God, the devil, and Bob

Modern culture casts evil as the flip side to good – as though the two forces struggle with one another in near parity. You see this even in the titles of TV shows, such as “God the Devil and Bob.” bad horror movies show apocalyptic struggles where only Arnold Shwarzenegger can prevent Satan from conquering the world. From the pulpits we hear this constantly as well, where evil is personified somehow, or in more fervently emotional congregations, Satan is elevated to a kind of parallel god, and not the very mortal (but beastly) anti-Christ as per St. John, but an antigod.

No more important thing is there to understand about the nature of evil; evil is not yin to good's yang, and it is not the equal of good.

In Roman times, a religious sect from Persia drew on the religious traditions of Judaism and Christianity, but refashioned them as agents in an epic struggle of substances – good substance and bad substance. Through careful eating and piety, they hoped to not be infected with the bad substance. This sect was called the Manichees, and the great Christian saint, St. Augustine was for ten years in their number.

It is probably for this reason that St. Augustine became probably the foremost expert on the problem of evil in Christian theology. He had been a part of a religious group that saw the world as a good vs. evil pie chart, and seen the logical flaws inherent in the very idea that a perfect God would create evil.

Augustine says, “Evil has no positive nature; but the loss of good has received the name 'evil.'” In his opinion, evil was the absence of good. And where good is absent, God absents Himself as well. We have been given, as intelligent beings, the ability to decide what to do, deliberately: the so-called “free will.” When we use that will to serve our ends at the expense of others, it is then that evil is at hand.

In other words, we don't struggle with some malign universal force called “evil.” We struggle, in fact, with ourselves.

If Manicheism was an errant, but harmless, philosophy, we could let people retain their good/evil dichotomy unchallenged. But the Manichean view has caused a lot of harm in this world. When we see others as “infidels”, “axii of evil”, or some other servants of an antigod, we depersonalize them; and this does not even help us! For we cannot anticipate the actions of those who wish to harm us if we see them as no more than malign demons.

I do not outright dismiss the idea that there is a Satan. If we believe that human beings can have their own mind on what to do with their lives, it is not impossible to accept this to be true of angels.

But when Jesus talks about Satan being the “prince of this world,” Jesus tosses that barb not at Satan, but at us. This “angel of light,” as St. Paul puts it, decided of his own free will to seek glory for himself. When we do the very same thing, it is in this that we make Satan our prince – and not because Satan is some sort of antigod. We make our choices – we do. It is ourselves we struggle with, not some entity. We should have the humility that being a city on a hill calls for, and accept the challenge of improving ourselves first.

So lets not rave about demons. To do so is to give them glory they do not deserve.