The Devil In The Mirror
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TheCosmicHeretic
 September 07 2024
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    Christianity’s greatest achievement is the conception of God. Its second greatest is the conception of the devil.

    While other religions have deities that personify various vices, most of them are portrayed as amoral, and few have gone to the extent that Christianity has to encapsulate the heart of evil in a single, malevolent figure — Satan.

    Rather than a mere philosophical description of sin, this tradition had decided that giving a face to evil is more effective and profound. And they are right.

    The figure of Satan has inspired countless works of imaginative genius, each a thesis on the nature of evil. In Milton, Satan is a complex and charismatic character who puts forth so convincing an argument against the regime of Heaven that one might begin to wonder if he is actually a misunderstood hero. In Dante, Satan is frozen in the deepest pit of Hell and possesses three faces that represent an unholy trinity. He is incapacitated by his thorough corruption, a monstrous king of Hell.

    The conceptualization of the devil is an achievement because it gave us something real to fight against. Satan has captured the imaginations of countless civilizations, weaving cautionary tales, philosophical treatises, and superstitious rituals. These interpretations are vivid and enduring, contributing to the personified archetype of evil, and they ultimately serve to render the abstract concept of sin in a concrete way that we can grapple with.

    But we must not fall into the trap of thinking Satan is an external force from which we are separate and on whom we can lay the blame for the sins of the world. Rather, the devil is within us, for we are our worst enemy.

    Christians understand this to a certain degree, given their insistence on the corruption of the human heart and our need for God to free us from it. (They still debate, though, on the doctrine of original sin). There is an awareness that the root of evil is within the human heart, despite the temptation to attribute it to an outside being.

    The enemy without is almost always the manifestation of the enemy within.

    Likewise, Christ is not an external savior in whom we have no part, but he is in us, representative of the redeeming power of the soul that walks in righteousness.

     

    William Blake observed that depictions of Satan, such as in Milton, are often more creative, engrossing, and passionate than descriptions of God, which are often strangely limited, monotonous, and even stifled. He suggested it is because what we call “evil” and “hell” find their roots in the creative and chaotic aspect of the human psyche.

    Satan in Hebrew means “accuser” or “adversary.” He is the spirit that stands before the Ideal and points out our failings and corruptions. He is the prosecutor against our souls. And aren’t we already familiar with this spirit?

    It is the voice in our heads that judges, criticizes, and deprecates us. It has a finger constantly pointing out the ways we fall short. It defines us by our shortcomings, that hinders us from rising above ourselves by shackling us to our sins. Sometimes it is helpful, but often it is corrupted and full of lies. The Accuser lives in our psyche.

    And he has a purpose. He questions our preconceptions of what we think to be true. He urges the shadow to rear its head and demand our attention. He is the trickster who introduces chaos into the established order, keeping us on our toes. He is the serpent in the garden. He is necessary.

    But of course, while the agent of chaos is necessary, it would be a mistake to put him on the throne. To do so would be to invite Noah’s Flood. The voice of the Critic requires us to find a higher truth to which we must be subject. The shadow of chaos invites us to integrate it into paradise. To cast him out of the garden would be to create demons.

     

    Onto Satan we have hauled all our darkest aspects. The twisted desires we suppress, the guilt of our impulses, the temptations of our lowest selves. Just as we consolidate the highest good we can conceptualize into the figure of God, so we put together the worst imaginable things into the creature of Satan. From him all evil flows, and to him all the fruits of evil return.

    We painted a picture of him, pointed at him, and named him the Enemy. He is the scapegoat. And somehow, despite our conjured hatred of him, despite how foreign we may try to make him seem, a part of us can’t help but find affinity with him. As those terrible eyes and twisted horns stare back at us, we sometimes get the sense, if we take the time to notice, that we are not gazing upon a foreign creature — but into a mirror.

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