Sympathy for the Devil: The Case for Satan’s Heroism

Last week, I was challenged to write an article arguing that Satan, as he is portrayed in the Bible, is actually the good guy. Thrilled by this opportunity to quite literally play devil’s advocate, I accepted the challenge. However, considering he’s been the universal symbol of evil for centuries, Lucifer proved himself to be quite easy to defend.

Before I begin, I’d like to point out that I don’t believe in Satan, nor do I believe in his adversary, God. For that reason, my analysis of Satan is every bit as theoretical as an analysis of Lord Voldemort would be. But even fictional characters can have motives, attributes, and values, and it is those qualities upon which I will base my assertions.

According to the Biblical account, Satan was once one of God’s most prized angels (Ezekiel 28:12-15). Isaiah chapter 14, verses 12-15 describe Satan’s “fall” from heaven:

“How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven; I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.”

Essentially, Satan “fell” after an attempt to overthrow God and usurp His position. His coup was unsuccessful, and God cast him into Hell.

Throughout human history, successful and unsuccessful attempts to overthrow a leader or government have been enacted, the most historically notable of them being the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the English Civil War. As these examples show, attempting to put a leader out of power is a moral deed if and only if that leader is cruel or unjust. Therefore, in order to argue that Satan’s actions were noble—even heroic—I must first determine that the regime God led was indeed an unjust, totalitarian dictatorship. Considering He at one point committed mass genocide, drowning all but one family (Genesis 6:13-22) and thus giving them no choice but to repopulate the world incestuously, this task should not be too difficult.

An important historical philosophy that will play a role in my defense of Satan is that of civil disobedience. Henry David Thoreau introduced the concept of civil disobedience in his essay of the same title, in which he argued that it is a citizen’s duty to disobey any law that is immoral or unjust. Civil disobedience has been at the core of almost every civil rights movement in history—Martin Luther King strongly advocated Thoreau’s philosophy, and Rosa Parks became a champion of it when she refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger and was arrested as a result.

Looking at the famous Genesis story through Thoreau’s lens reveals that Eve, by eating the forbidden fruit, engaged in the first ever act of civil disobedience, and against the ruler of the universe no less. There was no inherent logical or moral reason why a law prohibiting the consumption of a fruit should have existed, and it was Satan who brought this fact to Eve’s attention (Genesis 3:4). As the result of her disobedient act, God not only punished Eve and her husband, Adam, but in a fashion oddly reminiscent of the criminal justice system in North Korea, He also punished their family and all of their future descendants. Eve, however, remains the first literary character to take a stand against an unjust law, so why is she condemned as a sinner rather than lauded as a hero?

The Bible is full of people who commit acts that would in any other situation be considered wise or noble, but that are portrayed as morally wrong simply because God says that they are. Throughout my Roman Catholic upbringing, I repeatedly heard the story of “Doubting Thomas” (John 20:19-29). According to the story, Jesus, after being resurrected from the dead, appeared to his disciples, all but one of whom believed him to be truly risen. Thomas the Skeptic, as I have grown to call him, asked to see the holes in Jesus’ hands, and as a result, he has become an infamous figure and is portrayed as such in the Bible, simply because he refused to accept a claim on the basis of no evidence. The moral of the story is that faith should not require proof and that we should not question anything we are told. Not only is this idea poisonous to the naturally curious minds of children, but in any situation other than a religious one, it’s completely ludicrous.

Imagine if Albert Einstein had not discovered his theory of relativity through careful research and calculations but had instead simply invented an equation off the top of his head and asserted that, while he had no evidence, he knew it to be true because he believed that it was. “Faith” is useless in any practical facet of society because discoveries are made, and have always been made, through the attainment of proof. Scientists and mathematicians hypothesize, and then they attempt to prove themselves wrong. In other words, belief is the claim, not the evidence, and in most academic fields, even claims are at least based on something substantial. I recognized all of this from a young age, but my religion taught me to be ashamed of it. For a brief period of time, I even took the liberty of referring to myself internally as “Doubting Hannah,” in the hopes that I could stifle my own natural skepticism through guilt.

So what does all of this have to do with Satan? It further supports the idea that the God of the Bible led a totalitarian regime that demonized free thought and that Satan was right in attempting to put an end to it. A just leader does not place restrictions on people’s personal beliefs. A just leader does not demand that his citizens blindly accept ludicrous claims. These are not the actions of a confident ruler who desires the best for his people—they are the actions of a maniacal dictator who wishes to control his people.

As I grew older, and especially after I read George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, I recognized the God of the Bible as a highly improbable but shockingly accurate depiction of a repressive dictator. The nightmarish government portrayed in Orwell’s novel keeps its people under control through fear and brainwashing. In Chapter 7 of the book, the protagonist has the following epiphany about the reality in which he is living: “In the end the Party [the corrupt leadership of Orwell’s fictional society] would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy.” Reason and logic played no role in the Party’s ideal society, and why should it? Citizens with the ability to think for themselves were a danger to the very foundation of the government.

Satan is a seriously misunderstood character, but his inaccurate portrayal is understandable when one realizes that the people who see him as evil are the very same people who see Doubting Thomas as a fool and a coward rather than a noble and wise man. The God of the Bible may be fictional, but His impact on society is every bit as potent as if He were real. Satan didn’t bow to His regime, and thanks to Lucifer’s guidance, neither did Eve. Even Thomas the Skeptic, one of Jesus’ own disciples, had the courage to at least briefly question His authority.

Satan sacrificed his dignity as one of God’s Most High to take a stand against injustice. The fact that he was unsuccessful is irrelevant when one examines the nobility of his motives. For that reason, I place him in the important category of fictional characters who recognized an unfair system and had the courage to actually do something about it, where he will join the ranks of Winston Smith and Huckleberry Finn.

If the Prince of Darkness were real, I would not hesitate to invite him over for coffee, where we would ideally talk about the horrors of totalitarianism and the role of free thought in all social and scientific progress. While I cannot guess with certainty what his favorite book would be, I have a feeling he would take a strong liking to Nineteen Eighty-Four.