One of the gifts of the Christian life is the growing network of friends one acquires over the years — thoughtful, reflective, dedicated people who encourage you simply by living in responsive ways to the presence of God in their own lives.
Not long ago, one of those friends wrote in frustration:
I find myself troubled about an aspect of our new church that just keeps pushing my buttons. In fact, I’m finding myself becoming increasingly impatient at this common line of thought.
I’m involved in a prayer group. As we gather to pray or to study, the majority of conversations start off this way:
I didn’t do my preparation work this week because of attacks by satan.
I’m a little bit late today because of attacks by satan.
Did you notice how tired our associate pastor looks today…you know, it’s all those attacks of satan.
Can / will you share a little bit about your thoughts on this subject?
In shorter form, this is what I had to say:
Satan has no power of his or its own (whatever the appropriate pronoun might be).
Christians are not dualists (or we shouldn’t be). We don’t believe that there are two Gods or two powers at work in the world — beings of comparable strength and cosmic presence. The language that we use referring to light and darkness is meant to convey the spiritual gravity of the choices we face. It should not be taken flat-footedly and literally.
Satan is not another God. He is “anti-God.”
In fact, one could argue that in the absence of God, it would be impossible to talk about Satan, sin, or evil. If we lived in a cosmic vacuum and if we were here by virtue of chance, then “what is” would be all that there is. Moral judgments about actions, behaviors, patterns, and trends would be irrelevant.
It is only in the presence of God that, by contrast, we can talk about the nature of sin, evil, and Satan. As such, language that invests Satan with the ability to overrule our will and run our lives can be spiritually misleading.
If we choose, evil can grow and become reified. It can gain mass and moment. The darkness around it can deepen. If we persist in turning our back on God, then we can become captive to what Paul describes as the “futility of our minds.” The Holocaust, for example is a sobering and frightening testimony to the power of evil fed by the individual and collective choices of otherwise “normal” people.
But that power of such evil (as great as it can be and as perverse as it can become) is derivative. It does not have an existence of its own. It is the corruption of the good, the result of saying “no” to God over and over again. In that sense, it matters little whether there is a devil (as such) and it is a mistake to attribute our laziness or lack of focus and discipline to attacks by Satan.
It gives the devil more than he is due — and it absolves us of the spiritual responsibility to say “yes” to God.
And that may be the unspoken reason that such language has gained in popularity. We find it hard to own or responsibility before God. Yet, that is the real issue. As long as we remain open to God, willing to respond, and vulnerable enough to seek forgiveness when we fail, then evil cannot take hold in our lives. And — at the hands of God and his children — the devil will get his due.
1. I have for a long time thought of evil as, not the privation of good (Augustine), but rather of the Holy. It is a what is when we loose touch with God in our lives.
2. You are supposed to be on SILENT retreat … that would include blogging. SSSSHHHHH.
Glad it was helpful, Marilyn…..blessings.