illusion in believing in the existence of Satan," I have no means of logically confuting him. But I think there must be many who would say, with me: "If I am to have any theory in matters of this kind which are entirely beyond the sphere of demonstration, I would sooner accept the testimony of Christ than the speculations of all the philosophers that ever were or are. Christ was possibly, or even probably, ignorant (in His humanity) of a great mass of literary, historical, physiological, and other scientific facts unknown to the rest of the Jews. But we cannot suppose Him to be spiritually ignorant; least of all, so spiritually ignorant as to attribute to the Adversary what ought to have been attributed to God the Father in Heaven.
It would be easy for you to shew that any theory of Satan is absurdly illogical; nobody can be convinced of that more firmly than I am already. Whether Satan was good at first and became evil without a cause; or was good at first and became evil from a certain cause (which pre-supposes another pre-existing Satan); or was evil from the beginning and created by God; or evil from the beginning and not created by God—in all or any of these hypotheses I see, as clearly as you see, insuperable difficulties. If you cross-examine me, I shall avow at once a logical collapse, after this fashion: "Were there then two First Causes?" I believe not. "Did the Evil spring up after the Good?" I believe so. "Did the first Good create the Evil?"[1] I believe not. "Did the Evil then spring
- ↑ Some passages in the Old Testament (notably Isaiah xlv. 7) state that God "created evil;" and results attributed by one author to Satan (1 Chron. xxi. 1) are attributed by another to "the anger of the Lord" (2 Sam. xxiv. 1). Much of course depends upon the meaning of the word "evil;" and I am knowingly guilty of talking absurdly when I first define evil as "that which is not in accordance with God's intention," and then proceed to say that "God did not create evil." But all people who discourse philosophically on this subject talk far more absurdly than I do: for I am consciously, but they are unconsciously, illogical. The belief that God "created evil," whether held or not by the authors of any of the books of the Old Testament, is against the whole tenour of the teaching of Christ.
