"Readers are advised to remember that the devil is a liar." - C.S. Lewis
That line is conveniently situated in the preface to Lewis’ “The Screwtape Letters”. The next line goes on to say that even the lines written by the fictitious spirit, Screwtape, should not be taken as necessarily true. (Of course, should we doubt Lewis too?)
I immediately was drawn to that initial quote. I’ve often thought about what it must be like to be the devil of Christianity. For instance, why and how is the devil an individual being? Why must the devil be a man? Well, I suppose all angels must be men, and have a phallus.
Now that is the fascinating part; the devil is (was?) an angel. It must be. It must be a (the) fallen one, an antagonist, an opponent. But is this a pure negation? If the Christian God is pure spirit, shouldn’t the devil be purely physical?
I suppose any negation of the Christian god is a complete negation, or at least of a completely different sort of nature. I take humans as also being some sort of negation, but this must surly be a different type of denial than that of ‘the eternally fallen one’. (Strangely, humans are physical, yet the devil is still a spirit.)
Questions:
Must the devil always lie? Are all lies ones of the devil? What truths would the devil espouse? In what way are those truths ‘true’? What truths could aid the devil’s cause? What type of cause can the devil have? What type of cause does the Christian God allow the devil to have? What does it mean for the Christian God to allow an antagonist an agenda? What does it mean for the Christian God to have an antagonist? Questions are easy. Answers are not.
My Two Cents:
What a worrisome world to live in for that person for whom the devil is behind every corner and every claim. How great the doubt! How great the fear! My issue with a statement like Lewis’ is that it makes the Christian’s life extremely individualistic: “I must doubt all things (all people), except my thoughts attached to my God, which I must take on faith.” That individual is scared for his or her life, trembling from a different sort of fear …
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In order for man to made in God's image, man had to have the freedom of choice. The realm these choices are made are set by the Creator. However, God does not dictate which choices are made unless He needs to in order for his plan to be fulfilled which was destroyed by fallen angles and The Adversary-"satan." So, God knows what results could happen from either choice one makes but He doesn't make someone choose one way or not unless He has to have that. God, in the decision to make man in His image, allowed man to be exposed to the choice of evil, or against His will. By Christ's death and the power of The Spirit, fear is replaced with victory even though this is the "devil's" world. Satan used truth; truth as in God's word in temptation. The Adversary can also be "satan" or "the devil" who is apart of the divine council. Also, with the presupposition that there is a God, who is one to feel or say that their own ideology is above the One who created them? To whom can you say with validity, then, the way you feel or perceive the world to be is better than the One who created it? The order of things can be set with your approval or not but what does your approval of "the devil" or "satan" and his act in the order of things mean to the actual Creator of you and me and the universe?
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