Devil in Christianity

Christian teachings

In Christianity, the title Satan (Hebrew: הַשָּׂטָן ha-Satan), "the opposer", is a title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Jewish Bible. "Satan" later became the name of the personification of evil. Christian tradition and theology changed "Satan" from an accuser appointed by God to test men's faith to God's godlike fallen opponent: "the devil", "Shaitan" in Arabic (the term used by Arab Christians and Muslims).

Traditionally, Christians have understood the devil to be the author of lies and promoter of evil. However, the devil can go no further than the word of Christ the Logos allows, resulting in the problem of evil.

Liberal Christianity often views the devil metaphorically. This is true of some Conservative Christian groups too, such as the Christadelphians and the Church of the Blessed Hope. Much of the popular lore of the devil is not biblical; instead, it is a post-medieval Christian reading of the scriptures influenced by medieval and pre-medieval Christian popular mythology.

Middle Ages

Particularly in the medieval period, Satan was often shown as having horns and a goat's hindquarters (though occasionally with the legs of a chicken or a mule), and with a tail. He was also depicted as carrying a pitchfork, the implement used in Hell to torment the damned, or a trident, deriving from the regalia of the sea-god Poseidon. Occasionally more imaginative depictions were illustrated: Sometimes the Devil was depicted as having faces all over his body, as in the painting of a Deal with the Devil. Depictions of the Devil covered in boils and scars, animal-like hair, and monstrous deformities were also common. None of these images seem to be based on biblical materials, as Satan's physical appearance is never described in the Bible or any other religious text. Rather, this image is apparently based on pagan Horned Gods, such as Pan, Cernunnos, Molek, Selene and Dionysus, common to many pagan religions. Pan in particular looks very much like the images of the medieval Satan. These images later became the basis for Baphomet, which is portrayed in Eliphas Lévi's 1854 Dogme et rituel de la haute magie (English translation Transcendental Magic, its Doctrine and Ritual). Even some Satanists use Baphomet as the image of Satan in Satanic worship. It has been alleged that this image was chosen specifically to discredit the Horned God.

Cathars

What is known of the Cathars largely comes in what is preserved by the critics in the Catholic Church which later destroyed them in the Albigensian Crusade. Alain de Lille, c.1195, accused the Cathars of believing in two gods - one of light, one of darkness. Durand de Huesca, responding to a Cathar tract c.1220 indicates that they regarded the physical world as the creation of Satan. A former Italian Cathar turned Dominican, Sacchoni in 1250 testified to the Inquisition that his former co-religionists believed that the devil made the world and everything in it.

The Reformation

Luther taught the traditional personal devil. Among his teachings was a recommendation of music since "the devil cannot stand gaiety."

Calvin taught the traditional view of the devil as a fallen angel. Calvin repeats the simile of Saint Augustine: "Man is like a horse, with either God or the devil as rider." In interrogation of Servetus who had said that all creation was part of God, Calvin asked what of the devil? Servetus responded "all things are a part and portion of God".

Anabaptists and Dissenters

David Joris was the first of the Anabaptists to venture that the devil was only an allegory (c.1540), his view found a small but persistent following in the Netherlands. The view was transmitted to England and Joris's booklet was reprinted anonymously in English in 1616, prefiguring a spate of non-literal devil interpretations in the 1640s-1660s: Mede, Bauthumley, Hobbes, Muggleton and the private writings of Isaac Newton. In Germany such ideas surfaced later, c.1700, among writers such as Balthasar Bekker and Christian Thomasius.

However the above views remained very much a minority. Daniel Defoe in his The Political History of the Devil (1726) describes such views as a form of "practical atheism". Defoe wrote "that to believe the existence of a God is a debt to nature, and to believe the existence of the Devil is a like debt to reason".

John Milton in Paradise Lost

Until John Milton created the character of Satan for his Paradise Lost, the different attributes of Satan were usually ascribed to different entities. The angel who rebelled in Heaven was not the same as the ruler in Hell. The ruler of Hell was often seen as a sort of jailer who never fell from grace. The tempting serpent of Genesis was just a serpent. Milton combined the different parts of the character to show his fall from near-divine beauty and grace to his eventual skulking role as a jealous tempter. He was so successful in his characterization of Satan as a romantic hero who "would rather rule in Hell than serve in Heaven" that his version of Satan has displaced all others.

Rudolf Bultmann and modernists

Rudolf Bultmann taught that Christians need to reject belief in a literal devil as part of first century culture. This line is developed by Walter Wink.

Against this come the works of writers like Jeffrey Burton Russell, a believer in a literal personal fallen being of some kind. In Lucifer, the Devil in the Middle Ages, the third volume of his five volume history of the devil, Russell argues that such theologians [as Bultmann, unnamed] are missing that the devil is part and parcel of the New Testament from its origins.

Roman Catholic views

A number of prayers and practices against the devil exist within the Roman Catholic tradition. The Lord's Prayer includes a petition for being delivered from evil, but a number of other specific prayers also exist.

The Prayer to Saint Michael specifically asks for Catholics to be defended "against the wickedness and snares of the devil." Given that some of the Our Lady of Fatima messages have been linked by the Holy See to the "end times", some Catholic authors have concluded that the angel referred to within the Fatima messages is St. Michael the Archangel who defeats the devil in the War in Heaven. Author Timothy Robertson takes the position that the Consecration of Russia was a step in the eventual defeat of Satan by the Archangel Michael.

The process of exorcism is used within the Catholic Church against the devil. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that: "Jesus performed exorcisms and from him the Church has received the power and office of exorcizing".

The Catholic Church views the battle against the devil as ongoing. During a May 24, 1987 visit to the Sanctuary of Saint Michael the Archangel, Pope John Paul II said:

"The battle against the devil, which is the principal task of Saint Michael the archangel, is still being fought today, because the devil is still alive and active in the world. The evil that surrounds us today, the disorders that plague our society, man's inconsistency and brokenness, are not only the results of original sin, but also the result of Satan's pervasive and dark action."

Pope Paul VI expressed concern about the influence of the devil and in 1972 stated that: "Satan's smoke has made its way into the Temple of God through some crack". However, Pope John Paul II viewed the defeat of Satan as inevitable.

Father Gabriele Amorth, the chief exorcist of the Diocese of Rome, warned about ignoring Satan, saying, "Whoever denies Satan also denies sin and no longer understands the actions of Christ".

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that the Church regards the devil as being created as a good angel by God, and by his and his fellow fallen angels choice fell out of God's grace.

Satan is not an infinitely powerful being. Although, he was an angel, and thus pure spirit, he is considered a creature nonetheless. Satan's actions are permitted by divine providence. 395

Eastern Orthodox

In Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Satan is one of humanity's three enemies, along with sin and death (in some other forms of Christianity the other two enemies of mankind are "the world", and self (or the flesh), which is to be taken as man's natural tendency to sin).

Evangelical Protestants

Evangelicals agree with the Protestant orthodox of theology that Satan is a real, created being given entirely over to evil and that evil is whatever opposes God or is not willed by God. Evangelicals emphasize the power and involvement of Satan in history in varying degrees; some virtually ignore Satan and others revel in speculation about spiritual warfare against that personal power of darkness.

Anglican

The literal existence of the Devil is referred to in the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion.

Unitarians and Christadelphians

Some Christian groups and individuals view the devil in Christianity figuratively. They see the devil in the Bible as representing human sin and temptation, and any human system in opposition to God. Early Bible fundamentalist Unitarians and Dissenters like Nathaniel Lardner, Richard Mead, Hugh Farmer, William Ashdowne and John Simpson, and John Epps taught that the miraculous healings of the Bible were real, but that the devil was an allegory, and demons just the medical language of the day. Simpson in his Sermons (publ. posthumously 1816) went so far as to comment that the devil was "really not that bad", a view essentially echoed as recently as 2001 by Gregory Boyd in Satan and the Problem of Evil: Constructing a Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy. Such views today are taught today by Christadelphians and the Church of the Blessed Hope.

Latter-day Saints

In Mormonism, the devil is a real being, a literal spirit son of God who once had angelic authority, but rebelled and fell prior to the creation of the Earth in a premortal life. At that time, he persuaded a third part of the spirit children of God to rebel with him. This was in opposition to the plan of salvation championed by Jehovah (Jesus Christ). Now the devil tries to persuade mankind into doing evil. Mankind can overcome this through faith in Jesus Christ and obedience to the Gospel.

Unification Church

The Unification Church teaches that Satan will be restored in the last days and become a good angel again.

Characteristics

Teachings about the Devil vary, depending on the local folklore. Still, the characteristics present in the Bible are present in most depictions.

Rebel

According to the gospels of Matthew (chapter 4), Mark (chapter 1), and Luke (chapter 4), the devil tempted Jesus at the beginning of his ministry. After Jesus fasted forty days and forty nights in the wilderness, the devil approached Jesus with offers of stones turned to bread, rulership over the kingdoms of the Earth (but with subservience to the Devil himself), and spectacular protection from physical harm. Satan uses the Scripture of the Old Testament to solidify his arguments. This would indicate Satan's full knowledge of all of Scripture and a use of that knowledge to tempt and deceive man (Mat 4). Jesus refused all three temptations, rebuking Satan with his own knowledge of Scripture (Mat 4).

Christianity holds several different views on Christ's role in defeating Satan. Some emphasize Christ's death and resurrection as sealing Satan's fate, so that the devil is already defeated though not banished. Others emphasize the devil's final judgment when Christ returns, at which time the terror and deceit of Satan will have no more effect on the world. This is because mankind will face final judgment and the earth will be purged or cleansed with fire. Satan will be bound to the lake of fire (Rev 20) with the Beast, the false prophet and all those whose names are not in the Book of Life.

Possession

The devil and his demons are portrayed as able to possess and control humans. The Roman Catholic Church occasionally performs exorcisms, usually only after medical and psychological evaluations have taken place to rule out a mental or physical ailment.

Black magic

The devil has been described as granting spells and magic powers to sorcerers and witches. In Acts of the Apostles 16:16 Paul the Apostle meets 'a slave girl who had an evil spirit that enabled her to predict the future'. He performs an exorcism using the name of Jesus Christ.

Christian tradition

Christian tradition differs from that of Christian demonology in that Satan, Lucifer, Leviathan and Beelzebub all are names that refer to "the devil", and Prince of this World, The Beast and Dragon (and rarely Serpent or The Old Serpent) used to be elliptic forms to refer to him. The Enemy, The Evil One and The Tempter are other elliptic forms to name the Devil. Belial is held by many to be another name for the devil. Christian demonology, in contrast, does not have several nicknames for Satan.

It should be noted that the name Mephistopheles is used by some people to refer to the Devil, but it is a mere folkloric custom, and has nothing to do with Christian demonology and Christian tradition. Prince of Darkness and Lord of Darkness are also folkloric names, although they tend to be incorporated to Christian tradition.

In English, the devil has a number of epithets, including Old Scratch and Old Nick.

Hell

The Bible states that Satan roams Heaven and Earth. It also states that Satan appeared with other angels "before the Lord," presumably in heaven. When God asked Satan where he had been, Satan replied, "From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it". 1 Peter 5:8 declares, "Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour". The only point in the Bible where Satan is in Hell is at the end of the Book of Revelation, where he is thrown into Hell to face his eternal punishment along with the beast. As demonstrated by Dante, Milton, and several other writings, the Devil is commonly thought to be in Hell.

Sinfulness of angels

Some theologians believe that angels cannot sin because sin brings death and angels cannot die, or because they are spiritual beings that are completely aware of God's will.

Supporting the idea that an angel may sin, Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologiae, wrote:

"An angel or any other rational creature considered in his own nature, can sin; and to whatever creature it belongs not to sin, such creature has it as a gift of grace, and not from the condition of nature. The reason of this is, because sinning is nothing else than a deviation from that rectitude which an act ought to have; whether we speak of sin in nature, art, or morals. That act alone, the rule of which is the very virtue of the agent, can never fall short of rectitude. Were the craftsman's hand the rule itself engraving, he could not engrave the wood otherwise than rightly; but if the rightness of engraving be judged by another rule, then the engraving may be right or faulty."