Does God Collude with Satan?

In Baptist Bible study we were pondering 2 Cor 12:1-10, where Paul claimed he was given [by God] a thorn in the flesh, an angel of Satan to harass him so that he would not be puffed up by the abundance of visions and revelations he had experienced in his trip to the “third heaven” (2 Cor 12:7). We will all no doubt agree that this strange passage tends to perplex the modern Christian mind. But there is an even more serious difficulty in the passage. It rather obviously implies that God colludes with satanic powers by using an angel (aggelos) of Satan to harass Paul. Is there other evidence suggesting that it could actually be the case that God colludes with Satan?

There is a similar statement in 1 Cor 5:1-7 where Paul directs the gathering at Corinth “to deliver” an immoral member of the gathering “to Satan for the destruction of his flesh” so that “his spirit may be saved” (1 Cor 5:5). To be sure this is also a difficult passage, but it is nevertheless clear that Paul encouraged the Christian gathering to collude with Satan for the salvation of the man’s spirit. Compare a similar statement in a text from the Pauline school: the author refers to two persons who “have made shipwreck of their faith”…“whom I have delivered to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme” (1 Tim 1:20).

I checked at random a few commentaries in my last blog (see them here) to see how 2 Cor 12:7 was regarded in the academic community. They all agreed that the passive voice in 2 Cor 12:7 referenced God as the one initiating the action that brought Paul harassment by an angel of Satan to teach him humility. There is a similar incident in Job where God is described as allowing Satan to afflict Job’s body at the request of Satan (Job 2:10). That does not appear to be the case with 2 Cor 12:7, where God directed the harassment of Paul by using an angel of Satan.

In the Jewish Scriptures, dubbed by Christians the Old Testament, God has no evil opponent to challenge his authority. Satan does not make an appearance in Israelite history until after the fall of Judah to the Babylonians (read about it here). In the early years of Israelite history God was the source of divine justice, as well as “evil” acts. For example, God sends an evil spirit to torment King Saul (1 Sam 16:14-23; 18:10; 19:9); he also sends lying spirits into the mouths of prophets to deceive Ahab (1 Kgs 22:1-40) and prompted King David to sin (2 Sam 24).  When Job’s wife counseled him to “curse God and die,” his reply indicated that it was common knowledge that both good and evil came from God (Job 2:10, see also 42:11; compare also 2 Sam 12:11; Ps 78:43-51; Jdg 9:23).

There must be some mistake here! How can it be that God would have anything to do with facilitating evil deeds? A standard definition of God is “perfect in power, wisdom, and goodness, whom people worship as creator and ruler of the universe.” So what is good about colluding with the powers of darkness to bring harm to anyone? The very definition of a Christian concept of God precludes the idea that God would do evil against anyone or incite anyone to evil or that God would work in concert with the forces of evil either to the detriment or betterment of anyone. Is not this statement attributed to Jesus: God “makes his sun rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the just and the unjust” (Matt 5:45)? The thrust of the statement is that God provides the blessings of the considerable bounty of the earth to the Good, as well as the evil and unjust alike without discrimination.

So how should we explain the not inconsiderable clash between God as reflected in the Jewish Scriptures and New Testament? My own view is that through history and within the various world cultures and religions that have existed through time people have basically fashioned their own understandings of God in harmony with the culture in which they were raised and according to the ethical understandings they had at the time. In short, our Gods are, at least in part, a projection of how we understand (hopefully) what is best in ourselves, an idea in modern philosophy attributed to Ludwig Feuerbach.¹ How else do we explain the diverse religions of the world?

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

¹ https://phenomenologyftw.wordpress.com/2010/05/12/feuerbach-on-religion-anthropomorphic-projectionism-and-his-influence-on-atheism/: Here is a quote from the article: According to Ludwig Feuerbach “God is an anthropomorphic projection of the human mind, and as such embodies man’s conception of his own nature. This [view] was originally conceived by Xenophanes and Lucretius, and by Spinoza.” Here are three brief quotes from Feuerbach’s writings (translated by Zwar Hanfi), The Fiery Brook: Selected Writings of Ludwig Feuerbach (Anchor Books; 1972):  “Man’s notion of himself is his notion of God, just as his notion of God is his notion of himself—the two are identical” (page 109); “There is nothing more, and nothing less, in God than what religion puts in him” (page 112); “To every religion, the gods of other religions are only conceptions of God; but its own conception of God is itself its God—God as it conceived him to be, God genuinely and truly so, God as he is in himself” (page 114).

what should be done about EVIL IN THE WORLD?

This blog is now published in The Fourth R 26 (2013): 15-16 under the title “Where does Evil Come From?”

What I mean by “evil” is an unethical, deliberate malicious act that results in harm to human beings in some manner. By this definition, however, not everything hurtful happening to humans is evil. For example, an accident involving harm to another party is not an evil act, although it may maim or even result in someone’s death. What is lacking is deliberate malicious intent, and the one causing the accident may be as grieved as the friends and family of the injured party.
      Nature is benign. Although “red in tooth and claw” (Tennyson, In Memoriam, canto 56), it does no “evil.” The forces of nature (floods, tornados, hurricanes disease, etc.) are not acting with malicious intent; they are simply natural forces operating according to natural laws—by that I mean they act according to the usual observed patterns for such things in the universe). The natural world and the animal and plant worlds are therefore ethically benign. When you get cancer or are bitten by a poisonous snake, maimed by a bear, or your home is destroyed by a tornado or flood these forces are not acting with malicious intent toward you, they are just being true to their nature.
       Unless, of course, you happen to subscribe to a belief that both the world of human beings and the world of nature fall under the influence of unseen mysterious, malicious, unethical forces that are able to use the usually benign forces of nature and even unsuspecting human beings for their own devious ends. In other words the natural world is benign unless you believe that Good and Evil are personified Spiritual Entities competing against one another in both natural and social worlds. These spiritual forces are popularly believed to harness the usually benign forces of the natural world and its living elements (flora and fauna) to their own ends, whether good or evil.
       Traditionally in the Judeo-Christian West, God gets the nod as the proponent for the Good. But what should we say about evil? Here the picture is not so clear. In the Hebrew Bible before the fall of Judah to the Babylonians (587 B.C.) there was only one figure in Israel that dispensed both good and evil in the world. Prior to the deportation of the Judahites to Babylon, God alone was believed to be the source of both good and evil (Job 2:10). Frequently one finds in Hebrew Bible the repetitive expression “the Lord repented of the evil” he planned to do (Exod 32:14; Jer 26:13, 19; Jonah 3:10; 1 Kings 14:10; 2 Sam 24:16), or “the Lord brings evil” against . . . . (Josh 23:15; 1 Kings 9:9; 2 Kings 21:12; Ezekiel 5:13-17; 2 Sam 17:14; 2 Kings 6:33; Neh 13:18; Job 42:11). Particularly impressive are the descriptions of God putting lying spirits in the mouths of his prophets to deceive (1 Kings 22:13-23), or the idea that God uses evil spirits to do his bidding (Judges 9:23; 1 Sam 16:14-16, 23; 18:10; 19:9). Evil intentions and actions were, of course, always thought to lie within human beings (Gen 6:5; 8:21; 50:20).
     After the Persian conquest of Babylon (539 B.C.), Cyrus the Great King of Persia permitted the exiles to return to Judah (Ezra 1:1-11), and sometime after their restoration in the land (described in Ezra and Nehemiah) Satan gradually becomes the source of personified evil. This evil force the Judahites developed from their exposure to Zoroastrian religion in which there were two competing forces in the universe, one Good and the other Evil. Initially Satan (accuser/adversary) was described as a functionary of the divine court (at this point he is not the incarnation of evil, Zech 3:1-2); his principal activity appears to be accusing or finding fault with human beings (Job 1:6-13; 2:1-6). The shift in theological thinking gradually coming after 539 B. C. is evident in a passage in the late text of 1 Chronicles 21:1 (ca. 350 B.C.) where Satan appears as the figure inciting David to number the tribes of Israel. In the earlier (ca. 650 B. C.; that is, prior to 539 B. C.) parallel text, which the Chronicler “borrowed” from 2 Sam 24:1, it is the Lord who incites David to number the tribes of Israel. This shift from the Lord to Satan is apparently due to changes in theological thinking in Israel.
     In the Jewish Apocrypha the earliest reference to an evil competitor to God comes in the Book of Jubilees (ca. 150 B.C.), where he appears as Mastema, Chief of the unclean demons (Jub 10:8). But even as late as the beginning of the second century B.C., Sirach can trace to God the “evil” aspects of nature (vipers, teeth of wild beasts, hail, famine, etc., Sirach 39:28-31).
       In the New Testament period (after 50 A. D.), Satan and the Devil are conceived as one figure (Rev 12:9; Mark 1:13—compare the substitution of Devil for Mark’s Satan: Matt 4:1; Luke 4:3). This figure, appearing as the chief opponent of God in the world, is known by a number of other names and designations; for example: Beelzebul (Matt 12:24); Belial (2 Cor 6:15); Prince of the Power of the Air (Eph 2:2); Ruler of this world (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11)—among others. One statement by Jesus in Luke alludes to Satan’s former association with God’s Heavenly Court (Luke 10:18; but compare John 12:31). Revelation 12:7-12 describes a war in heaven in which Michael and his angels fight against the Dragon, who is called the Devil and Satan. Michael wins the battle and Satan is cast down to the earth, where he makes war on those who for a short time “keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus.” A description of a battle among the stars appears in The Sibylline Books (Book 5: at the end of the second century C.E.), which features the Morning Star, Lucifer (Latin), popularly thought to be waging war in the “heavens” (512-30).
       Lucifer (transliteration of the Latin: Lucifer “Light-bringer,” or Morning Star) is a special problem. Lucifer does not appear in the New Testament as an evil force, as such, although the equivalent term in Greek (Phosphoros) does appear in 2 Pet 1:19, where it is translated “morning star.” It does not, however, in 2 Pet 1:19 refer to an evil opponent of God. The name or description also appears in the Hebrew Bible where the word is translated “Day Star” in the RSV; in the context the word is applied to the King of Babylon (Isa 14:12-15). Later Christian writers (3rd century following) associated Lucifer with Satan. Origen (De Principiis, book 1, chapter 5) has been given credit with being the first specifically to argue that “Lucifer” is to be associated with Satan as the evil force in the world opposing God (Roberts/Donaldson, Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 4, 259-60).
       This brief summary brings me to an important question: is there in actuality a malicious Spiritual force in the world opposing God, or are we humans alone the source of deliberate malicious evil? It seems to me there are at least three responses: (1) recognize nature as benign and human beings as the only source of deliberate malicious evil in the world. (2) accept the idea that there is a God, and allow God to be the sole ruler of the world, and hence God is the source of both good and evil. (3) admit that pagan thought was more insightful than Hebrew thought in recognizing that a “good” God simply could not be the source of evil, and so they invented another competitive unseen wicked Power in the universe.
       The third option creates a host of theological difficulties, not the least of which is: does any force actually control the world—other than Mother Nature? And if so what do we do with Flip Wilson’s famous line: “The Devil made me do it”? What do you think?

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University