The Devil

What do you call a triangle with four sides?

What do you call a trinity with four members?

What do you call a family where the children are scapegoats for one another?

Christianity.

What do you call an almighty being with a competent rival?

Do you believe either of them is really almighty?

Do you believe both of them are real?

Do you call one of them your master?

In Chronicles we are told the Devil tempted David to take a census. God waited until the census was all taken, and then he sent a disease to kill 70,000 people.

In Samuel we are told the same story, with the same body count, but the instruction comes from God himself.

And both these books tell us God’s wrath was David’s fault.

This gives away the game of theology.

The Almighty had to hold someone responsible for his own incompetence, and it could not be himself.

There could be no blaming the almighty being.

People were afraid an almighty being wouldn’t like that.

Theology needed a scapegoat. Theologians always need a scapegoat.

Someone to blame for their own professional failures.

A priesthood’s professional failures are potentially infinite and eternal, but they are not mysterious.

To keep us from seeing through them it is necessary to maintain a state of fear.

Those who live in fear of God and believe the scriptures were inspired by him are compelled to admit he also fathered the Devil

And God knew from the beginning he would be a competitive rival.

And God knew all along the measure of his success.

In the Christian worldview, the internal contradictions are the point.

They provide the gaslighting, and gaslighting is what lights the way to faith in Christ.

Let us ask believers a question.

What could have motivated Satan to resist, if he knew resistance was futile?

If he knew resistance was futile then his convictions must have been perfectly sincere.

In the truest sense he must be a martyr.

Unless he is actually following orders.

In that case he must be a collaborator.

Admit that God is infinitely wise.

Has he ingenuity enough to frame an excuse for the creation of the devil?

Many Christians say the devils are figurative, not literal.

They take their theology seriously, but not literally.

But only take the Devil from the drama of Christianity, and the plot is gone.

He is as necessary as any other member of the Trinity, and arguably even more important than the Holy Spirit.

Many early Christians actually did not believe in hell; they believed all souls would be redeemed in the end.

But most Christians felt that whoever believed this had committed the unpardonable sin against the Holy Spirit. Whoever believed this was determined to be a heretic, not a Christian, and as heretics Christians killed them, while thinking themselves the persecuted ones.

Thus the first version of the Matrix was rejected. It had too much happiness and bad things never happened to good people.

In every Sunday school, children’s imaginations are filled with unrealistic fantasies of living happily every after, and irrational phobias of fates worse than death.

That is how bigots reproduce themselves.

With the poisons of narcissism and fear.

Now and then a minister gets wise and tries to build a business model less reliant on narcissism and fear. He tries to educate his congregation rather than reinforcing their illusions. He tries to give them scholarship rather than apologetics.

He tries again to give them the original happy version of the Matrix.

Almost every time he is crushed by market forces, if the congregation does not crush him directly.

Now and then some church tries to moderate. This is always controversial and very often leads to a church split.

And whenever people do not know the facts, market forces will vindicate the side more reliant on narcissism and fear.

That’s why the Christian nationalists who now have total control of the US government are dismantling the Department of Education.

If they cannot buy it they will break it.

The one fact that they are in power is all the proof they need to be convinced God is on their side.

All other facts bedamned.

The Confederacy was much the same.

Better to sleep forever than enjoy immortality while other people have to suffer.

If by any possibility after we die we find that we do live forever, the only worthwhile project with our time will be liberty and justice for all.

And the sooner we can all come to see that, the sooner we can all get it done.

Background art

Satan’s Despair, Gustave Doré (1866).
The Destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, Wilhelm von Kaulbach (1846).
Satan Summoning His Legions, Sir Thomas Lawrence (1796-1797).
The Brazen Serpent, Fyodor Bruni (1841).
Satan Presiding at the Infernal Council, John Martin (c. 1823-1827).
Michael Defeats Satan, Guido Reni (1630).
“The Destroying Angel and Daemons of Evil Interrupting the Orgies of the Vicious and Intemperate, William Etty (1832).
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Saint Michel terrassant le dragon, Laurent de La Hyre (1645).
Madonna and Child in Glory and the Saints Michael Arcangelo, Peter and Benedict (1517-1522).
Saint Michael Defeating Lucifer, Giuseppe Marullo (17th century).
Satan Smiting Job, William Blake (c. 1826).
Godofredo de Bouillon en el Monte Sinaí, Reales Alcázares de Sevilla (1839).
The Temptation of Christ, Ary Scheffer (1854).
Christ served by angels in the desert, Francisco Pacheco (1611).
Satan Exulting over Eve, William Blake (1795).
The Temptation of Christ by the Devil, Félix Joseph Barrias (1860).
Saint Michael Expelling Lucifer and the Rebellious Angels, Peter Paul Rubens (1622).
Satan in His Original Glory: Thou Wast Perfect Till Iniquity was Found in Thee, William Blake (c. 1805).
Divine Guidance, Mort Kunstler (2002).
Elijah in the Wilderness, Frederic Leighton (1877-1878).