I say, I say, I say...
What's the difference between God and Satan?
Before I start, a brief digression on terminology.
Once upon a time, I labelled myself as "actively agnostic", meaning to emphasise that theology was an area I gave thought to rather than my being an indifferent and passive agnostic by default. I remain agnostic in all sorts of respects, many of which other Christians find quite surprising.
Later, I discovered the term "ignostic", and have used it for many years, even as a Christian. Now I know of theological noncognitivism, which may be a useful further refinement.
And yet, I'm a theist, a Christian. I recognise that it is by Grace not by reason that I know God but, more than that, I also recognise that it is more by Grace than reason that I feel I mean a similar thing by "God" as other theists mean. I retain a strong noncognitivist streak.
So… what is the difference between God and Satan?
I'm aware of several different theories in this area:
For completeness, there are a few other theories that I reject:
But.
I look around me, and I see a lot of thinking about God and Satan that to me seems confused and inconsistent. This puts me in one of my perpetual quandaries: when someone manifests blind faith and woolly thinking, that can be both a great help to them personally and an unhelpful source of ridicule to rationalist atheists. I'll take a punt that people reading this lean more in the rationalist direction, so shall plough on…
When something we like happens, how do we decide if that was God's work, Satan's work, or a "fluke"? Is it a reward?
When something we dislike happens, how do we decide if that was God's work, Satan's work, or a "fluke"? Is it a punishment?
If one relies on the Bible, one reads James 1:17 which says "every good and perfect gift is from Heaven" and 1 John 1:5 which says "God is light; in him is no darkness at all". If we allow ourselves to fall into the trap of presuming that what we like is good and what we dislike is bad, that's enough to explain everything. Woohoo!
I'll now draw together a few contrasting quotations of at least tangential relevance:
There is no neutral ground in the universe. Every square inch, every split second is claimed by God, and counterclaimed by Satan.
- C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
Even what the enemy means for evil
You turn it for our good
- Keyes/Brown/Mooring, Sovereign Over Us
For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
- Jesus, Matthew 5:45
Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. The Lord said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the Lord and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” And the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” Then Satan answered the Lord and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.”
- anon, Job 1:6-12a
We often talk of disasters "of biblical proportions" when images from some particularly horrible disaster hit our television screens and newspapers. We tend to reserve the phrase for the devastation caused by natural processes such as floods, storms, volcanic eruptions or earthquakes. Subconsciously, perhaps, we see these as "acts of God", as disasters which humans could do little or nothing to prevent. In one respect that is correct: if we live in a world made by the creator God, then, as the Bible makes clear, God is ultimately sovereign over everything that happens. He holds the universe, as it were, in the palm of his hand. Howver, in another respect the term "acts of God" for these disasters is wide of the mark, because as I document in this book it is almost always the decisions and actions of humans which turn an otherwise beneficial natural process into a disaster.
- Robert S. White, Who Is To Blame?
There are likeable things everyone enjoys, through common grace, and it's a mistake to think receiving those implies any favour from God. There are likeable things we receive which are signs of God's favour for us personally. There are likeable things which are given to us by Satan to tempt us. There are likeable things which are given to us by Satan to reward or reinforce bad behaviour. There are good deeds which superficially appear to go unrewarded.
There are dislikeable things which happen because God is angry with us. There dislikeable things which happen to us because other people did wrong. There dislikeable things which are done by Satan to deceive us. There are dislikeable things which are done by Satan to punish us for doing good. There are bad deeds which superficially appear to go unpunished.
And then there's the creation of the very concept of Bad Stuff, which many would ultimately, reluctantly, lay at God's door.
It's easy - ridiculously, perilously easy - to be careless in how we pigeon-hole each of life's events. It's also easy to denounce some other person or sect for which model of God and Satan they adopt on any particular occasion, to congratulate oneself on an allegedly more correct choice.
The path I try, fallibly, to follow returns to what God said to me when first I prayed: everything's simpler than that, yet much more complicated.
Complicatedly: I maintain an agnostic, noncognitivist tension between the various models of the relationship between God and Satan; we're trying to express an ineffable truth in human language and, what's worse, part of that ineffable mish-mash is fighting back, actively trying to deceive us into error. Maybe my agnosticism and noncognitivism are themselves erroneous; the best I can do by my own strength is to acknowledge that possibility to myself.
Simply: All around us, there is genuine goodness in plain sight. See it for what it is; enjoy it; nurture it; help it. Don't rely on your own strength for any of that. Lean on God. Talk to God.
Cross-posted from this Dreamwidth original. If you can, please comment there instead.
DW Comments: Read
or Add Your Own.
Before I start, a brief digression on terminology.
Once upon a time, I labelled myself as "actively agnostic", meaning to emphasise that theology was an area I gave thought to rather than my being an indifferent and passive agnostic by default. I remain agnostic in all sorts of respects, many of which other Christians find quite surprising.
Later, I discovered the term "ignostic", and have used it for many years, even as a Christian. Now I know of theological noncognitivism, which may be a useful further refinement.
And yet, I'm a theist, a Christian. I recognise that it is by Grace not by reason that I know God but, more than that, I also recognise that it is more by Grace than reason that I feel I mean a similar thing by "God" as other theists mean. I retain a strong noncognitivist streak.
So… what is the difference between God and Satan?
I'm aware of several different theories in this area:
- God created absolutely everything, including Satan. Deliberately.
- God created everything except Satan, a second uncreated entity which now seeks to mar God's creation.
- God and Satan together created everything, and are in conflict with one another with Satan as the lesser force.
- God and Satan together created everything, and are in a conflict of equals.
- God and Satan together created everything, and balance one another in cosmic harmony.
- God created everything; Satan doesn't really exist but is God's privative
- God created everything; Satan is a necessary emergent property of how Creation is configured.
For completeness, there are a few other theories that I reject:
- God created absolutely everything including Satan; creating Satan was a mistake.
- God created everything; Satan is an aspect or avatar of God.
- God created Satan; Satan created everything else.
- Satan created everything except God, a second uncreated entity which now seeks to mend Satan's creation.
- God and Satan together created everything, and are in conflict with one another with Satan as the greater force.
- …and Satan is going to win, so we should now support Satan in some diabolical Pascal's Wager.
- God and Satan are in conflict and it is right that Satan should win.
- God and Satan are in conflict and it would be more fun if Satan won.
- God and Satan are morally equivalent; which way round you apply the labels basically depends on which tribe you're in.
- God and Satan are 100% meaningless terms.
But.
I look around me, and I see a lot of thinking about God and Satan that to me seems confused and inconsistent. This puts me in one of my perpetual quandaries: when someone manifests blind faith and woolly thinking, that can be both a great help to them personally and an unhelpful source of ridicule to rationalist atheists. I'll take a punt that people reading this lean more in the rationalist direction, so shall plough on…
When something we like happens, how do we decide if that was God's work, Satan's work, or a "fluke"? Is it a reward?
When something we dislike happens, how do we decide if that was God's work, Satan's work, or a "fluke"? Is it a punishment?
If one relies on the Bible, one reads James 1:17 which says "every good and perfect gift is from Heaven" and 1 John 1:5 which says "God is light; in him is no darkness at all". If we allow ourselves to fall into the trap of presuming that what we like is good and what we dislike is bad, that's enough to explain everything. Woohoo!
I'll now draw together a few contrasting quotations of at least tangential relevance:
There is no neutral ground in the universe. Every square inch, every split second is claimed by God, and counterclaimed by Satan.
- C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
Even what the enemy means for evil
You turn it for our good
- Keyes/Brown/Mooring, Sovereign Over Us
For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
- Jesus, Matthew 5:45
Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. The Lord said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the Lord and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” And the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” Then Satan answered the Lord and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.”
- anon, Job 1:6-12a
We often talk of disasters "of biblical proportions" when images from some particularly horrible disaster hit our television screens and newspapers. We tend to reserve the phrase for the devastation caused by natural processes such as floods, storms, volcanic eruptions or earthquakes. Subconsciously, perhaps, we see these as "acts of God", as disasters which humans could do little or nothing to prevent. In one respect that is correct: if we live in a world made by the creator God, then, as the Bible makes clear, God is ultimately sovereign over everything that happens. He holds the universe, as it were, in the palm of his hand. Howver, in another respect the term "acts of God" for these disasters is wide of the mark, because as I document in this book it is almost always the decisions and actions of humans which turn an otherwise beneficial natural process into a disaster.
- Robert S. White, Who Is To Blame?
There are likeable things everyone enjoys, through common grace, and it's a mistake to think receiving those implies any favour from God. There are likeable things we receive which are signs of God's favour for us personally. There are likeable things which are given to us by Satan to tempt us. There are likeable things which are given to us by Satan to reward or reinforce bad behaviour. There are good deeds which superficially appear to go unrewarded.
There are dislikeable things which happen because God is angry with us. There dislikeable things which happen to us because other people did wrong. There dislikeable things which are done by Satan to deceive us. There are dislikeable things which are done by Satan to punish us for doing good. There are bad deeds which superficially appear to go unpunished.
And then there's the creation of the very concept of Bad Stuff, which many would ultimately, reluctantly, lay at God's door.
It's easy - ridiculously, perilously easy - to be careless in how we pigeon-hole each of life's events. It's also easy to denounce some other person or sect for which model of God and Satan they adopt on any particular occasion, to congratulate oneself on an allegedly more correct choice.
The path I try, fallibly, to follow returns to what God said to me when first I prayed: everything's simpler than that, yet much more complicated.
Complicatedly: I maintain an agnostic, noncognitivist tension between the various models of the relationship between God and Satan; we're trying to express an ineffable truth in human language and, what's worse, part of that ineffable mish-mash is fighting back, actively trying to deceive us into error. Maybe my agnosticism and noncognitivism are themselves erroneous; the best I can do by my own strength is to acknowledge that possibility to myself.
Simply: All around us, there is genuine goodness in plain sight. See it for what it is; enjoy it; nurture it; help it. Don't rely on your own strength for any of that. Lean on God. Talk to God.
Cross-posted from this Dreamwidth original. If you can, please comment there instead.
DW Comments: Read
or Add Your Own.