Before Friedrich Nietzche proclaimed that “God is dead,” Friedrich Schleiermacher said nearly the same about the Devil, doctrinally speaking. Schleiermacher deemed diabology, the study of the Devil, as largely irrelevant for modern theology. In his new book God’s Adversary and Ours, Phil Ziegler—a Canadian theologian and professor at the University of Aberdeen—suggests that Schleiermacher’s dismissal of the Devil was the “culminating logic” of the majority theological tradition.
The fall of diabology was logical, Ziegler says, because Western theologians had misplaced the Devil dogmatically. Augustine’s influential account attempted primarily to explain how the Devil came to be the Devil, so he dealt with the Devil in his doctrine of Creation. He focused on the inherent goodness of creatures, the way evil disorders, and how God “strangely,” “ineffably,” and providentially orders even the Devil’s evil willing for good. Augustine’s doctrinal placement of and concerns about the Devil were followed without much change by many Western theologians. Aquinas hardly strayed from Augustine’s approach; the Reformers made minor adjustments, adding a characteristic emphasis on election.
What is the problem with this theological approach to the Devil? “Located in this place and handled in this way,” Ziegler explains, “the doctrine of evil in fact does very little dogmatic work.” Dogmatics aside, the Bible says little about the Devil’s origin. Ziegler again: “Where the theological tradition speaks and thinks most about the devil—namely, in the context of its exposition and elaboration of the first article of the creed—the biblical witness is most reticent.”
It is Schleiermacher who finally pulls the plug, rejecting diabology as dogmatically incoherent and incidental to preaching the gospel. Besides all that, he witheringly observes, “our Church has never made doctrinal use of the idea.” Misplacing the Devil dogmatically almost killed him off or, perhaps better, nearly convinced us he was dead.
The goal of Ziegler’s book is to reconsider the Devil from another doctrinal angle—salvation. Ziegler, who stands in a stream of Reformed theologians, follows the lead of the authors of the Heidelberg Catechism, Calvin’s French Catechism, and Karl Barth. “Demonology,” says Barth, “is in fact only a negative reflection of biblical Christology and soteriology.” Rather than focusing on the Devil’s origins, Ziegler shows what happens if we follow the Gospel writers’ focus on the Devil as an antagonist to Christ. The result is a robust, vivid portrait of the Devil.
The Devil is seen not as a “person” or “creature”—so Augustine’s privation theory of evil remains intact—even as Ziegler insists on the “agential character of evil” and the “diabolical resistance to God’s ways and works.” But the gospels do not present the Devil as a “person” or “creature” in a simple or straightforward sense. In John’s gospel, the Devil never appears as a fully realized character; in the other gospels the Devil is at times singular and at other times “horribly legion.” At times, the Devil even appears as a parasitic personhood, opposing Christ by feeding on the hearts of Jesus’ intimate friends. “The devil is,” Ziegler underscores, “only because and as he is against God, lacking independent positive grounds for existence … As the fourth gospel puts it, ‘The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy’ (John 10:10).”
Placing the Devil in the doctrine of salvation is exegetically sound, since the Gospels articulate Christ’s mission from start to finish as a war against the Devil. Even more, Ziegler consistently identifies how framing diabology within soteriology leads directly to reflection on the Christian life. Christ’s battle against Satan and his inaugural defeat of him by his death and resurrection become a frame for our life as Christ’s body in the present evil age.
Prayer, baptism, interpretation, and proclamation all become active modes of resistance to the Devil. If locating the Devil in the doctrine of Creation led to a stoic trust in providence, placing the Devil in the doctrine of salvation leads to participation in Christ’s defiant resistance.
In ways resonant with the minority position Ziegler advocates, Thomas Cranmer connects diabology and soteriology in the Great Litany.” The Great Litany was one of Cranmer’s earliest (successful) experiments in English common prayer. It was first drafted in 1544, the same decade as Calvin’s French Catechism.
Early in the Great Litany, Cranmer gathered nine petitions, each with the response “Good Lord, deliver us.” The first petition begs deliverance “From all evil and wickedness; from sin; from the crafts and assaults of the devil; and from everlasting damnation.” The Devil appears again in the third petition: “From all inordinate and sinful affections; and from all the deceits of the world, the flesh, and the devil.” The second and fourth petitions reflect the vices and results of the Devil’s corrupting influence. The fifth and sixth petitions seek deliverance from natural and social calamities.
There is a shift in the seventh petition. We no longer ask for deliverance from things; instead, we begin to seek deliverance by Christ:
By the mystery of thy holy Incarnation; by thy holy Nativity and submission to the Law; by thy Baptism, Fasting, and Temptation,
Good Lord, deliver us.
By thine Agony and Bloody Sweat; by thy Cross and Passion; by thy precious Death and Burial; by thy glorious Resurrection and Ascension; and by the Coming of the Holy Ghost,
Good Lord, deliver us.
Just so, the Great Litany teaches us to think about the Devil in direct relation to Christ’s saving work. In fact, the Great Litany simply condenses the gospels’ narratives, such that the Devil is countered not just by Jesus’ death and resurrection but, as Calvin calls it, “the whole course of Christ’s obedience.” This historic prayer—such a beloved feature of Anglican piety—has been teaching us the minority position all along. It at once takes seriously the real and enduring threat of the Devil, while resisting him by calling upon the faithfulness of Christ and the power of the Holy Ghost who empowers us to resist.
And so the Devil is not dead after all, doctrinally speaking. By locating the Devil in the doctrine of salvation, we are forced to acknowledge that the Devil remains forcefully, destructively present in our world, in this evil age. And yet this doctrinal relocation testifies to the Devil’s disarmament and impending doom. Soon enough we will pronounce the Devil truly dead.
Meanwhile, the Great Litany invites us to resist with sure and certain hope: “That it may please thee to strengthen such as do stand; to comfort and help the weak-hearted; to raise up those who fall; and finally to beat down Satan under our feet, We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord.”
Zen Hess is Guest Writer. A Ph.D. candidate in religion at Baylor University, he is the founder and former host of the podcast Currents in Religion, and a former pastor.
