There are, no doubt, serious difficulties in the way of accepting the doctrine of a personal, superhuman, evil power as Satan is described to be. It is doubtful, however, whether these diffificulties may not be due, at least in part, to a misunderstanding of the doctrine and certain of its implications. In addition, it must be acknowledged, that whatever difficulties there may be in the teaching, they are exaggerated and, at the same time, not fairly met by the vague and irrational skepticism which denies without investigation. There are difficulties involved in any view of the world. To say the least, some problems are met by the view of a superhuman, evil world-power. In this section certain general considerations are urged with a view to lessening difficulties keenly felt by some minds. Necessarily, certain items gathered in the foregoing section are here emphasized again.
1. Scripture Doctrine of Satan Not Systematized:
The Scriptural doctrine of Satan is nowhere systematically developed. For materials in this field we are shut up to scattered and incidental references. These passages, which even in the aggregate are not numerous, tell us what we need to know concerning the nature, history, kingdom and works of Satan, but offer scant satisfaction to the merely speculative temper. The comparative lack of development in this field is due partly to the fact that the Biblical writers are primarily interested in God, and only secondarily in the powers of darkness; and partly to the fact that in the Bible doctrine waits upon fact. Hence, the malign and sinister figure of the Adversary is gradually outlined against the light of God's holiness as progressively revealed in the providential world-process which centers in Christ. It is a significant fact that the statements concerning Satan become numerous and definite only in the New Testament. The daylight of the Christian revelation was necessary in order to uncover the lurking foe, dimly disclosed but by no means fully known in the earlier revelation. The disclosure of Satan is, in form at least, historical, not dogmatic.
2. Satan and God:
In the second place, the relationship of Satan to God, already emphasized, must be kept constantly in mind. The doctrine of Satan merges in the general doctrine concerning angels (see ANGEL). It has often been pointed out that the personal characteristics of angels are very little insisted upon. They are known chiefly by their functions: merged, on the one hand, in their own offices, and, on the other, in the activities of God Himself.
In the Old Testament Satan is not represented as a fallen and malignant spirit, but as a servant of Yahweh, performing a divine function and having his place in the heavenly train. In the parallel accounts of David's numbering of Israel (1Sa 24:1; 1Ch 21:1) the tempting of David is attributed both to Yahweh and Satan. The reason for this is either that `the temptation of men is also a part of his providence,' or that in the interval between the documents the personality of the tempter has more clearly emerged. In this case the account in Chronicles would nearly approximate the New Testament teaching. In the Book of Job (1Ch 1:6), however, Satan is among the Sons of God and his assaults upon Job are divinely permitted. In Zec (1Ch 3:1-2) Satan is also a servant of Yahweh. In both these passages there is the hint of opposition between Yahweh and Satan. In the former instance Satan assails unsuccessfully the character of one whom Yahweh honors; while in the latter Yahweh explicitly rebukes Satan for his attitude toward Israel (see G. A. Smith, BTP, II, 316 f). The unveiling of Satan as a rebellious world-power is reserved for the New Testament, and with this fuller teaching the symbolic treatment of temptation in Gen is to be connected. There is a sound pedagogical reason, from the viewpoint of revelation, for this earlier withholding of the whole truth concerning Satan. In the early stages of religious thinking it would seem to be difficult, if not impossible, to hold the sovereignty of God without attributing to His agency those evils in the world which are more or less directly connected with judgment and punishment (compare Isa 45:7; Am 3:6). The Old Testament sufficiently emphasizes man's responsibility for his own evil deeds, but super-human evil is brought upon him from above. "When willful souls have to be misled, the spirit who does so, as in Ahab's case, comes from above" (G. A. Smith, op. cit., 317). The progressive revelation of God's character and purpose, which more and more imperatively demands that the origin of moral evil, and consequently natural evil, must be traced to the created will in opposition to the divine will, leads to the ultimate declaration that Satan is a morally fallen being to whose conquest the Divine Power in history is pledged. There is, also, the distinct possibility that in the significant transition from the Satan of the Old Testament to that of the New Testament we have the outlines of a biography and an indication of the way by which the angels fell.
3. Satan Essentially Limited:
A third general consideration, based upon data given in the earlier section, should be urged in the same connection. In the New Testament delineation of Satan, his limitations are clearly set forth. He is superhuman, but not in any sense divine. His activities are cosmic, but not universal or transcendent. He is a created being. His power is definitely circumscribed. He is doomed to final destruction as a world-power. His entire career is that of a secondary and dependent being who is permitted a certain limited scope of power--a time-lease of activity (Lu 4:6).
4. Conclusions:
These three general considerations have been grouped in this way because they dispose of three objections which are current against the doctrine of Satan.
(1) The first is, that it is mythological in origin. That it is not dogmatic is a priori evidence against this hypothesis. Mythology is primitive dogma. There is no evidence of a theodicy or philosophy of evil in the Biblical treatment of Satan. Moreover, while the Scriptural doctrine is unsystematic in form, it is rigidly limited in scope and everywhere essentially consistent. Even in the Apocalypse, where naturally more scope is allowed to the imagination, the same essential ideas appear. The doctrine of Satan corresponds, item for item, to the intellectual saneness and ethical earnestness of the Biblical world-view as a whole. It is, therefore, not mythological. The restraint of chastened imagination, not the extravagance of mythological fancy, is in evidence throughout the entire Biblical treatment of the subject. Even the use of terms current in mythology (as perhaps Ge 3:1,13-14; Re 12:7-9; compare 1Pe 5:8) does not imply more than a literary clothing of Satan in attributes commonly ascribed to malignant and disorderly forces.
(2) The second objection is that the doctrine is due to the influence of Persian dualism (see PERSIAN RELIGION; ZOROASTRIANISM). The answer to this is plain, on the basis of facts already adduced. The Biblical doctrine of Satan is not dualistic. Satan's empire had a beginning, it will have a definite and permanent end. Satan is God's great enemy in the cosmic sphere, but he is God's creation, exists by divine will, and his power is relatively no more commensurate with God's than that of men. Satan awaits his doom. Weiss says (concerning the New Testament representation of conflict between God and the powers of evil): "There lies in this no Manichaean dualism,.... but only the deepest experience of the work of redemption as the definite destruction of the power from which all sin in the world of men proceeds" (Biblical Theology New Testament, English tanslations of the Bible, II, 272; compare G.A. Smith, op. cit., II, 318).
(3) The third objection is practically the same as the second, but addressed directly to the doctrine itself, apart from the question of its origin, namely, that it destroys the unity of God. The answer to this also is a simple negative. To some minds the reality of created wills is dualistic and therefore untenable. But a true doctrine of unity makes room for other wills than God's--namely of those beings upon whom God has bestowed freedom. Herein stands the doctrine of sin and Satan. The doctrine of Satan no more militates against the unity of God than the idea, so necessary to morality and religion alike, of other created wills set in opposition to God's. Just as the conception of Satan merges, in one direction, in the general doctrine of angels, so, in the other, it blends with the broad and difficult subject of evil (compare "Satan,"HDB ,IV , 412a).
LITERATURE.
All standard works on Biblical Theology, as well as Dictionaries, etc., treat with more or less thoroughness the doctrine of Satan. The German theologians of the more evangelical type, such as Weiss, Lange, Martensen (Danish), Dorner, while exhibiting a tendency toward excessive speculation, discern the deeper aspects of the doctrine. Of monographs known to the writer none are to be recommended without qualification. It is a subject on which the Bible is its own best interpreter.
Louis Matthews Sweet