One of my seminary professors liked to answer the question, “Do you believe in the Devil?” with…
“No, I believe against him.”
It was a clever retort. If to “believe in” something is to give support to it, then we shouldn’t believe in a Devil. We should oppose sin and evil, and we should believe against them.
But my professor didn’t address the question being asked. He was sidestepping, as many professors must do when teaching in conservative institutions.
In this essay, I want to address the question head-on: Does a personal, ontological being called “the Devil” (or some similar name like “Satan”) actually exist?
The Devil and Demons?
In my recently published book, A Systematic Theology of Love , I address the question of the devil and demons. I do it in the context of considering issues of evil.
Exploring evil leads naturally to considering the possible existence of a devil and demons. For many people of faith, these evil characters seem ontologically real and at least partly why evil occurs. Belief in evil spiritual beings predates scripture, can be found in the Bible, and continues today.
Like N. T. Wright, I reject the idea of an eternal dualism of good and evil. I think an essentially good God exists and creates everlastingly. I also reject the eternal dualism of good and evil found in some forms of Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism. Elements of these ancient belief systems permeate some theologies and persist to this day.
A Devil Can’t Have Divine Attributes and Abilities
If the devil exists, I don’t believe it has the unique divine abilities I mentioned in earlier chapters. For instance, the devil isn’t all-knowing. He isn’t universal, isn’t maximally powerful, isn’t all-wise, isn’t everlasting, and so on. If the devil and demons exist, they have limits typical of creatures.
The devil and demons would be unable to control others, for instance, in the sense of being sufficient causes. Claims about demon “possession” would be inaccurate, if by this some mean demonic forces control us or others.
Many people think the devil and demons are spiritual agents, primarily due to their being invisible. Although localized, they apparently have a composition like the invisible, divine Spirit. Material-mental monism stipulates that the devil and demons, if they exist, have mental and material dimensions that can’t be seen.
People also believe demonic beings influence creatures negatively. As spiritual beings, however, they don’t have the physical capacity to pick up objects like we and other creatures have. They wouldn’t be able to control the weather through bodily impact, for instance. Their influence would primarily be mental or psychological, by luring or threatening. They might induce those with bodies to do evil.
Evidence for the Devil?
Beyond scripture, the evidence for a devil and demons typically comes from experiencing profoundly negative events or strangely harmful behavior in creatures. Some people attribute hallucinations, temporary changes of voice, flying objects, predictions, extraordinary strength, and other strange activities to demonic influence.
Some people who believe in a devil or demons attribute all evil to them. But others agree with St. James that “each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desires” (1:16).
All this remains highly speculative, of course. And the biblical witness doesn’t settle these questions. Biblical writers can be wrong about various aspects of nature and cosmology, so they could be wrong about the existence of a devil or demons. Scriptural references to them could be metaphors.
But in assessing their possible existence, we should ponder fairly the possibility that a devil and demons exist as ontological beings. And we should consider the possibility that their existence partly accounts for profoundly negative and odd occurrences. It’s an open question.
How Should We Respond to the Question of a Devil and Demons?
I’ve offered a description of what these negatively-inclined beings could be like, and we can see how they’re generally described in the Bible. But this systematic theology is agnostic on whether they actually exist.
When it comes to a devil, demons, or even angels, I find the words of the cosmologist Laplace appropriate: “I have no need for that hypothesis.” This systematic theology of love doesn’t outright reject the possibility of a literal devil, demons, or angels, but it doesn’t require them to make sense of reality.
If a devil or demons do exist, these spiritual beings would be negative influences in creation. Their negativity and tempting are freely chosen and likely have become habitual. But like all creatures, demonic beings could repent and, thereby, join in God’s salvation. They are not inherently evil; even the devil is redeemable.
If the devil and demons don’t exist, we can account for unusual and strangely negative behaviors in other ways. The material-mental monism model I’ve proposed in various places in A Systeamtic Theology of Love provides a conceptual framework for this accounting. In an enchanted and unpredictable world of dynamic creatures, strange things can happen.
Events some think are the result of demonic spirits might instead be the influence of dynamic entities and creatures with unusual mental and material dimensions. The more we explore the implications of material-mental monism, in fact, the greater its ability to account for the diverse and unusual expressions of existence. The world can be a strange place.
Conclusion
A growing awareness of how systems lead to evil has prompted many theologians to appeal to the demonic not as ontological beings, but as a way of describing negative systems, habits, and propensities. I’ll address this issue in later chapters of A Systematic Theology of Love when I explore sin.
Invisible systemic forces do incline us toward injustice. But those forces don’t need to be actual demons or a Devil.
When it comes to the Devil, I don’t need to believe that hypothesis.