The Catholic Catechism offers this description of Satan:
The power of Satan is, nonetheless, not infinite. He is only a creature, powerful from the fact that he is pure spirit, but still a creature. He cannot prevent the building up of God’s reign. Although Satan may act in the world out of hatred for God and his kingdom in Christ Jesus, and although his action may cause grave injuries – of a spiritual nature and, indirectly, even of a physical nature – to each man and to society, the action is permitted by divine providence which with strength and gentleness guides human and cosmic history. It is a great mystery that providence should permit diabolical activity, but “we know that in everything God works for good with those who love him.”
This description is both reassuring and sobering, reminding us of divine sovereignty and the triumph of righteousness, while also admitting Satan’s dangerous if limited power in this world, on this side of the eschaton. This perspective is especially relevant in extremely polarized political times, when there is a temptation to ascribe almost unlimited power to evil, and to assume political adversaries are themselves evil. In politics today, and in many other times, divine sovereignty is often forgotten. Instead, there is an assumption that absent “our” political “victory” now, evil will sail forth without obstruction. There is also the Manichean perspective, at odds with Christianity, which thinks that evil and good are in constant combat, both of equal strength, and one never defeating the other. This view sees God as limited in power, needing our help, and even then, not necessarily prevailing.
An orthodox Christian perspective stresses that God is indeed in control, redeeming the world, according to His own schedule. Fallen humanity is partly hearkening to His redemption message and partly persisting in its intrinsically sinful nature. Humanity in the Christian view is not evenly divided between the consistently righteous and the consistently wicked. Even the devout who strive to pursue good stumble and fall, their wisdom is limited even at their most virtuous, and they are, even if redeemed, still too often self-interested instead of self-giving. And the non-devout still benefit from the influences of divine grace and often serve God’s purposes, even if unconsciously.
Of course, only God can see the motivations and hearts of humanity. So we are warned not to try to divide the sheep from the goats. We cannot see what God sees. And we will, in the fullness of time, appreciate that adversaries and even unsavory people will turn out to have been divine instruments in ways we cannot imagine, while some ostensible friends and allies were other than what we had assumed. We can always safely assume that all of us are equally sinful by nature, completely dependent on God’s grace and mercy, and none of us is intrinsically morally superior to anyone else. This awareness should caution us from overly confident political dogmatism and pride, and from too quickly demonizing our adversaries of the moment. It should also warn against facilely categorizing our adversaries under broad labels, like “the left” or “the right,” or many other labels, which portray humans as mechanical cogs rather than complex beings who bear God’s image and have constantly evolving mixed motivations and capacities. When describing out political adversaries, perhaps it’s better to name specific people or groups rather than broadbrush millions of people into an inhuman stew.
And in our critique, we must strive to avoid self-righteousness and zealous pride. After all, as the Catholic catechism describes, the church sees Satan as a fallen angel who was tossed from heaven because of his pride, esteeming himself an equal if not superior to God, and then calamitously tempting humanity’s original parents with the same delusion. The constant temptation of pride naturally motivates us to point at our political enemies, faulting them for all we despise and fear, rather than reflect on our own failings and their unfortunate contribution to the world’s woes. There are righteous causes, but their advocates are never purely righteous or without self-interest. Too often the denizens of righteous causes in their pride and self-confidence surmount their cause’s noble purpose and replace it with their own self-aggrandizement. We are all tempted in this direction. As Christian Realist Reinhold Niebuhr noted: “The sad experiences of Christian history show how human pride and spiritual arrogance rise to new heights precisely at the point where the claims of sanctity are made without due qualification.”
Pride and spiritual arrogance are of course the original sins that precipitated the downfall of Satan, and the downfall of Adam and Eve. These temptations permeate every arena of human existence. But they are most powerfully present in political struggle. To guard against these temptations, we can resist conflating ourselves with God’s angels, or assuming our adversaries are demonic. We can instead contend for what we believe are worthy causes, knowing justice in this world is at best approximate, and the instruments for seeking it are always deeply flawed.
As Niebuhr continued: “A tragic and revealing aspect of the experience of the Christian ages is that, again and again, ‘publicans and sinners’ have had to rescue an important aspect of truth about life, and restore wholesomeness into human relations, against the fanaticism of Christian saints, who had forgotten that sainthood is corrupted whenever holiness is claimed as a simple possession.”
May we always recall that that the distance between sinners and saints is never as wide as we sometimes imagine, in politics, and in all else.
Comment by Shae Murphy on September 25, 2025 at 11:51 am
Just because the line between good and evil indeed passes through every human heart does not mean that Christians should not call out evil and defend that which God loves. Of course, any efforts to do so will be tainted with the imperfections of the one doing so. But that does not mean that such efforts should not be done, but rather that they should be done in humility and love.
Comment by Salvatore Anthony Luiso on September 25, 2025 at 12:05 pm
Thank you for this article. I generally agree with it.
However, I do not agree with this statement: “The constant temptation of pride naturally motivates us to point at our political enemies, faulting them for all we despise and fear, rather than reflect on our own failings and their unfortunate contribution to the world’s woes”.
Just one generation ago in America, only a small but vocal minority considered itself to have “political enemies” and faulted them for all they “despise and fear”. That minority is larger and more vocal today, and it may even be a majority, but it isn’t everyone.
Why is this?
I attribute most of the blame not to our fallen nature, nor to Satan, but to demagogues and other conflict entrepreneurs.
(For those who don’t know what a conflict entrepreneur is: I recommend the editorial “Reporter’s Notebook: What is a ‘conflict entrepreneur’?”, which the *CBS Evening News* published on their YouTube channel on September 15th.
Comment by Gary Bebop on September 25, 2025 at 12:09 pm
Mark Tooley’s work here is worthy of consideration even as the church seems bewildered and perplexed to find itself in a modern battle with evil. The battle is real, and Charlie Kirk’s widow and children are coping with its reality right now. But there are many who would deny there was any evil in Kirk’s murder. The discrepancy is stark.
Comment by Tony Moore on September 25, 2025 at 2:03 pm
It sounds like those who have committed themselves to Christ are as lost as those who have not. Why make an effort if we are all in the same boat? I wonder what happened to being new creatures saved by His wonderful grace? In spite of my brokenness I believe I will continue on my mission of being His hands and feet here on earth, believing that His empowering Spirit living within me can propel me to some success in His name.
Comment by Qohelet on September 25, 2025 at 2:34 pm
Thank you Mark. These are good words and remind us we have a reason to be humble.
To other commenters, I think the point you’re missing is that you’re not God. You claim to know what God loves and what is evil. But scripture (and Mark above) warns us about our inability to judge correctly and the reminder that judgment is God’s work, not man’s. Don’t try and separate the weeds and the wheat, because you might be wrong.
Micah 6:8 tells us what we’re supposed to do:
He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth Jehovah require of thee, but to do justly, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with thy God?
If someone is kind and tries to be just, I trust that we will know them from their fruit.
Comment by Mark on September 25, 2025 at 6:40 pm
I’m reminded of Dante’s Inferno. In the in the deepest part of hell, Satan as the ultimate embodiment of the sin of the pride is utterly immobile, completely unappealing, and so self-absorbed in his own pity parade that he’s totally unaware of anything or anyone else. No great and appealing tempter constantly whispering in the ear of man. Just the first lost soul among a kingdom of lost souls. There’s a sharp theological implication here: That while Satan may be responsible for the first sin, he is not the author or force behind the evil we find in the world . Instead all evil that men do is utterly their own and no one else’s. No one has to tempt us to evil. We just do it. I wonder what would if this idea was taught in Sunday school.
Comment by Glenn Wheeler on September 25, 2025 at 7:41 pm
Mark,
Regarding your statement, “No one has to tempt us to evil. We just do it. ”
Why are we that way? Were we made with defects? If not, how did we become that way? But if we indeed are that way, possessing some congenital and inherited defect so that we “just do it,” is it really fair of a spiritual entity to hold us accountable for doing it? If we can’t help it, why should we be held responsible?
I don’t think I have ever heard the position that Satan was only the cause of the first transgression and then from that point on withdrew and all the blame henceforth is on humans. I certainly don’t get that impression from the New Testament, but there again, it wouldn’t surprise me if there are Christian authors and preachers who have invented that idea and teach it and have a faithful following.
I have heard the demythologizers reject the idea of a fall and of course reject the idea of any spiritual entities active in the world because according to them there are no spiritual entities in the first place.
Is that the position you are promoting?
Comment by Mark on September 25, 2025 at 9:11 pm
Grenn Walker,
I was just offering a hypothetical notion based on a reading of a work of literature, not necessarily giving an account of my own position. But I’ll engage your counterpoints as if this were my position just an intellectual exercise.
Who said we can’t help it? That might as well be the same excuse as “the devil made me do it”. In Genesis it was the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, meaning we know when we’re doing wrong, consciously choose when we do wrong, and we are COMPLETELY responsible for that decision. The buck stops here with each of us. If that leads some people to hopelessness, then all the more reason for them to turn to the Savior who loves them and forgives them in spite of all that. Until we understand the true depth of our sins and our OWN capacity for evil, we will not know true abundance of God’s love for us.
Comment by Glenn Wheeler on September 25, 2025 at 10:10 pm
Mark,
You didn’t address the question of why it is that “we just do it.” Why do we consciously choose to do wrong, even though we know better? Why are we such that we have such “depth of our sins”? Where did “our own capacity for evil” come from?
Comment by Mark on September 25, 2025 at 10:48 pm
Glenn Wheeler,
Ah, you’re talking about the theodicy. The classic theologian’s dilemma. How can a God who is both all-powerful and benevolent allow for the existence of evil? The Devil is one answer to this question, but is it the only one? First, let’s consider the virtue of free will. God could have perhaps created humanity that was totally incapable of evil, but this would also make them incapable of “choosing” to do good by default. If we consider freedom and the ability to choose the good as better than simply a consistent compulsion to do good, then we could argue that the possibility of evil is a precondition for the greatest possible goodness, rather than a hindrance to it. Thus the capacity for evil is in us from the beginning. Even if we want to blame the snake for tempting Eve, we can’t exactly let God off the hook either can we? After all He was the one who planted the tree, not the snake and He told the couple not to eat it, perhaps knowing like any parent who’s ever told their child “Don’t push that button” what was likely to happen. And this isn’t some new age, modernist interpretation either. St. Augustine believed that Adam and Eve’s original sin was not eating the fruit or even disobeying a direct command from God. Instead he argued that the couple had already developed sinful desire prior and that planting the tree and giving them the command was only God’s way of “showing” them how wicked they had already become. Our capacity for evil is a precondition for any capacity for good.
Comment by Glenn Wheeler on September 25, 2025 at 11:00 pm
Mark
I would encourage you to go beyond parroting the stock answers, which really don’t make sense if you think about them.
Just because Augustine lived some 1600 years ago does not mean that what he invented was true. So where did Adam and Eve get that “sinful desire” that Augustine claimed they had developed?
Do some research on Augustine, focusing on that ecstatic episode he had with his mother shortly before her death, an episode that seemingly poisoned his view of sex for the rest of his life, and the repercussions of which Western Christianity has labored under ever since.
Comment by Mark on September 26, 2025 at 1:13 am
Glenn Walker,
“So where did Adam and Eve get that sinful desire?” Maybe they didn’t get it from anywhere. Maybe they just had it. Maybe the capacity for evil is an innate human characteristic from the beginning, just like the capacity for good. Indeed for Adam and Eve to tempted at all demonstrates the capacity is already within them. Because I as said without the capacity for one, you can’t really have the capacity for the other.
I’m don’t agree with everything in Augustine either (particularly on predestination), but he has his moments. I only brought him up to demonstrate that there have always been different interpretations of the Fall, the nature of sin, and the problem of evil. What most of us learned in Sunday School doesn’t even scratch the surface.
Comment by Mark on September 26, 2025 at 2:12 am
Glenn Walker,
Let me pose another question to you? If Satan precipitated our Fall from grace, who precipitated his? Since he, like us is a created entity, his falling from grace all on his own does not solve the problem of evil, but instead perpetuates it.
Comment by Qohelet on September 26, 2025 at 6:08 am
John Milton in Paradise Lost definitely makes the free will argument that Mark (the commenter) explained. The Father and Son watch Satan on his way to the garden and the Son asks the father if he’s going to do anything about it. The Father replies that humans aren’t any better than animals if they can’t choose to stand or fall on their own.
Glenn this is the hardest question in all of theology. I’m not sure what answers you’re expecting other than what people have read or thought about. For me it reinforces the Arminian concept of free will. It’s not just about accepting God’s grace, it’s about actively resisting evil and temptation.
Sadly, that’s only helpful to society if we all choose good. We’re still stuck with the consequences of the choices of others, which is why we need good government
Comment by David on September 26, 2025 at 8:24 am
It is often overlooked that the Garden of Eden was not exactly Paradise, it was a plantation. Adam and Eve had to cultivate it (Gen. 2:15). I can well image Adam resting on the banks of the Gihon or whatever singing “Old Man River.” Note that the first “evil” they noticed after eating the fruit was that they were naked, and we all know who was responsible for that.
This calls to mind the various Adamite sects which included some early Quakers. The otherwise tolerant Dutch were not amused.
https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/V0035701/full/1338%2C/0/default.jpg
Comment by Glenn Wheeler on September 26, 2025 at 10:08 am
Mark,
The two assumptions that Satan was a created entity who also fell from grace are interpretations put on a couple of pulled-out verses. Other interpretations are possible. Sometimes we have to take off the blinders of what we’ve always been told and look elsewhere.
The stuff about original sin doesn’t make sense. What it leads to is tortured explanations like Milton’s, where you have God and God, Jr. as separate beings walking through a garden, an image which itself should be enough to make us look elsewhere.
Look at the way the world works. It works on killing and death. From the smallest insects up to the largest mammals, life perpetuates itself by killing. The fate of most living creatures will be to meet a horrifying death in excruciating pain in the jaws of a predator. Consider that for a moment. Then consider how human beings, in your words, have such depth of sin and capacity for evil. Put them both together, exclude the platitudes and stock answers you’ve heard from the pulpit, and just think about it.
You’re right. What you hear in Sunday School doesn’t scratch the surface, and neither does what you hear from the theologies of mainline and evangelical Protestantism.
Comment by Mark on September 26, 2025 at 11:16 am
Glenn Walker,
Of course multiple interpretations of Satan are possible. The Satan most of us know from Sunday School is the composite of the character from Job, the serpent in Genesis, and a minor reference to the Morning Star (Lucifer) falling from the heavens in Isaiah. Popular Christian tradition has merged these entities into one person, but not everyone agrees with that interpretation. Satan itself is not truly a proper name, but a title meaning “accuser” or “adversary”. It is used in some places in the Bible to refer to others. Jews and later Christians developed the popular image of Satan to offer an answer to the problem of evil, but as demonstrated above, it really doesn’t.
I’m curious to know where you’re heading with this line of thought: “Look at the way the world works. It works on killing and death. From the smallest insects up to the largest mammals, life perpetuates itself by killing. The fate of most living creatures will be to meet a horrifying death in excruciating pain in the jaws of a predator. Consider that for a moment. Then consider how human beings, in your words, have such depth of sin and capacity for evil.” Are you proposing dualism, nihilism? How does your account of evil in the world reconcile with your understanding of God?
Comment by Glenn Wheeler on September 26, 2025 at 12:31 pm
Mark,
Your statement about the origin of the idea of Satan may be what’s popular now, but it is actually an assumption. No one knows the actual origin of that idea.
In reference to the quote from me…I’m not heading anywhere. I’m merely pointing out facts, reality, questions that are fundamental and that any true religious belief system really must address. The fact that so many forms of Christianity address them only with meaningless platitudes is the main reason I don’t take them seriously.
They get all worked up over the Kirk shooting, over transgenders and homosexuals, antisemitism, etc. but give short shrift to the most basic questions.
Comment by Mark on September 26, 2025 at 2:22 pm
Glenn Walker,
Are there any theologians or forms of Christianity you do take seriously?
Comment by Glenn Wheeler on September 26, 2025 at 4:59 pm
Mark,
I find myself drawn to the ancient forms of Christianity, which unfortunately we know very little about. I’m talking about the forms Christianity may have taken in the later first century and into the second and early third century. When Constantine established “The Church,” an orthodoxy was enforced, and much of what had been in Christianity was wiped out, including the records of it. Only that which agreed with “The Church” was allowed to survive.
With discoveries of manuscripts in the late 19th century and early- to mid-20th century, we now have a hint of some things that existed. But the waters were so muddied by the screaming of the officials of “The Church” and their lackeys that we really have no idea exactly what form(s) Christianity took in its earliest years. We know what form(s) we have been told it took, but considering the sources, it’s not clear any of that is trustworthy. In my mind, what Christianity was when it first began is a big mystery.
Having spent many, many years in theological and biblical studies, I believe there is what I would call a “missing link” somewhere, some piece of the puzzle we do not have. I believe that is due to the wiping out of other forms of Christianity by Constantine’s church and the twisting around of what remained in order to support their doctrines (developed by ill-luminaries such as Augustine). The main reason I say that is that, if you really comb through them, the NT scriptures we presently have are too “disjointed” to not to have been revisions (and sanitizations) of earlier works. What was allowed to reach us were only the sanitized versions crafted to support the doctrines being developed by “The Church.” So I like to keep my mind open and read things that “The Church” declared heretical–things like Gnosticism, Marcionism, and people like Valentinus, Sabellius. I also have a lot of respect for Orthodox Christianity, which I think is much closer to truth than either Protestant or RC Christianity.
Comment by Mark on September 26, 2025 at 6:46 pm
Glenn Walker,
That’s all fascinating, but your account of church history is a bit simplistic. I’ve heard the whole “Constantine ruined it all” argument ever since the Da Vinci Code was popular, but honestly you’re giving the guy way too much credit. Most of the early forms of Christianity you mention by name above were already either gone or well-on-there-way-out by the time Constantine arrives. This was due to a combination of factors. Some of them, such as the Gnostics, may have simply lacked the organizational and missional zeal of the proto-orthodox, or their practices and beliefs were too radical to gain same popular acceptance among all levels of society. Others were of course intentionally suppressed by the proto-orthodox leadership, though they lacked the means of doing so through physical violence/persecution. Excommunication, banning, and ostracism would have been the preferred tools instead.
By the time Constantine comes on to the scene, the Bible canon as we will come to know it is pretty much already in-place and Constantine doesn’t play any direct role in its adaptation, contrary to popular belief. The only group who he violently represses are the Donatists who are more-or-less identical in their theology to the orthodox, except they have a much more rigid code of purity when it comes to the clergy and the sacraments. Constantine does use state power to repress them, but comes to regret right away. While Constantine convene the Council of Nicaea there is little evidence he bends the proceedings one way or another. In truth, as clever a politician and general as he was, Constantine was no theologian and would have relied mostly on the clergy of his court to guide him. But yes, after the council ends he does take steps to enforce its rulings, initially, though he ends up switching teams near the end of his life and begins recalling Arian bishops, while exiling the Nicene ones. When he dies his sons in up taking opposing sides. This back and forth continues until the reign of Theodosius.
If I can offer you some free advise, you’re never going to find some pure and untainted version of Christianity, no matter what the records turn up. Yes, we are reading edited and redacted Gospels. Any intro Biblical studies course can tell you that much. We have nothing written by Jesus’ own hand (assuming he could write at all). The Four Gospels we read were the final four in a contest for legitimacy – all likely coming from very different sects. There’s not one missing puzzle piece Glenn. There’s probably hundreds, maybe thousands. There’s nothing wrong with taking the account you get from your church or religious leaders with healthy pound of skepticism. I certainly do, but part of keeping an open mind means expecting to at least occasionally find wisdom or insights in unexpected places, which in your case might be some of the very churches you’re convinced have got it all wrong.
Comment by David on September 26, 2025 at 8:09 pm
Jesus was literate according to the Gospels. He read the Torah in a synagogue, therefore knowing Hebrew in addition to the common language of Aramaic. In the case of the woman caught in adultery, he wrote in the dust. Whether fishermen were literate was quite another matter.
Comment by Glenn Wheeler on September 26, 2025 at 10:02 pm
David,
The Hebrew language, as it is known today, was invented shortly before 1000 A. D. In order to have a unique language for the Masoretic text. At the time of Jesus, there were a number of semitic languages/dialects (“semitic” referring to Middle East, aka Afro-Asiatic) in use among the Arabs and Palestinians., none of which could properly be called “Hebrew.” Calling one that only became popular for modern politically-correct reasons.
Comment by Mark on September 26, 2025 at 10:20 pm
David,
You are correct that the Synoptic Gospels describe Jesus reading from the Torah in the synagogue of his hometown. However, as you can see my point in the comment above was that we have nothing written by Jesus himself about himself. Everything we know about him comes to us second-hand from, including these accounts of his reading the Torah. I wasn’t meaning to imply that I myself doubted Jesus could read and write, but that if we’re going to treat all that has been written about him with the same level of skepticism as Glenn implied, then even the most basic assumptions about him could be challenged.
Comment by Glenn Wheeler on September 28, 2025 at 7:27 am
In Luke, Jesus is portrayed as reading from a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. The “torah” is a modern name for the first five books of what Christians call the Old Testament, which does not include the prophet Isaiah.
Comment by Mark on October 1, 2025 at 10:20 am
You’re right Glenn. My mistake. Thanks.