This week there was an article on News24 indicating that the
people responsible for the rape and torture of Alison Botha may be eligible for
parole. I don’t want to dwell on the nature and details of that crime, as it
has been well documented. What I do wish to focus on is the claim by the
perpetrators that ‘the Devil made them do it’. This is not the first time that
we have seen this nonsense being used as a defense, nor will it be the last. One
may also recall that Hansie Cronje tried this tired old excuse to avoid punishment and social scorn during the match fixing scandal that
rocked SA cricket during his captaincy. Further, I
wish to point out that this type of claim is not restricted to the supernatural,
but in the absence of a religion featuring a duality of good and evil, perpetrators
often choose to claim that ‘society made them do it’. Thus, both the ‘Devil’
and ‘society’ perform the same function of avoiding personal responsibility and
in so doing externalizes the source of evil.
Of course, atheists will write off the devil as mere a mere
fairy story out of hand, but mere dismissal is not enough. We need to analyze
the belief system to see if the actual people involved have any grounds to
prove that they themselves believed that the Devil controlled them for the
period in which they committed their crimes. If such justification cannot be
found in their own religious views, then it becomes clear that they are , at
best, callous and calculating liars who underestimate the intelligence of other
people or, at worst, totally insane and out of touch with reality. Further, in
the absence of religious analyses, we often see criminal psychologists and
lawyers push the theory that ‘society’ forced their clients to act in such a
way as to break the law. Something is going on here that transcends both
religious and commonsense viewpoints.
Firstly, from a strictly religious standpoint, there is no
justification whatsoever that the Devil is capable of making anyone do
anything. Throughout the bible, Satan tempts people. In Christian doctrine (ironically,
perhaps given the attitude of the Church) free will is emphasized. Humans are
free to choose between God and Satan. The emphasis is on the responsibility
belonging to each individual. A very important passage from Deuteronomy 30:19
states, "Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between
blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you
make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might
live!” This is important because it emphasizes that, according to Judeo-Christian
philosophy, not only does this God give free choice, but both blessings and
curses flow from Him. In fact, the writers of the Old Testament believed that
all things were created by God both good and evil. Like most ancient religions,
they believed that bad things happened when God was angry (like the Flood, for
instance). However, if things were going well, then people must have pleased
God in some way. God created everything. Only God was uncreated. Everything
that God created was good. This calls the entire lore regarding the Devil into
question.
In Hebrew, a ‘satan’ was a generic term for one that opposes
endeavors. In the story of Balaam, as detailed in Numbers 22:21~, God places a ‘satan’
in the form of an Angel in the road to obstruct him from going in a journey
against God’s will. The story of Job in which Satan and God exert control over
the poor man’s life in order to test his faith does not make sense if Satan is
pure evil, as God cannot be in the presence evil, yet here we see him openly
betting and conversing with Satan. The ‘Satan’ in this story is therefore one
who tests, who assists in God’s work by judging, tempting, probing humans for
weaknesses. It should also be noted that
this ‘Satan’ does nothing outside of what is permitted by God. He is not free
to directly ‘make’ Job curse God for, if this was the case then the entire
belief system of salvation through free choice collapses in on itself. Therefore,
we find no evidence that Satan is able to forcibly direct individuals to go
against God, or even to break worldly crimes, as the case may be.
Other Old Testament phrases referring to the fall of the
people of Israel from God’s grace have been misinterpreted as referring to the
fall of ‘Satan’ from Heaven. Christians seem to have no trouble believing that both
God and Satan ‘test’ them and their faiths constantly, but I believe that the
vast majority would stop short at believing that either entity could possess
and control them at will. While possession was thought to be common and
possible in times gone by, science has revealed that most, if not all, could be
put down to some mental defect or preexisting condition such as epilepsy or schizophrenia
.
The real appeal of the concept of Satan, I believe is due to
two factors. Firstly, that it lionizes the Church against some unseen foe
constantly trying to ensnare the flock that would stray too far from the
earthly shepherd, and take their tithes and property with them. As God protects
eternal souls from the clutches of Satan in the afterlife, so too does the
church protect true believers from the works of Satan wrought in the physical
realm. Sometimes this involved the burning of defenseless old women, but I
digress. Ideas cannot stand without the active support of a large number of
people. Satan allows for a most wonderful scapegoat for people unable to come
to grips with the fact that they may be evil. Satan therefore enjoys success as
a way to externalize evil. People always like to think that they are good and
upstanding members of society, and so blame forces that appear to be beyond
their control, sometimes in the most childish ways.
Finally, to acknowledge free will is also to acknowledge
responsibility for one’s actions. Inevitably this allows for one to be held
accountable for the results of these actions and therefore to be punished, or
rewarded, accordingly. It follows that people who claim that this cartoonish
figure, with a pitchfork and a goatee, waiting to occupy unsuspecting hosts and
‘make’ them commit crimes can only one of two things. Either, they are cynical
about other’s ability to see through their baloney and wish to avoid the
consequences of their actions, or utterly insane in that they are unable to recognize
that the root of their actions lies within them. There is no Biblical
justification to support the idea of the Devil being able to do anything, save
test, temp and/or harass humans. The choice remains with us; people like the
Botha rapists and the Lottes have chosen to inflict suffering and death on
others, and now lack the courage to stand by their choice, no Devil required.
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