Category Archives: On the Nature of Satan

Where is the Supernatural?

My answer to the question of this post’s title is “In two ways the supernatural is wherever we are!” First, the supernatural is a dimension of the human mind’s conceptual framework for representing reality. It goes wherever people go. Second the human mind plots human beings in this dimension of reality represented by the supernatural dimension. I argue for the first in this post and the second has been established in The Supernatural is for Love & Freewill. My argument for the first proceeds by sketching out a plausible way of organizing our thought about the structure of reality while conceding that the category of “supernatural” is demoted by many to being only for the imaginary which cannot be real.

The first answer somes from tracing out the implications of an assumption of a supernatural dimension in a conceptual scheme for representing reality. But giving it provides the occasion for sketching the framework of reality I use. I admit that my outline of reality mirrors an academic’s ideal of a university

In an effort to sketch a conceptual model of Satan, there is a need to outline a a comprehensive model of reality in which the model of Satan is to be placed. This model must provide a supernatural dimension to reality. For whatever else Satan may be, Satan is a supernatural being. In so far as I can speak for common sense,the following is a common sense model of reality for someone who believes in a God. Of course, the articulation of this allegedly common sense conceptual framework is not part of common sense. It is my construction. So, it is appropriate that I write of postualting features of this model.

Is there any point trying to provide a conceptual model for Satan in an atheistic model of reality? Hence, I could use “creation” instead of “reality.” To me it seems more accurate to write “reality as we experience it” or “creation as we experience it.” But for simplicity’s sake, I use unqualified “reality” For my use of “reality as we experience it,” see The Problem of Evil as the Cornerstone of a Christian World View .

Reality depends on the Transcendent for its existence. The Transcendent, or God, transcends reality and is, hence, not a supernatural reality.

The two main dimensions of reality are the natural and the supernatural.

The supernatural and natural have reality dimensions within them.

The dimensions of the supernatural are the visible and invisible (bodied & disembodied agents)

The dimensions of the natural are the physical, the chemical, living, the sentient, individual intelligence and collective intelligence. The various dimensions of reality contain the material for what exists, the laws for action of what exist and the forces for moving the existing entities according to the laws. In my use of Aristotelian causal concepts: The various dimensions of reality include the material, efficient and formal causes of whatever is or happens in that dimension of reality. I do not hold that elimination of all teleological explantions should be a goal of philosophy of science. For instance, there is no reason for not saying that higher concentrations of an element flow to lower concentrations until a uniform concentration is achieved. Evolutionary theory is based on a drive to replicate although evolutionary theory does not answer whether or not evolution has a purpose.

I am postulating for this model that the natural does not contain any ultimate final causes. In nature, there is no reason why there is any dimension of nature; let alone any reason why there are the dimensions of natural reality. If one only accepts the natural as reality, then nihilism is the correct religious stance. Ultimately, there is no purpose for anything; nothing matters. A philosophical pun tells us matter doesn’t matter.

At first glance, it may seem that my model is biased towards contemporary secular models of reality by separating fact from value and thereby banishing values to subjective states of human consciousness. In nature the only values are those created by humans. In the sense of “nature” used here, I do not locate values in nature. However, I do not banish values from reality. Nature is only one of the major two dimensions of reality. Values are in the supernatural dimension. There is no required separation of fact and value in reality. In many entities the factual dimensions intersect value dimensions. Reflection on the metaphorical use of “dimension” from mathematics reminds us that most curves are not one-dimensional.

The dimensions are connected even if we have no clear idea of how they connected. The conceptual inability to represent how one dimension of reality interacts with another are occasions for postulating the emergence of one of the dimensions from the other. For instance, the goal seeking of living entities is hard to understand in terms of physics and chemistry and the lack of spatial dimensions for the mental challenges connecting thoughts and feelings with neurostates. However, simply postulating emergence because we lack an understanding of how it came about is not grounds for dismissing emergence as the correct account of how certain features came about. Unfortunately, even if emergence is a fact, the philosophic problems of how the emergent interacts with that from which it emerges continue to plague philosophy.

Even if an understanding of emergence requires accepting the emergent condition as a final cause for certain arrangements of that from which the emergent condition emerged, that does not contradict my previous claim that there is no ultimate final cause for nature. Emergent natural structures are merely final causes internal to nature; not an external goal giving a purpose for nature as a whole.

The dimensions of reality are not for any specific location of the universe. Wherever in the cosmos we might imagine ourselves to be, we view reality with this conceptual framework. Wherever humans are they are in reality and try to understand reality with these dimensions of reality. So, the supernatural and natural are wherever humans are. Of course, then, the supernatural is wherever humans are. At first glance, it seems I am inflating the tautology about human thinking that if humans have the category of the supernatural, then that category is wherever humans are into a factual claim that the supernatural dimension of reality is populated wherever humans may exist. I admit that in the culture of the West, the temptation is to reserve the supernatural as a framework for “make believe,” “once upon a time,” zombies, vampires, superheroes etc., The culture forces tempting us to reserve the supernatural for fiction are also those tempting us to hold that values are “just made up.”

Before moving on to characterizing what it would be like to have the supernatural populated by non-fictional beings, I want to address a question that might be of interest only to those who study philosophy. The question asks: Why hold that there is a reality beyond this conceptual framework along with words and thoughts when applying it,. For all questions about what to assert and reject are answered by using this conceptual framework? Holding that there is nothing but the conceptual framework can be fairly labeled “idealism” of some sort. It is also fairly clear that some fallacy is involved in interpreting the question “What is our conceptual framework for representing reality?” as “What is used to decide whether a factual claim is warranted?”

Supernatural Reality is Not a Super Nature

The purpose of this post is to support a negative thesis that the supernatural has not the the reality of a nature. In Deontic Structure of Supernatural Reality a postive thesis that the supernatural is the reality of morality. There it will be brought out that realm in which moral laws are realities is more than a bleak realm of “Thou shalts” and “Thou shalt nots.

The spiritual dimension of humanity is not a special field of study for those who enjoy the occult or spiritualists. The supernatural is not “spooky.” For the most part, trying to understand the supernatural is trying to understand ourselves; not trying to make contact with spirits. The supernatural is a dimension of each and every person. But the methods of natural science are not the way we become acquainted with and understand our supernatural dimension. Perhaps most become acquainted with the supernatural when “our conscience bothers us.” Our consciences bother us when we believe that we have done something really wrong. Here “really” means “real;” not something such as “seriously.” Our violation of a moral law is an existing and pernicious reality.

The so-called humanities and art are ways to experience the supernatural when our own experience is limited. The German term die Geistwissenschaften might refer to the kinds of studies I have in mind. However, if I am correct about love, the experience of willing the good for another regardless of any inclination is experiencing what is supernatural. Reflecting on that experience of love is a significant way of understanding the supernatural.

As “supernatural dimension” has been characterized, many thoughtful people, I believe, will accept the concept as marking out important areas of humanity; but with a tendentious label. Why, it might be objected, use the term “supernatural” which hints at the occult? Why not simply call it the moral dimension of humanity?

However, I do not accept reducing the supernatural to the aspects of humanity which cannot be understood by the methods of natural science. For my larger project of modeling Satan,I need to do more than make a case for using the concept of supernatural to apply to humans. Beyond the conceptual case, I need to make an ontolgical case. The ontological case is that there is a supernatural reality, albeit no supernatural nature. At some point in my Satan model building, I need to make a case that: Satan is a reality.

Grant that what I have called the supernatural is real. Why go on to assert that this reality is not a nature?

To answer we return to David Hume’s logical point about the logical gap between “is” and “ought.”

In my answer “nature” is understood as what can be correctly described by saying what is the case. A nature is what Wittgenstein called a world when he wrote: The world is all that is the case. To tell the whole truth about a nature or a world is to tell all of the facts. Statements of what ought to be done, what ought to be and for what purpose something ought to be done are not statements of fact. To be sure, some factual statements about nature studied in the natural sciences, especially psychology and sociology, report what is the case with obligations and goals humans have created. But these facts about human constructions do not give us moral laws or ultimate goals. For instance, Hume’s logical point reminds us that “Thou ought not kill” does not follow from “It is the case that people have a rule that we ought not kill.” In the nature studied in the natural sciences, man is the measure of all things, viz., measure of all norms and goals, as Protagoras taught long ago.

Suppose the supernatural signified a nature; perhaps a realm of spirits and their activities. How could there be norms and rules binding these spirits? The spirits could invent them. But inventions are not categorical moral rules: rules binding us regardless of whether or not we choose to be bound by them. Even if the spirits heard the voice of God command “Thou shalt not kill,” they know only the fact about the spirit realm expressed in “It is the case that God commanded thou shalt not kill.” Hume’s logical point about “ought” not logically implied by “is” holds for this supposed spiritual nature as well as for the familiar nature studied by the natural sciences. The spirits are not entitled to infer “Thou ought not kill” from”It is the case that God said thou ought not kill.”

In the early twentieth century, philosophers diagnosed a naturalistic fallacy. The gist of the accusation of a fallacy was as follows. Regardless of the nature of a nature, the nature only offers facts and not values. Or: the objective truth about a nature is expressed with statements of facts. In a world of facts, expressions of value are subjective; expressions of sentiments by humans.

We have reached a point where we need to make a decision about ontology. We can dismiss norms and goals as having objective reality and thereby dismiss morality as fundamental. Or we can accept them as having objective reality and try to understand a reality which is non-factual: a reality whose fundamental features are not properly reported with statements of the form “It is the case that______”

For the project of modelling Satan as a reality, I need to make the decision about ontology to model a non-factual reality in Deontic Structure of Supernatural Reality.

Example of Agency At Work

In my construction of a model of what it would be like for there to be Satan, freewill is a fundamental “buliding block” of the model. For any Satan worthy of the name has to exercise freewill in defiance of his Creator. The notion of personal agency is crucial in the concept of freewill. So, a paradigm of agency is helpful. I chose this example from my experience because on this occasion I realized that an act of agency, free choosing, is separable from being conscious of it.

On Wednesday afternoon, January 3, 2024, while standing for about an hour ironing some clothes I started to feel very tired with aches throughout my body. I thought that I might be getting a flu although I had been recently vacinated. I did not sleep well Wednesday night. I frequently awoke and noticed that 5:55AM, the time at which my alarm was set, was rapdily approaching. I dreaded the prospect of getting out of bed to began my schedule for Thursday morning. I outline my schedule to bring out that I have the character of a man who pushes himself hard at 88. That outline supports a prediction about how I might likely respond to a challenge about facing a physical hardship. But plausible predicatability is not evidence against freedom of a decision; let alone that it was not I who made the decision.

The schedule was to bring my wife coffee at 6:15AM, talk a bit, recite Matins with my wife, walk about two miles, bike a mile to my parish church for 8:30AM mass and then bike six miles to work until 1130 AM at a St. Vincent de Paul free clothing store. Then I would bike another six miles to home. The temperatures were in the low 30s. I felt very sick but I could not say clearly what was wrong: no sore throat, no fever, no coughing.

I chose to go back to bed at 6:30AM. But that is not the free choice I want to exhibit. Before going back to bed, I asked my wife to wake me up by 8AM; at which time I would decide whether to bike to mass and then to the Clothing Center or stay in bed and have my wife contact the Clothing Center to report my absence. (She planned to drive to the Center to drop off some clothing donations.) It was warm and comfortable in bed. But I slept fitfully thinking about whether or not to stay in bed all morning or bike to mass and work at the Clothing Center.

Myriad pros and cons went through my mind. I thought about being comfortable. Staying in bed would be comfortable but boring if I could not sleep. On one hand, I worried that I would be giving into weakness. On the other, I worried that I would be giving in to vanity about being tough if rested all morning. Irealized that vanity should not mislead me into prolonging whatever this sickness might be.There were moral thoughts about not spreading whatever my sickness was. There were contrary moral thoughts about the need for people to staff the Center. There was, however, no decisive moral claim. This was not to be a moral decision. I simply could not decide what I was going to do. Or better: I was not conscious about how I was to decide

About five minutes to eight, I heard my wife coming up the stairs to get my decision. What was I going to do? I was not sure even as she came through the door. Then I threw the blankets back, sat at the edge of my bed and said that I was going to bike to mass and the Clothing Center. I had the intentions of facing the cold and going ahead with my regular Thursday morning plans. That was my choice and I was conscious of it. I was not so much conscious of it as a free choice. I was mostly conscious of it as the choice I made. I was even a bit surprised that I made the choice to keep my schedule; and rather proud of myself for making the choice to confront physical discomfort.

What is the relevance of this example for freewill? Most importantly, the example shows that consciousness of the choice does not make it my choice; let alone make it a free choice. Self consciousness only reports that I made the choice and apparently could have chosen otherwise, viz.,formed an intention to stay in bed. Conscious choosing, or better, consciousness of choosing, could occur after I have chosen, as some controversial research suggests.1 The important fact reported by consciousness is that of my agency: I was conscious that I stood up with the intention of carrying on my regular Thursday routine. I was not conscious of any freedom to carry out my intention. I could have fainted upon standing, as has happened. Then my wife would seriously restrict my activities that morning. If I had fainted, I would not be the agent of my fainting. (One could be the agent of their own fainting by standing up quickly to produce orthostatic hypotension.)

What is my interpretation of my behavior? Although we consciously entertain many thoughts while deliberating, making the choice is not another conscious thought in the deliberation. The thought of making the decision comes after we make the decision. The choice is made by ourselves as agents. As agents we create something new in reality, viz., an intention to act a certain way. The intention is created ex nihilo by the agent. An intention is a thought but a thought with causal force; intentions are dynamic. Thoughts of the pros and cons of getting up do not get me up or keep me down. The thought which is the intention to get up is the thought which gets me up. The previous thoughts or physical states are relevant to the intention I form. The previous thoughts and physical states are necessary for whatever intention I form; they set severe constraints on the kind of intention I form. But they are not suffficient for it. Action of me as an agent is the factor which is the efficient cause in this situation.2

It would be inaccurate for me to say that my brain formed the intention and made the decision.

It would be inaccurate to say that an entity apart from my brain, which is my self, formed the intention and made the decision. My awareness that I made the decision is not awareness that warrants any analysis of what kind of being I am; only that I am the agent, the maker of certain decisions.

I close with an aphorism: Consciousness of choosing freely is not freely choosing. Consciousness of freely choosing only reports the fact of an agent freely choosing.

1 Libet, B., Gleason, C.A., Wright, E.W. & Pearl, D.K. ‘Time of conscious
intention to act in relation to onset of cerebral activity (readiness-potential).
The unconscious initiation of a freely voluntary act’, Brain (1983)106: 623-642. A clear summary of this investigation is in Faraday Paper 17 by Peter G.H. Clarke

2. I have been influenced by John Mackie’s notion of an INUS condition. It is a term” coined byphilosopherj John Mackie to describe a condition that is necessary but not sufficient for an outcome, and is part of a complex condition that is sufficient but not necessary for the outcome. For example, an electric short circuit is an INUS condition for a house fire, because it needs flammable material to cause the fire, and the fire could also be caused by other factors. In the case of my example, the forming of the intention to get up is like the short circuit. I formed the intention to get up before I became conscious of my intention.

Freewill Necesaary and Sufficient for Love

This post makes a case that freewill is necessary and sufficient for love. My understanding of freewill is frequently called: Libertarian freewill or contra causal freewill. In a way, I am making a case for Libertarian freewill by arguing that true love is possible if and only if there are agents with Libertarian freewill.

I do not use the term “contra-causal” because I accept agent causation. Free choices are caused by agents.

Throughout, I assume that there is love. My line of argument reveals that a critic who denies freewill,not only denies that there is love. He also denies that there is a creative God.

This post is in my project of constructing a conceptual model of Satan. So, in places, I write rather abstractly of agents choosing because I want eventually to distinguish the freewill of angels from that of humans.

I  use Aristotelian concepts of causality. The notion of final cause is crucially used in my argument that the good of the other cannot be sufficient for bringing about an agent willing the good of the other. The Aristotelian causes can be understood by common sense. We can ask of anything: What is it?(Formal Cause), What is it for? (Final Cause) What is it made of? (Material Cause), What put it here, now(Efficient Cause.)

I assume love is properly characterized as willing the good of the other. As noted in the next paragraph, this characterization of love  gives the formal cause of love.

Freewill is the material cause of love.  In other words, love is made from freewilling, The final cause of love is the good of another. In other words, the purpose of loving is to bring about what is good for the other.1   The formal cause of love is willing the good of another. The efficient cause of love is the willing of the agent, i.e., a being who can choose. Nothing acting on the agent is sufficient to bring the agent to choose the good of the other. In the spiritual or mental realm, an agent creates an intention to act for the good of an other. It is not the good of the other which brings about the choice of the good of the other.  Why not?

I use the philosophers’ stylistic device of a formal argument with numbered premises and conclusions.

The gist of the argument is that assuming that the good of the other suffices to bring the agent to choose it requires assuming that the good of the other satisfies something in the agent. The satisfying of this something in the agent becomes the efficient cause of the agent choosing the good of the other.

1. The good of the other is the final cause of choosing the good of the other, i.e., the final cause of loving.

 2. If the good of the other sufficed to lead an agent to choose the good of the other, then the agent would have an inclination for the good of the other sufficient to bring it to choose the good of the other.  (There would be some feature of the agent with an appetite or desire for the good of the other.)

3. If an agent has an inclination for the good of the other sufficient to bring it to choose the good of the other, then choosing the good of the other is doing what the agent is inclined to do.

 4. If the agent chooses what he is inclined to do, the agent is choosing to satisfy his inclination.

 5. If the agent is choosing to satisfy his inclination, the good the agent chooses is his satisfaction.

6. If the good the agent chooses, even in his choice of the good of the other,  is his satisfaction, then the final cause of his choice is not the good of the other but the satisfaction of his inclination.

 So, putting (2) through (6) together, we get:

7.  If the good of the other sufficed to lead an agent to choose the good of the other,  then the final cause of his choice is not the good of the other but the satisfaction of his inclination.

 But  the assumption (1) is that the good of the other is the final cause of choosing the good of the other. Hence, by logical step called modes tollens  (7) with (1) yields:

(8) The good of the other does not suffice to lead an agent to choose the good of the other.

  What then suffices for the agent to will the good of the other? The agent is aware of the good of the other and takes that good as a reason for choosing it for the other. When the agent takes the good of the other as a reason for choosing the good of the other, the agent forms an intention to act for the sake of getting the good of the other. The agent taking the good of the other as a reason for choosing the good of the other along with the correlative intention is the sufficient condition for willing the good of the other. This is not to say that the agent does not want or desire the good of the other. It is to say that the agent does not choose the good of the other to satisfy his wants or desires, viz. inclinations.

Why say that freewill is a necessary condition for willing the good of the other?

If we deny freewill, we assume that in any choices apparently for the good of the other, the good of the other suffices for the choice. If the good of the other suffices for the choice of the good of the other, then the agent’s choice of the good of the other is made to satisfy an inclination of the agent. If the agent’s choice of the good of the other is made to satisfy an inclination of the agent, then the good of the other is not the final cause of the agent’s choice of the good of the other. If the good of the other is not the final cause of the choice of the good of the other, then the agent’s choice is not a choice of love. Hence, if we deny freewill, any choice of an agent which is apparently a loving choice, is not a choice of love. Or taking the so-called Contrapositive: If any choice of an agent which is apparently a loving choice is indeed a loving choice, we cannot deny freewill.

So, the goal of the post has been attained.

  1. To say that the final cause in loving is to satisfy our inclination for good in the other is to deny that love is for the good of the other. It is to say that love is ultimately for our own satisfaction with the good of the other being only a side effect.

What is Supernatural Reality?

This post is part of my effort to write a booklet on Rationality of Belief in Satan

The first step in providing a model of what it would be like for there to be a devil is to construct a model of the kind of reality that Satan would be. Satan is not a transcendent being as is God, when properly understood. Satan is a creature of the transcendent. The objects and processes of the supernatural are the angels and their processes. Because there are angelic processes, angels have a history. They are not eternal even if they are everlasting. They are in a time.

I adapt thoughts of Augustine and Aquinas to develop a model of the angelic reality. The natural comprises material objects, material forces plus the feelings and thoughts of animals and humans. The material is complex and we do not have a coherent model of it as is brought out by the mind/body interconnection problem. The supernatural is even more difficult to model because any image must be rejected as distorting. We do not not have mind body problems with respect to angels. However, constantly have to remind ourselves that the type of abstract we use in modeling angels is not the same type of abstracting we use when we think abstractly to pull something out of reality to think more clearly about it. The abstraction of angels is not the type of abstraction of which we can say”It is not exactly this way, but for sake of clarity let’s not think of it as it is in reality.” The abstraction of angels from what we can imagine is to think of them as they are in reality.

Preface: Rationality of Belief in Satan

Nullus diabolus, nullus redemptor

This is a draft Preface for a short e-book on the rationality of professing the reality of a devil – Satan. I will be preparing the first draft of this booklet in a series of blog posts.

Why use “professing” rather than “believing?” I make claims implying the reality of Satan primarily as part of endorsing the belief system of the Catholic Church. I rarely think of Satan in my religious life, moral life; let alone in my day-to-day practical affairs. However, my not denying the reality of Satan and professing that Satan exists is more than only professing Satan’s reality with my lips without believing it in my heart. Honesty requires preparing myself to let events bring it about that the reality of Satan is, for me, a sincerely held religious belief. In Mere Christianity, C.S.Lewis makes it clear that belief in Satan is basic in Christianity. Dismissing Satan as an outdated superstition implies that Jesus as portrayed in the Gospels was a superstitious fool. Believing Jesus to be ignorant and superstitious, is incompatible with professing a Christian religion. I would become a better Christian and, perhaps, morally better if belief in Satan became more significant in my religious and daily life.

We cannot have obligations to do what we cannot do. “Ought” implies “can.” We cannot simply choose to belief; especially on a religious topic. Faith has to be given: by God or life experiences. We can, however, choose to prepare ourselves to receive a gift of faith. What is it to prepare for faith? There may be many ways. The mathematician and philosopher, Pascal, proposed a religious way. But at least learn your inability to believe, since reason brings you to this, and yet you cannot believe. Endeavor then to convince yourself, not by increase of proofs of God, but by the abatement of your passions. You would like to attain faith, and do not know the way; you would like to cure yourself of unbelief and ask the remedy for it. Learn of those who have been bound like you, and who now stake all their possessions. These are people who know the way which you would follow, and who are cured of an ill of which you would be cured. Follow the way by which they began; by acting as if they believed, taking the holy water, having masses said, etc. Even this will naturally make you believe, and deaden your acuteness. (Pense III 233)

I take an explicitly philosophical way: Construction of an ontology. One way is to profess what is to be believed all the while trying to construct a model of what it would be like for the belief to be true.“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy” is from William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet. It is spoken by the title character, Hamlet, in Act I, Scene 5

This booklet outlines my preparing myself for openess to genuine belief in the reality of Satan.

This is an essay in the philosophy of religion. In philosophy of religion a major task is to show how crucial religious beliefs can be held without superstition or fanaticism. So, the task of this booklet is to show that people can let themselves become convinced of the reality of Christian religiously adequate notion Satan, without superstition or fanticism. However, there is no scholarly work showing that my outline of what it might be like for there to be a devil conforms to theological and dogmatic claims about Satan. I have recently read two books on Satan which I am sure have influenced me although I do not cite them as sources. The books are Robert J. Spitzer’s Christ vs. Satan in Our Daily Lives: The Cosmic Struggle Between Good and Evil (Called Out of Darkness: Contending with Evil Through The Church, Virtue and Prayer,) Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 2020 and Jeffrey Burton Russell’s , Prince of Darkness: Radical Evil and the Power of Good in History, Cornell U Press, Ithaca NY. 2016. Spitzer’s empirical case for the reality of Satan requires showing how a conceptual model of Satan, a model abstracted from what we can imagine experiencing, allows for people experiencing the phenomena for which a contender for best explanation is demonic possession. Russell does not argue for the reality of Satan. However, he reminds us that there is no established metaphysical scheme that prohibts us from trying to develop a notion of Satan as an explanation for the facts that there seem to be evil done simply for the sake of evil, viz., radical evil.

The second purpose of this post is list links to previous posts on the reality and nature of a Devil. I develop these posts to draft chapters for the booklet.

A December 2022 post points out that the problem of evil leads to an assumption of a created evil creator in oppostion to God

<h4>The Problem of Evil as the Cornerstone of a Christian World View </h4>

<h4> The Value of Conceptual Models of Satan </h4>

<h4> Seriously: Have We Been Rescued From Satan? </h4>

<h4> Pope Francis on the Role of Satan in Sexual Abuse</h4>

Why Does Satan Want Us to Go to Hell?

What Is Satan’s Sin?

<h4>There is a Satan In Opposition To God!</h4>

God cannot destroy Satan

<h4>The Transcendent vs Nothing</h4>

Therefore the real question is whether the concept of
the Devil makes any sense p, 2 See posts on Overview of Posts Confronting Nihilismsatan

Quotations from: Jeffrey Burton Russell’s , Prince of Darkness: Radical Evil and the Power of Good in History,

Inflicting suffering for the sake of suffering, doing evil for evil’s sake, the
Devil is by definition the personification of cosmic evil p2

Often people assume that in the modern world the idea of the Devil is
old-fashioned and therefore false-an objection that assumes that “the
modern world” (however defined) has discovered some metaphysical
truth (however defined) that makes the existence of the Devil less likely
now than it used to 2

Whether or not the Devil exists outside the human mind, the concept
of the Devil has a long history and the most fruitful approach to it is
historical. p. 4

In this way, the Devil is defined by the historical tradition. Efforts to
say that the Devil “really” is something different from the historical
tradition are self-contradictory p 4

Seriously: Have We Been Rescued From Satan?

I have volunteered to be a discussion group facilitator in my parish’s presentation of The Rescue Project . The goal of the Rescue Project is strengthening belief in the Christian Salvation story.
The project is guided by the maxim: “We live our lives according to the story we believe” The website announces:

“We passionately believe that the most urgent task is the compelling proclamation of the gospel, one that not only shares it in an attractive – and concentrated – way, but that also offers people a way of seeing reality, and of making sense of the world, history, and life that is vastly different from the story our modern culture tells.” N.T. Wright is quoted: “This is how stories work. They invite listeners into a new world, and encourage them to make it their own, to see their ordinary world from now on through this lens, within this grid.”

The project is structured around eight videos in which Fr. John Ricardo dramatically lays out the Christian Salvation Story. There are group discussions after each video.

The third video is titled “The Enemy is the Enemy.” Fr. Ricardo speaks in an emphatically realistic way about Satan, the devil or the evil one as OUR ENEMY. In the fourth video, Fr. Ricardo dramatizes how humanity, with the disobedience of the first two humans, were captured by Satan. The fifth video describes Jesus’ crucifixion as rescuing all of us from him.

I am uncomfortable about participating in discussions of Satan. I cannot decide what I believe about the narratives. I do not want indications of skepticism to undercut the point of the Fr. Ricardo’s narratives. So, I tell myself a “metaphysical story.” What is the story? I begin by adapting St. Augustine’ doctrine that angels are essentially messengers.* I use, and maybe misuse, Thomistic notions of matter and form. My metaphysical story should not be blamed on St. Augustine or St. Thomas. Is in my “metaphysical story glib?.” I grasp at metaphysical straws to build a conceptual structure. Telling a metaphysical story is my rationalization for participating in discussions about Satan. In The Value of Conceptual Models of Satan , I exam why I seek a rationalization. via metaphysics.

In creation the transcendent God has there be out of nothing potentiality for being formed in various ways for various purposes. (I use a passive construction “has there be” to avoid attributing our concept of action to what is transcendent.) The transcendent God has, also out of nothing, there be entities conveying to potentiality the various ways of being formed for various purposes, i.e. formal and final causes. These entities for conveying ways of being formed for various purposes can be regarded as messages from the transcendent; as such they are angels. They are not the Word of God. They are the messengers bringing the Word of God.to potentiality.

Without conveying ways of being formed for various purposes to potentiality, potentiality is formless void. So, having there be conveying ways of being formed for various purposes, viz., angels, is the beginning of creation: When God said “Let there be light.” Angels are not identical to that to which they bring form and function. Nonetheless, the conveyers of the form to potentiality, viz. matter, have the form and function conveyed but without forming matter. So, the angels forming humanity have the forms of free will, self-consciousness, thoughts of God and obedience to laws of God.  (Attributing the forms conveyed to the conveyers of forms is my construction for rationalizing anthropomorphizing angels. )This is not platonic self-predication in which the form of man is a man. It is the conveyer of the form of man to potentiality which has the form it conveys, while remaining spiritual.

Angels are spiritual entities because they have no matter. This means that they have no potentiality for taking on accidental forms by which they can be spatially located and distinguished from one another; they can only be what they are essentially. However, these angels can change if their essence, the forms they have, provide for the attainment of a goal, eg. informing matter or making a decision as would be the case for angels conveying the form for free will. There is a formal succession; a before-and-after succession which cannot be tracked by an spatial succession.

This metaphysical speculation has set the stage for Fr. Ricardo’s anthropomorphic tale of the fall of Satan and Satan’s enslavement of human beings. The conceptual structure makes anthropomorphism plausible. For the angels for humanity have the forms of the traits they convey to humans. We think of them as similar to people while trying to ignore any spatial imagery of them.

Some of the highest angels, perhaps those charged with bringing the highest intelligence to humans, were envious that humans would share with them eternal life. They believed that the humans tied down in matter should not share their high goal of eternal life. In their pride, with their free will they chose not to convey the form of eternal life to humans. With their choice not to convey the form of eternal life to humans, they chose not to be what they are essentially, viz., conveyers of the Word of God. By choosing not to be what they are essentially, they chose total death. Total death is annihilation; not being at all. But they cannot be annihilated for they have the form of eternal life. The result is that they have chosen eternal torment of having as their chosen goal being annihilated while they can never be annihilated. Simply being, as opposed to not being at all- is an eternal torment for them. There is no rest. That is hell.

In their hellish state, they still envy humans having eternal life with being with God as their good. Other angels fulfilled the function of conveying the form of eternal life to humans. Perhaps, the other angels taking over this function could be portrayed as St. Michael casting Satan and his angels down from heaven. In their envy, they wish to pervert the good of eternal life in humans into the eternal torment to which their disobedience perverted their eternal life. Satan persuaded the first humans, viz. the humans from which the forms and purposes of humanity would be biologically transmitted to other humans, to choose not to be with God by choosing to disobey God. By choosing not to be with God, these first humans chose for humanity not to have the goal of being with God. For humans not to have the goal of being with God is not to be. For humans not to be as they ought is NOT TO BE. So, the first humans who chose the forms for subsequent humans, chose the final form as not to be. Thus, humans, by this primeval choice have their final goal as the perverted good of not being. But it is perverted because they have the form of eternal life while having the goal of not having life, viz. annhilation. Thus, humans now have the hellish condition of the fallen angels. They eternally seek annihilation; a restless striving for a total death which never comes.

To be sure, humans have a type of death for death is what has been chosen. The death we get is not being full humans because we are all ultimately to be separated from matter, viz., biological death. We still have the form of eternally being which is now a curse for our choice is not to be. So, with Satan we have the eternal torment of seeking not to be.

Thus, Satan has captured us by making our destiny the same as his, viz., eternally tormented spiritual beings. For each of us the capture is completed at our biological death. For in the spiritual condition we are completely in his realm. So, it is biological death, becoming disembodied, which is the doorway to hell. In this sense, death is as much our enemy as Satan. Overcoming death, as disembodiment is the way to rescue humans from the hellish destiny of Satan.

I shall not attempt a rationalization of Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection as overcoming death. I try to understand the Paschal Mystery with philosophy. But these philosophical speculations are only faith seeking understanding. I regard philosophical speculations as rationalizations when used to excuse anthropomorphic stories about spiritual beings.

* See Taylor Marshall on creation of the angels according to Augustine. Taylor Marshall writes clearly on this point. I need not agree with all of his opinions on theology and Catholic Church policies.

The Problem of Evil as the Cornerstone of a Christian World View

As links reveal, this post coheres with efforts to find foundations for divine command morality. A factor of my motivation for understanding morality as based on divine commands is to understand retributive punishment. I believed that retributive punishment is crucial to understand the Christian world view that evil has been introduced by God’s creatures which God in His love for His creatures will correct. A Christian world view is a plausible account of what it would be like for line 11 below to be true.

A significant challenge to prevailing secular world views would be showing that an intelligible line of thought in philosophical theology leads to claims well explained by the Christian world view. Lines (1) through (10) below are philosophical theology. If I were to document sources for any of these lines, I would cite historical figures recognized as philosophers and not as theologians for any particular religious tradition. If I would cite sources on how to develop line (11) I would cite scriptures and theologians such as Church Fathers. I should be citing sources because I do not want to claim any originality for what I write. I admit originality only for what is not worth taking seriously. Perhaps, line (1), then, is original. Still, I believe line (1) is correct.

1. We cannot imagine experiencing reality without physical and moral evil.

2. If God is omnipotent, all good and the sole creator of reality, then reality is without physical and moral evil.

3. So, if God is omnipotent, all good and the sole creator of reality, then reality of which God is the sole creator is a reality which we cannot imagine experiencing.

4. We can, because of our experience, only too well imagine experiencing reality with physical and moral evil.

5. So, God is either not omnipotent or not all good or not the sole creator of the reality as we experience reality.

6. If God exists, God is omnipotent and all good.

7. God exists .

8. Hence, God is not the sole creator of reality as we experience it.

9. If God is not the sole creator of reality as we experience it , then the other creators are less than God and have been created with God’s permission to be subsidiary creators of reality as we experience it.

10. If God has delegated creation of reality as we experience it to subsidiary creators, He had a good reason for delegating creative activity and has a good reason for correcting the experienced reality produced by susidiary creators.

11. So, ultimately there will be a correction of reality as we experience it although we cannot imagine experiencing it!

Some remarks on the lines of the argument:

On line (1): An observation in a homily by my pastor, Fr, Matthew Hoover, gave me the insight that we pose the problem of evil but have no clear idea of what would solve it.

On line 9: I have sketched out how Satan could be the primary subsidiary creator.

The Transcendent vs Nothing

I am trying to understand the Christian* theme that there is a cosmic battle in progress between God and evil forces. This theme is, on the surface at least, incompatible with the Christian theme of God as the supreme unlimited source of everything except God. The latter theme expresses the standard philosophical concept of God with all the Omni’s, omniscience, omnipotence, etc..

This effort to understand the theme of a cosmic battle is crucial for my project of presenting morality as constituted by divine commands. In modelling morality as laws which are commanded it is very easy to slip into modelling morality as eternal standing laws. The model suggests that there are these immutable laws which were somehow established by a divine command. However, there really is no place for commanding. Classifying the moral laws as simply divine commands adds little to standard natural law models of morality. No new prescriptions can be added. And new prescriptions that some harm ought to occur upon violation of moral laws is crucial to morality as authoritarian morality. To emphasize that the divine commander of morality is an active commander, I try to model the divine commander as a “battlefield commander.”

At the risk of appearing to accept a childish reification of nothing, I explore a conjecture that God is struggling with nothing. There is a cosmic warfare between creating and nothing. Whatever the creator creates, the creator takes from nothing. Whatever the creator sustains keeps something from nothing. Nothing is the loser in creation.

In general, I do not like solving philosophic problems with a verbal change. If the change solves the conceptual problem, it seems an admission that the problem was only verbal. Nonetheless, I will experiment by frequently making the verbal change of “not being” for “nothing.”

The answer to “What is nothing?” is “not being.” So I rewrite my the crucial sentences of the previous paragraph as follows.

I explore a conjecture that God is struggling with not being. There is a cosmic warfare between creating and not being. Whatever the creator creates, the creator takes from not being. Whatever the creator sustains keeps something from not being. Not being is the loser in creation.

Let us suppose that the cosmic struggle is a reaction to creation. Creatures with intelligence and some power are necessary for there to be a struggle not to be – a struggle on behalf of nothing.

The creator creates intelligence with powers. There are intelligence beings with powers to influence what is created. Intelligence recognizes that it depends upon the creator for being. All intelligent beings dread not being. As dependent beings all intelligent beings are essentially capable of not being. And they know it!

There are two ways to react to awareness of dependence. One is to accept the dependent status with faith that the creator sustains one from not being. The other is to rebel against that dependent status.

In rebellion against the dependent status, a creature is rebelling against its being. The rebellious creature is choosing not to be. For a creature to be is to be dependent. Choice of not being dependent is a choice not to be. For a creature to be independent is for it not to be a creature and hence, not to be.

Choice against being a creature is choice against creation. Creation can be attacked only by preventing creatures from being – by having creatures not be. There is a limited way in which creation can be prevented. The only creatures that can be prevented from being are creatures who can not be as the creator intended that they be. These are creatures with free will. The moral laws tell these intelligent creatures what they are created to be. By violating the moral laws they choose not to be. For creatures with free will not to be as the creator intends in a particular area is always a general rebellion against being a creature and, hence, a choice not to be.

Some intelligences have chosen against their dependent status and hence have chosen creation not to be what it is. That means that some intelligences with powers have chosen that there not be creation – that there be nothing. The rebellious creatures want their choice to be correct. The vain hope for ratification of their choice is to have it chosen by all. Thus creatures in rebellion against being seek to use their powers to have others choose not to be which in its limited fashion is always a particular choice not be be as the creator intended in a particular area.

Hence, there is resistance in creation against what the creator creates. The resistant forces can alter what the creator intends in arenas in which the creator grants freedom of choice to some creatures. The typical resistance is disobedience to the moral laws of the creator who is the moral authority.

Subsequent posts will reconsider and clarify the notion of the creator being a moral commander in a contest with intelligences, with powers and free will, who have chosen that there be no creation.

* But I am not working in Christian theology. I want my work to be philosophic. I am here giving philosophic support to Christianity. My line of thought is that authoritarian morality is the correct philosophic model of moral thought. The authoritarian model posits a moral commander in conflict with evil. So, Christianity is shown to use a philosophically approved model of morality.

Our Global War Against Coronavirus Pandemic Is Sacrificial Worship to An Idol

We commit idolatry when we take a finite thing as a supreme being. In the global war against the covid-19 virus we have taken health as the supreme being. Health is our idol. Suppression of liberties, creation of poverty, destruction of civil society and locking places of worship are all supposedly justified by simply saying “this is to protect health.” Leaders all over the globe believe health is requiring them to require uncalculated great sacrifices, especially from the less fortunate, for an indefinite time.

Health offers us nothing of lasting value. With death we all lose health. With health as god, there is nothing after death. That is nihilism.

The global war against the coronavirus pandemic is a battle to make nihilism the religion of the world. Who, or what, is leading the forces in this battle? It is world-wide. We cannot specify any person, agency or government. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that something which wills the destruction of all that is good, which is to will there be nothing at all, is deceiving the hearts and minds of leaders, by means of apparently good intentions, to mislead everyone to worship it. Satan is that which wills there be nothing at all – total death.

More than fearing the flu, we should be living with fear and trembling that Satan will win by establishing nihilism as the dominant world religion with health as its idol through whom we worship him.