we possess such a manuscript). With over 5,3000 New Testament manuscripts at our disposal, we are better able to see where a copyist erred, by comparing readings from other manuscripts. Neil Lightfoot comments: "The New Testament books have been handed down to us by means of thousands of copies. Although God inspired the New Testament writers [2 Tim. 3:16 ESV; 2 Pet. 1:19, 20, 21], he did not miraculously guide the hands of the copyists. Textual criticism seeks to counteract inevitable scribal errors [that do not effect doctrine] and recover the true form of the text. Many mistakes in the manuscripts crept into the text unintentionally and are not difficult to detect. Other textual modifications were made intentionally, usually by well-meaning scribes, and these do not stand out so clearly. Yet even in these cases a textual critic is equipped with a multitude of aids to overcome the problem." See Neil R. Lightfoot, How We Got the Bible, Third Edition, Revised and Expanded (New York: MJF Books, 2003), 93.
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