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Extracted and re-arranged from Emil Brunner, Dogmatics: Vol. 2: The Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption, ch. 5: Angels, Spirits and the Devil.
Part 1
In the New Testament, the existence of a power of darkness (however this may be conceived) -- is integral to the story of Jesus Christ. Nullus diabolus nullus redemptor -- this thesis can scarcely be denied. Thus it is no accident that in the main canonical writings of the New Testament -- in contrast to the legendary features of the narrative and to elements on the “fringe” of the New Testament -- where the significance of Jesus Christ is taught as canonical truth, these dark supra-mundane forces are mentioned, but not “angels”, or even particular angels (with names); on the other hand, although “angels” seem to play an almost negligible part in genuine Christian life, many Christians (though by no means all) and particularly those of mature experience and deep conviction, testify to encounters with the “powers of darkness”.
People will say, of course, that to believe this is to revert to the darkness of the Middle Ages; but we need not take this objection too seriously. Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones! A generation which has produced two World Wars, and a totalitarian State with all its horrors, has very little cause to designate the Middle Ages as “dark” (the whole of the Christian period up to the Enlightenment must be included with the Middle Ages). On the contrary, it is just because our generation has experienced such diabolical wickedness that many people have abandoned their former “enlightened” objection to the existence of a “power of darkness”, and are now prepared to believe in Satan as represented in the Bible.
At the same time, we must never forget that at this particular point, the myth-forming imagination is apt to run riot. The whole sorry story of witch-hunting and of a supposed diabolic influence of earlier centuries -- post-Reformation, as well as of the Middle Ages -- was doubtless derived, in part, from the ecclesiastical doctrine of Satan: any such doctrine, unless kept within the strictest bounds, could produce equally disastrous results to-day. On the other hand, modern psychology with its discovery of the effects of “deep analysis” has taught us that realities are not abolished, nor even rendered innocent and innocuous, if we simply declare on rationalistic grounds that they do not exist. Possibly this is not the only service which, in this matter, such psychology is able to render. The connexion between the “power of darkness” and the unconscious processes of the mind, can scarcely be denied, whatever they may be.
Rationalism has always made short work of the devil -- at least in theory! For this must be Goethe’s meaning, when he says of Mephistopheles: “People don’t know the Devil is there! Even when he has them by the throat!” The Enlightenment simply declared “There is no Devil”, and explained belief in the devil as the product of the “myth-forming imagination”. Of course, it is obvious that the “power of darkness” does not fit into the optimistic world-view of the Enlightenment. Reflection upon stories about the devil, and the horrors of witch-hunting belonging to earlier ages, and a not wholly unjustified pride in the fact that these unhappy phenomena had disappeared with the spirit of the Enlightenment, helped to justify and support this view.
One of the rationalistic arguments of those who deny the existence of a “dark power” must be regarded as particularly weak, that is, the view that, if we accept the existence of the devil, human responsibility is either eliminated, or at least greatly weakened. This is, of course, out of the question. Even in the Bible, the power of the devil, or the power of darkness, is never described as irresistible. It is not of such a kind that it could in any way influence human responsibility. The devil leads men astray, he suggests evil; but the man who allows himself to be led astray, and to be incited to evil, is wholly responsible for his action.
Part 2
What does the Bible say about the Devil? The first point that emerges is a negative one -- in line with our previous rejection of a metaphysical dualism -- namely, that the Devil is not God’s “opposite number”! He is powerful, it is true; he is stronger than man; but he is not “almighty” like God. He is a “ruler” -- Paul goes so far as to call him the “god of this world”, or “of this age”, but he is subject to the will and the power of God. Indeed, the great event of Good Friday and Easter has already despoiled him of his powers. Jesus Christ came “to destroy the works of the devil”. Even though in the New Testament the dark power seems far more uncanny than, for instance, in the Book of Job, where Satan belongs to the court of the Lord of Heaven, and has a kind of footing there, yet in the New Testament Satan is nowhere regarded as on a level with God. Here it is true, as Luther says, that “he can’t do anything! he is already judged”, the decisive battle against him has already been won; he is already regarded as a dethroned prince, who is led as a captive in Christ’s triumphal procession; although from the empirical point of view he is still very powerful, and is still raging.
On the other hand, however, the Bible says nothing about his beginning, about his origin. On the contrary, we are told that he is a liar and a “murderer from the beginning”. He is simply “there”, no one knows whence, or how this has come to pass. The ancient doctrine of the Church, namely, that he is a fallen angel of light, has no directly Scriptural basis. The passage in Isa. 14 which is often quoted in this connexion, where the fallen “morning star”, Lucifer, is mentioned, does not refer to Satan but to Babylon and its fall; the second passage, 2 Pet. 2: 4, does not refer to the fall of Satan but to those mythical beings in Gen. 6, to a narrative which is not only on the “fringe” of the Biblical revelation but is really outside it. The Bible tells us equally little about the nature of Satan and the diabolical forces. Is it one? or are there many? Paul speaks of a whole army of forces which are hostile to Christ: but he does not make it clear how these “powers” differ from one another, and how -- if this expression may be permitted -- they are organized. Paul, like Jesus Himself, speaks of the power of darkness -- not only in the plural but also in the singular -- and of the “devil”, or Satan, and Jesus speaks of the “devil and his angels”. Paul also lays stress upon the fact that the kingdom of the devil is -- if one may say so -- well organized, an orderly, unified, hierarchy. There is a hint of a devilish “plan” of action, a kind of diabolical strategy, characteristic of the effective activity of the diabolical power. But all this tells us very little; at any rate it is not enough to give us any right to build upon it a clear “doctrine of the devil”. Here, evidently, we shall not get very far without a good deal of our own reflection.
First of all, we must try to follow another path, that of hypothetical phenomenology. First let us ask: Is the sphere of sinful possibility exhausted with the phenomenon of human sin? This question, first of all purely as a possibility of thought, is to be answered in the negative. Human sin, thanks to the fact that we are not pure spirits, but body-mind creatures, is never “complete”. Its negative “perfection” would be pure defiance, pure arrogance, that is, purely spiritual sin. But our sin, thanks to the fact of our human constitution as “body-mind”, is always a mixture of defiance and weakness, of tendency to temptation both on the side of the mind and of the senses.
In contrast to the Greek conception of sin, namely, that sin is due to man’s sense-nature and thus the body is regarded as the source of evil, the Christian Faith regards sin mainly as pride and rebellion. Hence the statement: the more intellectual a man is, the greater -- not perhaps the sin -- but the possibility, or the extent, of his sin. It is not the primitive, mentally undeveloped man who sins most deeply, but the intellectually gifted and talented human being, or the genius. The nature of sin, in the Christian sense, is best represented not by the semi-psychopathic criminal type, but by the cynical defiant person who denies God, and is a genuine anti-Christ; he manifests sin in its purest form. But even he does not reach the height which can be reached in theory, because he too is infected with the weakness of the physical sense-constitution. Pure sin, sin which is only rebellion, would be without weakness; such sin could only be produced by a pure spirit, a being who was not hemmed in by the weakness of the body. This sin would then be irreversible, unforgivable, and incurable. In the Bible such sin is never ascribed to man; he never sins quite so spontaneously, so independently, so proudly, as we would have to conceive the sin of a purely spiritual being.
Satanic sin, conceived as a possibility, as a phenomenon is quite different from human sin, by the very fact that it is not due to temptation, but is purely spontaneous sin, that is, self-generated. It would not be the sin of the tempted but of the Tempter. It would be sin that is self-suggested, not due to suggestion from without. But man has too little ability to invent sin. He has too little genius to be the first to conceive this possibility. The more genius he has the nearer he approaches this possibility; but his degree of genius, even at its extreme point, does not extend to this possibility. At this point we perceive the reason for the deep dislike of the rational man for the belief in the existence of the devil. He is always inclined to look for evil in the sphere of the senses, and therefore to regard his mind, his autonomous human personality, as free from this hindrance. On the other hand, his pride of independence is such that he cannot bear to admit to himself that he could not have invented sin for himself if he had so desired. He believes that he can and ought to be able to bear sole responsibility for evil; he regards temptation as a quite secondary matter. But to admit that in order to sin at all man needs temptation, which does not proceed from himself, is intolerable for his pride.
We have, however, not yet put the question: what is the reality of such “pure” sin, as described in intellectual and phenomenological terms? But we have already touched it. For if man, as a psycho-physical being, is really capable of “inventing” sin -- sin that is spontaneous, self-generated -- then, certainly, the fact that he does actually commit sin, and thus that sin which he has not invented, is still there, would suggest the presupposition which has been postulated, namely, that there is a power of temptation which leads him astray, and that this power of temptation can only be a being who is able to sin spontaneously, that is, a being who sins “satanically”. This line of thought would be an absolute proof of the existence of a diabolical power, that is, if the premisses which lead to this conclusion are accepted. In point of fact, this is correct for Christian thought, but not for any non-Christian school of thought.
Conclusion
The Christian Faith is bound to admit the existence of a sinful supernatural power, and indeed of a purely spiritual sinful being, to which we can ascribe what we may call “Satanic” sin, in contrast to human sin. On the basis of all that we can glean from the Bible, what can we teach about this sinister power?
We who approach the subject from the theological point of view, upon the basis of the Bible, will only venture with the greatest caution to say, in doctrinal terms, what the devil “is”. For on this question the Bible is -- more or less -- silent. It hints at more than it says, and its hints are so indefinite that, as we have already said, we cannot weave them into a “doctrine of the Devil”. What the Bible says plainly is this: that there is a power of darkness, and that it is of great significance. As a force of a super-human kind it stands over against man. It is an “objective reality”, that is, it is a reality which is objectively encountered, not merely a reality within the mind. It is a purely spiritual force, which works directly upon the spirit, without the mediations which are normally necessary for contact between human minds in order to communicate with each other, and to have an influence upon one another. Its method of influence is “occult”; in saying this we do not know whether there is a closer relation between this power and that other which is usually called “occult”. The diabolical power is both one and many. But we do not know how it can be both one and many. It is of the essence of the power of darkness that it does not reveal itself, although it manifests itself. It is of its nature to will to remain hidden, and to refuse to reveal itself. This characteristic is the objective reason why there cannot be a clear doctrine of Satan. It defies all definition because it refuses to come out into the open, and be made manifest. It can only develop its power in darkness. It loves and understands the art of dissimulation, of camouflage. It even dissimulates its nature by pretending to be an “angel of light”, in order that it may carry out its dark designs all the more undisturbed. It works in an impersonal manner, and indeed, so impersonally that it destroys the personal element; for this very reason it makes it impossible to grasp its own personal character. It loves to reduce man to a mass phenomenon, that is, to place him in such a situation that his personal consciousness, and thus his personal responsibility, ceases to exist, where man is no longer “I”, but only a psychic “it”. It loves men’s careless, unthinking ways, and hates men to begin to think. It loves dumbness, and it hates speech, for speech is the favourite means of personal communication. All the phenomena of the Demonic and Satanic are characterized by secrecy and reserve.
The most important truth about the Devil is this: Jesus Christ has conquered him. The Cross is the exact opposite of, and therefore the reaction against the “fall of Lucifer”: the rebellion against God of that being who could not endure not to be equal with God. The Cross is the Sign of the Devil’s defeat, and a continual reminder of Him who conquered him; it is also the Sign of Him who “emptied Himself” of His Divine power, in order to express in His own person the Divine self- giving to the uttermost.
Jesus Christ is described as the only One who was able to resist the power of temptation, which assaulted Him from without, not from within. This power proves that Jesus is more than Man, that He was not, like other men, held captive by this spell, which no human being can overcome. As the God-Man He conquers this evil enchantment, which emanates from the being who weaves the spell, that is, the Satanic power itself. Hence He came to “destroy the works of the devil”. It was He who “delivered us from the power of darkness, and placed us in the realm of the Son of His Love.” If sin be what the Christian Faith believes it to be, and if this be man’s situation, namely, that he is in bondage to the power of sin, and is thus under a spell which he cannot break, then it is clear that man’s redemption by Jesus Christ can only take place if He breaks this fatal spell; thus redemption through Jesus Christ cannot be imagined without that dark background of Satanic power.
Part 1
In the New Testament, the existence of a power of darkness (however this may be conceived) -- is integral to the story of Jesus Christ. Nullus diabolus nullus redemptor -- this thesis can scarcely be denied. Thus it is no accident that in the main canonical writings of the New Testament -- in contrast to the legendary features of the narrative and to elements on the “fringe” of the New Testament -- where the significance of Jesus Christ is taught as canonical truth, these dark supra-mundane forces are mentioned, but not “angels”, or even particular angels (with names); on the other hand, although “angels” seem to play an almost negligible part in genuine Christian life, many Christians (though by no means all) and particularly those of mature experience and deep conviction, testify to encounters with the “powers of darkness”.
People will say, of course, that to believe this is to revert to the darkness of the Middle Ages; but we need not take this objection too seriously. Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones! A generation which has produced two World Wars, and a totalitarian State with all its horrors, has very little cause to designate the Middle Ages as “dark” (the whole of the Christian period up to the Enlightenment must be included with the Middle Ages). On the contrary, it is just because our generation has experienced such diabolical wickedness that many people have abandoned their former “enlightened” objection to the existence of a “power of darkness”, and are now prepared to believe in Satan as represented in the Bible.
At the same time, we must never forget that at this particular point, the myth-forming imagination is apt to run riot. The whole sorry story of witch-hunting and of a supposed diabolic influence of earlier centuries -- post-Reformation, as well as of the Middle Ages -- was doubtless derived, in part, from the ecclesiastical doctrine of Satan: any such doctrine, unless kept within the strictest bounds, could produce equally disastrous results to-day. On the other hand, modern psychology with its discovery of the effects of “deep analysis” has taught us that realities are not abolished, nor even rendered innocent and innocuous, if we simply declare on rationalistic grounds that they do not exist. Possibly this is not the only service which, in this matter, such psychology is able to render. The connexion between the “power of darkness” and the unconscious processes of the mind, can scarcely be denied, whatever they may be.
Rationalism has always made short work of the devil -- at least in theory! For this must be Goethe’s meaning, when he says of Mephistopheles: “People don’t know the Devil is there! Even when he has them by the throat!” The Enlightenment simply declared “There is no Devil”, and explained belief in the devil as the product of the “myth-forming imagination”. Of course, it is obvious that the “power of darkness” does not fit into the optimistic world-view of the Enlightenment. Reflection upon stories about the devil, and the horrors of witch-hunting belonging to earlier ages, and a not wholly unjustified pride in the fact that these unhappy phenomena had disappeared with the spirit of the Enlightenment, helped to justify and support this view.
One of the rationalistic arguments of those who deny the existence of a “dark power” must be regarded as particularly weak, that is, the view that, if we accept the existence of the devil, human responsibility is either eliminated, or at least greatly weakened. This is, of course, out of the question. Even in the Bible, the power of the devil, or the power of darkness, is never described as irresistible. It is not of such a kind that it could in any way influence human responsibility. The devil leads men astray, he suggests evil; but the man who allows himself to be led astray, and to be incited to evil, is wholly responsible for his action.
Part 2
What does the Bible say about the Devil? The first point that emerges is a negative one -- in line with our previous rejection of a metaphysical dualism -- namely, that the Devil is not God’s “opposite number”! He is powerful, it is true; he is stronger than man; but he is not “almighty” like God. He is a “ruler” -- Paul goes so far as to call him the “god of this world”, or “of this age”, but he is subject to the will and the power of God. Indeed, the great event of Good Friday and Easter has already despoiled him of his powers. Jesus Christ came “to destroy the works of the devil”. Even though in the New Testament the dark power seems far more uncanny than, for instance, in the Book of Job, where Satan belongs to the court of the Lord of Heaven, and has a kind of footing there, yet in the New Testament Satan is nowhere regarded as on a level with God. Here it is true, as Luther says, that “he can’t do anything! he is already judged”, the decisive battle against him has already been won; he is already regarded as a dethroned prince, who is led as a captive in Christ’s triumphal procession; although from the empirical point of view he is still very powerful, and is still raging.
On the other hand, however, the Bible says nothing about his beginning, about his origin. On the contrary, we are told that he is a liar and a “murderer from the beginning”. He is simply “there”, no one knows whence, or how this has come to pass. The ancient doctrine of the Church, namely, that he is a fallen angel of light, has no directly Scriptural basis. The passage in Isa. 14 which is often quoted in this connexion, where the fallen “morning star”, Lucifer, is mentioned, does not refer to Satan but to Babylon and its fall; the second passage, 2 Pet. 2: 4, does not refer to the fall of Satan but to those mythical beings in Gen. 6, to a narrative which is not only on the “fringe” of the Biblical revelation but is really outside it. The Bible tells us equally little about the nature of Satan and the diabolical forces. Is it one? or are there many? Paul speaks of a whole army of forces which are hostile to Christ: but he does not make it clear how these “powers” differ from one another, and how -- if this expression may be permitted -- they are organized. Paul, like Jesus Himself, speaks of the power of darkness -- not only in the plural but also in the singular -- and of the “devil”, or Satan, and Jesus speaks of the “devil and his angels”. Paul also lays stress upon the fact that the kingdom of the devil is -- if one may say so -- well organized, an orderly, unified, hierarchy. There is a hint of a devilish “plan” of action, a kind of diabolical strategy, characteristic of the effective activity of the diabolical power. But all this tells us very little; at any rate it is not enough to give us any right to build upon it a clear “doctrine of the devil”. Here, evidently, we shall not get very far without a good deal of our own reflection.
First of all, we must try to follow another path, that of hypothetical phenomenology. First let us ask: Is the sphere of sinful possibility exhausted with the phenomenon of human sin? This question, first of all purely as a possibility of thought, is to be answered in the negative. Human sin, thanks to the fact that we are not pure spirits, but body-mind creatures, is never “complete”. Its negative “perfection” would be pure defiance, pure arrogance, that is, purely spiritual sin. But our sin, thanks to the fact of our human constitution as “body-mind”, is always a mixture of defiance and weakness, of tendency to temptation both on the side of the mind and of the senses.
In contrast to the Greek conception of sin, namely, that sin is due to man’s sense-nature and thus the body is regarded as the source of evil, the Christian Faith regards sin mainly as pride and rebellion. Hence the statement: the more intellectual a man is, the greater -- not perhaps the sin -- but the possibility, or the extent, of his sin. It is not the primitive, mentally undeveloped man who sins most deeply, but the intellectually gifted and talented human being, or the genius. The nature of sin, in the Christian sense, is best represented not by the semi-psychopathic criminal type, but by the cynical defiant person who denies God, and is a genuine anti-Christ; he manifests sin in its purest form. But even he does not reach the height which can be reached in theory, because he too is infected with the weakness of the physical sense-constitution. Pure sin, sin which is only rebellion, would be without weakness; such sin could only be produced by a pure spirit, a being who was not hemmed in by the weakness of the body. This sin would then be irreversible, unforgivable, and incurable. In the Bible such sin is never ascribed to man; he never sins quite so spontaneously, so independently, so proudly, as we would have to conceive the sin of a purely spiritual being.
Satanic sin, conceived as a possibility, as a phenomenon is quite different from human sin, by the very fact that it is not due to temptation, but is purely spontaneous sin, that is, self-generated. It would not be the sin of the tempted but of the Tempter. It would be sin that is self-suggested, not due to suggestion from without. But man has too little ability to invent sin. He has too little genius to be the first to conceive this possibility. The more genius he has the nearer he approaches this possibility; but his degree of genius, even at its extreme point, does not extend to this possibility. At this point we perceive the reason for the deep dislike of the rational man for the belief in the existence of the devil. He is always inclined to look for evil in the sphere of the senses, and therefore to regard his mind, his autonomous human personality, as free from this hindrance. On the other hand, his pride of independence is such that he cannot bear to admit to himself that he could not have invented sin for himself if he had so desired. He believes that he can and ought to be able to bear sole responsibility for evil; he regards temptation as a quite secondary matter. But to admit that in order to sin at all man needs temptation, which does not proceed from himself, is intolerable for his pride.
We have, however, not yet put the question: what is the reality of such “pure” sin, as described in intellectual and phenomenological terms? But we have already touched it. For if man, as a psycho-physical being, is really capable of “inventing” sin -- sin that is spontaneous, self-generated -- then, certainly, the fact that he does actually commit sin, and thus that sin which he has not invented, is still there, would suggest the presupposition which has been postulated, namely, that there is a power of temptation which leads him astray, and that this power of temptation can only be a being who is able to sin spontaneously, that is, a being who sins “satanically”. This line of thought would be an absolute proof of the existence of a diabolical power, that is, if the premisses which lead to this conclusion are accepted. In point of fact, this is correct for Christian thought, but not for any non-Christian school of thought.
Conclusion
The Christian Faith is bound to admit the existence of a sinful supernatural power, and indeed of a purely spiritual sinful being, to which we can ascribe what we may call “Satanic” sin, in contrast to human sin. On the basis of all that we can glean from the Bible, what can we teach about this sinister power?
We who approach the subject from the theological point of view, upon the basis of the Bible, will only venture with the greatest caution to say, in doctrinal terms, what the devil “is”. For on this question the Bible is -- more or less -- silent. It hints at more than it says, and its hints are so indefinite that, as we have already said, we cannot weave them into a “doctrine of the Devil”. What the Bible says plainly is this: that there is a power of darkness, and that it is of great significance. As a force of a super-human kind it stands over against man. It is an “objective reality”, that is, it is a reality which is objectively encountered, not merely a reality within the mind. It is a purely spiritual force, which works directly upon the spirit, without the mediations which are normally necessary for contact between human minds in order to communicate with each other, and to have an influence upon one another. Its method of influence is “occult”; in saying this we do not know whether there is a closer relation between this power and that other which is usually called “occult”. The diabolical power is both one and many. But we do not know how it can be both one and many. It is of the essence of the power of darkness that it does not reveal itself, although it manifests itself. It is of its nature to will to remain hidden, and to refuse to reveal itself. This characteristic is the objective reason why there cannot be a clear doctrine of Satan. It defies all definition because it refuses to come out into the open, and be made manifest. It can only develop its power in darkness. It loves and understands the art of dissimulation, of camouflage. It even dissimulates its nature by pretending to be an “angel of light”, in order that it may carry out its dark designs all the more undisturbed. It works in an impersonal manner, and indeed, so impersonally that it destroys the personal element; for this very reason it makes it impossible to grasp its own personal character. It loves to reduce man to a mass phenomenon, that is, to place him in such a situation that his personal consciousness, and thus his personal responsibility, ceases to exist, where man is no longer “I”, but only a psychic “it”. It loves men’s careless, unthinking ways, and hates men to begin to think. It loves dumbness, and it hates speech, for speech is the favourite means of personal communication. All the phenomena of the Demonic and Satanic are characterized by secrecy and reserve.
The most important truth about the Devil is this: Jesus Christ has conquered him. The Cross is the exact opposite of, and therefore the reaction against the “fall of Lucifer”: the rebellion against God of that being who could not endure not to be equal with God. The Cross is the Sign of the Devil’s defeat, and a continual reminder of Him who conquered him; it is also the Sign of Him who “emptied Himself” of His Divine power, in order to express in His own person the Divine self- giving to the uttermost.
Jesus Christ is described as the only One who was able to resist the power of temptation, which assaulted Him from without, not from within. This power proves that Jesus is more than Man, that He was not, like other men, held captive by this spell, which no human being can overcome. As the God-Man He conquers this evil enchantment, which emanates from the being who weaves the spell, that is, the Satanic power itself. Hence He came to “destroy the works of the devil”. It was He who “delivered us from the power of darkness, and placed us in the realm of the Son of His Love.” If sin be what the Christian Faith believes it to be, and if this be man’s situation, namely, that he is in bondage to the power of sin, and is thus under a spell which he cannot break, then it is clear that man’s redemption by Jesus Christ can only take place if He breaks this fatal spell; thus redemption through Jesus Christ cannot be imagined without that dark background of Satanic power.
