Before considering soteriological purpose and accomplishment and acknowledging the post-modern uncertainties of Girard and those he influences about the Satan’s identity, ontology and purpose; it is essential to conclude about what or whom is overcome in the atonement.
It has been argued that right understanding of God’s freedom of will makes dualistic thought impossible; Barth noting that,
We deceive ourselves if we think that we should take sin, death, and the devil seriously in the sense of ascribing to them a divine or semi-divine potentiality or the rôle of a real antagonist to the living God.534 It is when we see them as powers which are in their own peculiar way subordinate and subject to the will of God that we really take them seriously as powers of temptation, evil and eternal destruction. It is only then that we know conclusively that we ourselves do not have the power 532 Volf, Exclusion, 304. 533 Wright, Simply, 181-182. 534
An example of theological ‘sectarianism’ and ‘dualism’ in research about the Satan is posited by Walker who, after describing God’s on-going war with the Devil, describes it, as we have seen, as ‘the Great Battle’, conceding that, “This may seem a very primitive way of talking, but this book is primarily a work of propaganda for a primitive gospel. Such a gospel insists on a proper Christian dualism that understands Christ and his church to be confronted by a real and terrifying enemy. The early church fathers called him the Evil One.” Walker, Enemy, 9-10.
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to combat and conquer them. We cannot do this because it is not our business. They are powers combated and conquered by God, and our business is to
acknowledge and accept the decision about them made by God’s will and to deal with them accordingly.535
A theological via media between Barth and Walker is articulated by Gunton who argues that the language of possession by demonic forces expresses the helplessness of human agents in the face of psychological, social and cosmic forces in various combinations; theologically, he contends, it is important to see the origins of bondage in the idolatrous worship of that which is not God. When any part of the created world is given the value of God, humanity comes into the power of a reality which, because it is not divine, operates demonically.536
Acceptance of a guarded personification of the Satan and powers and principalities is also forwarded by Schlier who argues that the manifold principalities which unfold the one satanic power are encountered as a kind of personal and powerful being. He
simultaneously accepts that these principalities exercise their being by taking possession of the world as a whole, and of individual men, the elements, political and social
institutions, historical conditions and circumstances, spiritual and religious trends.537 Above all, Shlier concludes, their possession is exercised mainly through the
“atmosphere”, which is the immediate site of their power.538
It is apparent that whilst the personification of evil manifest in the Satan is currently out of theological and cultural favour it is likewise true that the concept of the Satan is not yet entirely redundant. The perception of the Satan as ruler over the world expresses the insight that evil is not only found here and there in the world, but that all particular evils make up one single power which in the last analysis grows from the very actions of men and which form, Schlier argues, an atmosphere and a spiritual tradition, which
overwhelms every human.
535
Barth, Dogmatics, Vol II,1, 563.
536
Gunton, Actuality, 70. Tillich observes, “…for the demonic is the elevation of something conditional to unconditional significance.” Tillich, Systematic, Vol 1, 155.
537
Yoder comments on each group or leader trying to ascertain the power-source of their enemy – whether correctly or not; this is why, he argues, rambunctious students occupied the office of the dean and why Che Guevara, after coming to the belief that peasants would prove to be the backbone of the coming Latin American revolution, went to live with them in the hills of Bolivia. Neufeld, Jesus, 229. Similarly Schlier ‘covers his bases’ arguing that the Satan is both a personal being and yet one able to manifest ‘himself’ through impersonal institutions.
538
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This outlook represents the imperative that whilst the Satan might not be perceived how he has been traditionally and historically, demons nonetheless express, in at the very least a mythological way, truths about evil which will be lost if too superficial a view of the subject is taken. Amongst these truths, according to Macquarrie, are: the depth and mystery of evil; the superhuman dimensions of evil; its sometimes apparently
systematic character; and the fact that a spiritual nature is no safeguard against evil and may indeed issue in the worst forms of evil.539
The task of steering a via media between the opposite ends of theological perspectives on the Satan is highlighted, as we have seen, by Walker who warns that if the Devil has no reality or active role in the divine drama of salvation then the vision of the Great Battle is lost.540 Likewise, even though Gunton cautions of the dangers of taking talk of ‘the powers’ and the devil too literally, leading to misunderstanding of the use of metaphor and myth,541 he is nonetheless cautious not to discount that the forces are in some sense ‘cosmic’, whilst simultaneously bearing an earthly manifestation through political, social, economic and religious structures of power.542
Like Gunton we are keen to steer a middle course between a naively supernaturalist view of the demonic and a reductionist one, which is construed as a way of speaking of merely finite or psychological influences. Gunton endorses indirect description as the best means of expressing this cosmic realm; concluding that, “…an indirect description is still a description of what is really there.”543 We concur, therefore, with Barratt that this equates to there being a Devil who is defeated, but is not yet entirely destroyed.544 Further, Newbigin argues that in the past 150 years scholarly readers of the New
Testament have chosen, for all practical purposes, to ignore what was said about hostile
539
Macquarrie, Principles, 238. Gunton argues that, “The contribution made by a theology of the demonic, and the consequent taking seriously of the place of Satan in the New Testament, is that it presents a picture of evil as an appalling and irrational corruption of the good creation, something that cannot be explained away because it is a denial of the purposes of God.” Gunton, Actuality, 84.
540
Walker, Enemy, 23.
541
He baulks at too-literal an understanding of the devil and the failure to appreciate metaphorical language; arguing that in passages like Mark 10:45, where it reports that Jesus came to give his life as a ransom, that one would be left, “…to speculate about how much money was to be handed over and to whom.” Gunton, Actuality, 64.
542
Gunton is influenced by Caird who argues that Paul uses, “…mythical language of great antiquity and continuing vitality to interpret the historic event of the cross”. G.B. Caird, The Language and Imagery of the
Bible, London: Duckworth, 1980, 242.
543
Gunton, Actuality, 65.
544
He concludes that, “…the Church was historically too well acquainted with his devices to suppose that Satan had died.” C.K. Barrett, The Holy Spirit and the Gospel Tradition, London: SPCK, 1947, 52.
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spiritual powers and the Satan. This outlook, he contends, feeds into the dominant reductionist materialism of the day, preventing the discernment of realities that Paul and other New Testament writers talk about, and which, according to Newbigin, are
realities.545
Those who have demurred at ascribing the Satan personhood, such as Wink and Girard, have nonetheless, at least grammatically, conferred being on the Devil by the addition of masculine pronouns as descriptors. So, this ‘force’ of evil, even if not a person per se should still be perceived as one, as this is the only route that ‘makes sense’. Whilst there will always be contention about the precise, ontological reality and personhood of the Satan we are in accord with the Fathers and Walker that belief in him as a being remains a central element of atonement doctrine and therefore of soteriology and it therefore remains incumbent upon modern believers to uphold the dogma that, “To be a Christian is to be at war with the Devil”.546
In terms of ‘being a Christian’ and of a person thereby having secured salvation
Harrison notes that human nature is, in fact, the foundation of what people are and what everyone shares, making them alike; he observes that,
Being according to the divine image is intrinsic to our nature. It gives us the capacity to become like God or not, to choose between good and evil, to live a life of virtue, to love God and neighbours, to be rewarded by God in the age to come or not, and to enjoy communion with God in heaven. Their nature thus makes people capable of likeness to God, communion with him, and eternal life in the age to come – that is, salvation.547
In regard to the one who is the enemy of this salvation, the Devil, we conclude that ‘it’ is a being, but not a person (in as far as a ‘person’ is determined as one with the potential to love, is redeemableand on whom personhood has been conferred by a loving God)548, the
personification of evil, its source and loci and the one who through Christ’s death and
545 Newbigin, Gospel, 200. 546 Walker, Enemy, 13. 547
V.H. Harrison, ‘The Human Person as Image and Likeness of God’, M.B. Cunningham and E. Theokritoff (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Orthodox Christian Theology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008, 78-92, 80.
548
“Fundamental to any Christian view of the person is love. Persons gain their dignity and value from their capacity to give and receive love.” Further, Pyper states that the value of the human person is grounded in, “…the self-disclosure of a God constituted by love, who accords the dignity of personhood to each human individual…” H.S. Pyper, ‘Person’, A. Hastings (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, 532-533, 533.
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resurrection would be mortally wounded to herald God’s eschaton and the ultimate salvation of humanity otherwise under his influence and sway.