Tread carefully

Do we still believe in the Devil? asks Fr Bede Rowe

In the last issue, I asked, “Do we still believe in angels?” and said that in this edition I would ask the same question about the Devil. It is always with some trepidation that the subject of the Devil is raised, and rightly so. If what we believe about the Devil is true, then not only should we use a long spoon when supping with him, but we should tread carefully even when discussing him.

The first and most important thing to say about the Devil is that he exists. This is not a philosophical statement, or one that comes from clever arguments. No, it comes from the Sacred Scriptures themselves and, more importantly, the reality of his existence must have come from Christ Himself. In the Gospel of St Matthew we hear of the temptation in the wilderness: “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil.” (Matthew 4:1) By the very nature of the account, Jesus was alone in the wilderness. So, if anyone else knows about what happened, Our Lord must have told them. If Christ was tempted by Satan (the Adversary), then the Devil must exist.

By sacred tradition, Satan is the brightest of angels who, because of pride and jealousy of human beings, rebelled against God and fled from God’s sight, bringing with him a third of all the angelic beings. It is they who will fight until the end of time in rebellion against God, and the object of their fight, the goal of the battle, is the human soul. It was because we were created, and the Incarnation would take place, that Satan fought against God. The way the Devil thinks he can hurt God is to drag us from going to Heaven, so that we can abide with him forever in perdition, in Hell.

Of course, if it were a fair and a clear fight, then we would be on our guard. When there is something important that we must face, we can recognise it, and we will do our best to overcome it (and remember that God wants us to do our best – it is He who has already won the fight), but the Devil does not use such obvious tactics. Why would he? Rather, the temptations come in small ways, little offences against God, little moments of pride and selfishness.

We give in to them day after day, and then, suddenly, one day we wake up and realise that we are far from God and are no longer the people we know we should be, the people that God wants us to be. We decide what is ‘our best’, and we decide it on our own terms, and then suddenly we have become the arbiters of what is right and wrong. We decide what we should do in this or that situation. In fact, all the Devil is doing is playing to our weaknesses (and for each of us those weaknesses are different). He has no need for a big pitched battle when he can achieve the same result through our laziness and inattention.

But, of course, it does not need to be like this, for the Devil has been defeated, and the battle has been won by Christ. If you like, this is the time of the last skirmishes, with the Devil fighting to the last angel. But that is the danger time, for these skirmishes are where we can be lost. Although Christ has won, this does not mean that we automatically share in His victory; heaven and hell are both real possibilities for us. Just read the Gospels!

For the Devil and his angels, their fate is fixed. They made their choice once and for all. We have the extraordinary ability to turn to God throughout our lives, returning to Him again and again. If we do so, then the Devil will not triumph over us. But he is real, and his intentions are clear.

So, do we still believe in the Devil? Yes, we do. And if ever we doubt his existence, then the Devil’s work to capture our souls is well on its way.