Your Worst Enemy​—Who Is He?

NO ONE denies, of course, that man is often the cause of evil. The real issue, though, is, Could man alone be responsible for the enormous cruelty and violence our generation has witnessed? Many refuse even to consider looking outside of man for another source of evil. But should you cast aside this possibility without at least investigating it? Granted, the popular image of a long-tailed, horned Devil in red tights is laughable. But the global escalation of wickedness is not.

Does it not seem incredible to you that man, a creature capable of great love and tenderness, is also the author of the concentration-camp tortures and nuclear bombs? If evil is just a simple matter of psychology or environment, why has it increased to frightening levels in an age when man supposedly knows more about himself and his environment than ever before? Why are nearly all nations reporting increases in crime? Why has this century been inundated with forms of evil that in earlier times were hardly heard of? If wickedness is solely man-made, why have man’s greatest efforts to eliminate it proved dismal failures?

Could it be that the famous Romanian playwright Eugène Ionesco was right when he said: “History would be beyond comprehension if we were to leave out the demonic element”?

The Clergy’s Curious Silence

Though the question of whether there exists a “demonic element” or not would seem best answered by theologians, the religious clergy are, oddly enough, just as divided as scientific researchers. The Providence Journal-Bulletin once queried a number of local clergymen on the question, Is Satan real? There were those who claimed they had actually exorcised demons, others who believed in the Devil but had trouble ‘personalizing’ him (‘I see him more as a power that is contrary to the will of God’), and yet others who said the Devil is not a person (‘I don’t think we have to personalize him’).

Even the Catholic Church has been curiously silent when it comes to the Devil, though belief in the Devil is official church doctrine. As E. V. Walter observes in Disguises of the Demonic, the church has reacted to modern skepticism. Comparing the 1907 and 1967 editions of The Catholic Encyclopedia, Walter notices “more than a subtle difference” in the articles dealing with “demons,” “demoniacs,” “diabolic possession” and “exorcism.” While the old encyclopedia clearly acknowledged the reality of demonic possession, the newer edition took a more sophisticated approach: “Psychiatry . . . has shown that the workings of the subconscious explain many, if not most, of the abnormal conditions that earlier generations had attributed to diabolical activity.”

Pope Paul VI, however, caused a theological uproar back in 1972 when he said: “We know that this obscure and disturbing being [the Devil] really exists and that he still operates with treacherous cunning.” Liberal theologians cringed at this. The church sponsored theological study of the issue. The result? A document entitled “Christian Faith and Demonology” that clearly reaffirmed the Catholic Church’s belief in the Devil. But as Herbert Haag observes in the Journal of Ecumenical Studies, the church chose a strangely inconspicuous method of publishing this study.a And in a surprising break with tradition, the author of the study is anonymous. Concludes Haag: “Rome chose the route of anonymity, which can hardly be interpreted as anything other than an admission of incertitude.”

Can We View Satan “Realistically and Seriously”?

Though the Vatican’s document was all but ignored by the media and the world, the issue of the Devil’s existence cannot be brushed aside. The consequences are just too enormous. If, for example, there is no Devil, how can you reconcile the existence of a God of love with the continuing existence of evil? As Howard R. Burkle writes in God, Suffering, & Belief: “Of all the factors which make belief [in God] difficult for moderns, however, the most important is human suffering.” Denying the existence of the Devil might therefore be one breath away from denying the existence of God!

There is also the fact that belief in the Devil is virtually universal. As historian Jeffrey Burton Russell observes, there are “parallel formulations of the Devil in diverse and widely separated cultures.” He has been called Ahriman by the ancient Persians, Iblīs by Muslims and Māra by Buddhists. But in the Western world, he is perhaps better known by the name Satan. Belief in a Devil persists in spite of the skepticism of science and the denials of theologians.

Of prime significance to Christians, however, is the question, Does the Bible teach the existence of a Devil? True, liberal theologians attempt to explain away the Devil’s appearance in the Bible, some even claiming that Jesus Christ did not believe in him. Their attitude, according to Professor Richard H. Hiers, writing in the Scottish Journal of Theology, is this: “We do not believe in Satan and demons; surely Jesus could not have done so either!” But after a careful study of the Gospel accounts, Hiers concluded: “There is no reason for us to suppose that Jesus did not view the demons in the same way as did his contemporaries and the synoptic evangelists: realistically and seriously.”

Are there thus valid reasons for you, too, to view the existence of the Devil “realistically and seriously”? What exactly does the Bible say about him?

[Footnotes]

[Blurb on page 5]

“History would be beyond comprehension if we were to leave out the demonic element”

[Blurb on page 5]

Efforts to limit the Devil to the evil within man have proved unsatisfactory

[Picture on page 6]

Has man alone been responsible for all of this?