Facing the Fiend

Satan as a Literary Character

Baillie

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781630871338
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Satan is not a theological concept, but a literary character. Systematic and pastoral theology struggles with the existence of Satan and at the same time, the devil inspires authors, poets, artists, and musicians--his true nature in art seems to be creative, even though he is usually associated with destruction. If we want to believe William Blake, the true poet is of the devil's party, without knowing it. The various accounts of the devil in literature and art would certainly promote the theory that Satan himself is working on the side of the artist. While the biblical canon leaves us with many open questions about Satan, the literary canon gives more than enough definitions and interpretations of the devil. Satan is a powerful literary figure, the eternal adversary, object and subject of the story. Without any real substance, he exists in the realm of the narrative, being at the same time destroyer and creator. Satan lends a face to what we experience as evil: the absence of relation, the exile of the soul, the loss of identity, the destruction of the other and the self.

Part One

The Dwelling Place of Satan

one

Is Satan Evil?

Understanding Satan as a character requires the introduction of a context in which the character operates. Our search for Satan’s dwelling place takes us to different areas of definition and interpretation, but the most fundamental question at this point is the relationship between Satan and evil. The question of whether the character of Satan is evil or not cannot be answered readily, since the problem is twofold: like any character, Satan has many layers and describing him as evil is an over-simplification. At the same time, the abstract concept of evil depends on contextual circumstances. The best approach seems the one applied to the description of God in the methodology of via negativa: Evil is the absence of Good, the absence of relation, the absence of personhood. Still, Satan is traditionally associated with evil; in fact, Satan is commonly mentioned in the context of the origin of sin, he is described as evil incarnate, and as the facilitator of evil acts. And his attraction as a character lies in his dark nature. As a character, Satan mostly has human features; he functions as an anthropomorphization of evil. It also seems as if the abstract concept of evil finds one form of expression through some attributes that we observe in the character of Satan. In particular the observation that evil generally has a face—we encounter it through persons and in relationships. The following provides an overview of the problem of evil in relation to the character of Satan, trying to identify what factors underlie our understanding of him.

The Dilemma

Evil is an existential reality of human life. The definitions of evil depend on their context: moral, social, theological, psychological, or legal. Most definitions, however, would agree that evil is anything that causes suffering, pain, and destruction and that is usually connected with wrongdoing and overstepping boundaries. Evil can be the violation of a society’s rule of conduct (morality), but it can also be understood as the violation of a universal principle, beyond social customs. The phenomenon of evil is universal and ubiquitous in its experience, although the term is generally used in the context of religion, (social) philosophy, and ethical debates. The questions of what constitutes evil and why it exists are two of the big questions of humanity and are approached repeatedly because of the impossibility of answering them satisfactorily.

Since the rise of the social sciences—psychology, sociology, and psychoanalysis—the explanation for evil has been increasingly sought in the human psyche or in human relationships and social realities, turning away from metaphysical causes for evil. It was Immanuel Kant who marked a paradigm shift in the discussion around evil that influenced all further discussions on that topic. His work determined a shift in the history of ideas from ontology to ontic, from metaphysics to phenomenology. His philosophy of reason initiated a philosophical movement that turned towards the rational understanding of the world and put the human mind and its ability to think and understand in the center of every model of thought. Kant’s ideas have to be seen in the context of the development of the natural sciences in the late eighteenth and the nineteenth century: the success of the physical sciences called attention to their method and “new” sciences like psychology and sociology, but also the traditional sciences such as philosophy and theology, had to prove their legitimacy by defining their methods. Evil, however, was for Kant beyond pure reason; it was, like the existence of God, something that cannot be known. He did not abandon the metaphysical argument completely; for Kant, the existence of transcendence was not questionable, since it was beyond the influence of human reason. Kant’s thoughts on evil were influential for the contemporary debate in several aspects: Kant understood evil as an immanent problem and focused therefore on the question of evil as a moral problem instead of a transcendent and metaphysical issue. He also located the source of evil in the human will, defining the term positively, and not merely as a privation of good. For him, evil is a real possibility. In that context, Kant emphasized the role of the subjectivity and the power of the individual’s will.40

German idealist Georg Friedrich Hegel developed Kant’s thoughts further and contributed to the development of the modern understanding of the self and the idea that expression is inseparable from being. Hegel was the first to give a secular formulation of the problem of evil. He distinguished three forms of evil: natural evil, moral evil, and metaphysical evil. He related the universal aspect of human life with its social and historical phenomena to the progress of human spirit in history. For him, passions, private interests, and the satisfaction of selfish impulses are the most potent force in people. The Hegelian idea of progress in history is reflected in the developmental aspect towards life: Hegel sees in the narrative of the fall more than a myth; he understands it as the awakening of human consciousness from a purely animal-like state. Evil is part of God’s creation and the contradiction between good and evil is the driving force of all movement and development. The pain of the fall is necessary for the birth of humanity. In theological words, we could refer to it as the felix culpa, the fortunate fall—an expression used by Augustine and still present today in the Exsultet in the liturgy of the Easter Vigil. Hegel states that “The hour when man leaves the path of mere natural being marks the difference between him, a self-conscious agent, and the natural world.”41

This is a more developmental and teleological attempt to understand evil: humankind is in process of becoming the perfect beings God intended us to be, and not the fallen creatures of sin. John Hick refers to it as the Irenaean type of theodicy, going back to the theology of St Irenaeus of Lyon, who set out a theology that would be distinguished from that of the Latin fathers as the Greek theodicy and formed the groundwork for a Christian alternative to the Augustinian concept.42 There is not, however, a distinct Eastern Orthodox theodicy compared to a Western theodicy, influenced by Augustine. The Irenaean theodicy forms a framework for later theologians who could not agree with the Augustinian definition of the fall. Irenaeus understands human beings as immature and imperfect beings that need to undergo development in order to reach the state that the creator has intended for them. This is both an individual and a communal development, that is, both human beings and humankind undergo the process of development. Irenaeus regarded Paul’s teaching as authoritative and therefore accepted the concept of the fall of humankind and the Pauline interpretation of Genesis that it was through Adam that sin entered the world. For him, however, the fall was not the one event that corrupted God’s plan with humankind, but more the expression of the weakness and immaturity of humanity, possibly even necessary for the future development of humankind towards maturity and understanding. Humanity was created as personal beings in the image of God, but more as “working material” than as “end products.” That also means that creation is not complete, but is still developing. The experience of evil in the world then can be interpreted as necessary for the process of that development: evil is inevitable, because it will make human beings the perfect creatures that God intended them to be. The world we experience is therefore a place of soul making.

Friedrich Schleiermacher created a similar approach to the question of evil. He...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Introduction: Setting the Stage
• Part One: The Dwelling Place of Satan
• Part Two: Satanic Characters
• Conclusion: Satan’s Salvation or the Redemption Lies in the Text
• Bibliography