We give the devil too much credit, I think.
I don’t mean that Satan isn’t wicked, evil, and twisted beyond all hope. He is bad, make no mistake about it. He is miserable and wretched, and he wants us to join him in his wallowings. He and his minions, hordes of fallen angels all, tempt us. It’s not like they have anything else to do; the sightseeing got boring after the first few decades, and the only real change that happens on this planet is with us humans. We change all the time. Neverending variety.
That said, I don’t think the devil and his crew are inefficient. They’ve had thousands of years to hone their technique. Do they really need to henpeck us here, to nudge us there? There are better ways, folks.
Joseph Smith once said of the Saints, “I teach them correct principles and they govern themselves.” It’s what the Lord Himself did originally, but then the children of Israel were stubborn, so He had to give them a lower law, a law riddled with specifics. But when Christ came, He reinstituted the higher law, which boiled down to two simple things: love God and love your neighbor. That’s it.
The other day I realized that Satan doesn’t have to tempt us in every particular. No sirree, all he has to do is teach us a few false principles and we’ll do just fine ourselves, thank you very much. On occasion he’ll see a need to help us over an edge and into the fire, but for the most part it’s far more efficient to taint our internal philosophies and let the repercussions make themselves manifest. In fact, that’s where half the fun of being a devil is — you add a few tablespoons of materialism, for example, let it rise for a few months, and see what comes out of the oven. Endless surprises, most of them delightful.
In other words, Satan probably isn’t trying to bail out a river with buckets downstream — instead he moves upstream and spends his time throwing in a rock here, a log there, until before you know it the river is dammed. And damned. (Couldn’t resist. :))
Here’s why this matters. Since there is a devil and he does try to get us to disobey Heavenly Father’s commandments, it’s easy to think that any mistakes we make are the devil’s doing. In other words, we shovel our responsibility for our actions into an elevator and hit the down button.
Sometimes we’re right — sometimes the devil was tempting us. But I think that most of the time it’s more a product of the natural man — whether hormones or hunger, fatigue or the nature of being fallen. Case in point: it’s entirely possibly to have bad thoughts in the temple. The devil can’t get in. Therefore, not all wickedness comes from hell’s master.
The good news is that it’s a lot easier (for me, at least) to envision success in battling our own innate nature than it is to envision success against a fiery devil. What I mean is, the former is a matter of self-mastery, while the latter involves someone outside us and apart from us, beyond our control. If it’s only us we’re dealing with, then we can more easily take the reins and go in a direction we want to go.
Of course, it’s possible to overcome even the devil through the Atonement. I don’t mean to discount that in the least. I’m also not watering down the nature of the devil’s wickedness and rebellion. All I’m saying is this: we have more control over the situation than we might have imagined. The agency lies within us. The real question is, will we do anything about it?
[tags]LDS, religion[/tags]
Comments
Ben, I’m going to disagree with you on this one. I think the source of wickedness is satan. We do have a nature in us that tends towards base things (i.e. the natural man) but I think Satan is the one who tempts us to give in to those natural tendencies. Either way, we ARE in control. Satan can tempt us, but that is all that he can do. I think if we didn’t have a natural man part of us in the first place, it would actually be harder for Satan to get anywhere with us. If our natural selves didn’t care about sex, food, money, power, etc., why would we be tempted by the devil? We don’t have to give in to Satan or our natural man selfs. We do have power because God gave us agency and the power to know the difference between right and wrong.
Here’s something from Doctrines of the Gospel, Student Manual, p 31: “[Joseph Smith] then observed that Satan was generally blamed for the evils which we did, but if he was the cause of all our wickedness, men could not be condemned. The devil could not compel mankind to do evil; all was voluntary. Those who resisted the Spirit of God, would liable to be led into temptation, and then the association of heaven would be withdrawn from those who refused to be made partakers of such great glory. God would not exert any compulsory means, and the devil could not…” (Joseph Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 187.)
I could sure appreciate what you said that “Satan doesn’t have to tempt us in every particular. No sirree, all he has to do is teach us a few false principles and we’ll do just fine ourselves….” Two of my eight children are certainly sad proof of that! I really like how you compared the quote by Joseph Smith on teaching correct principles to how the devil works–that’s just got to be right on! Thanks.
I Left out one little be word in the quote: “Those who resisted the Spirit of God, would be liable to be led into temptation…”
Just so you know, Ben, I’m not one of the two ;)
Bethany: But if there has to be a tempter to make us fall, then you find yourself forced to answer the question of who tempted Lucifer. I don’t think Satan is the source of evil. He’s very, very bad, but he’s not original. Good and evil would have existed even if Lucifer had never fallen. It’s the nature of the universe.
That said, I agree with you that Satan tempts us to give in to the natural man. But really, is he going to do more work than he needs to? If he can put in a little bit of effort and reap big dividends, then of course he’s going to do it. (Sounds like a get rich quick scheme, except it actually works for him.)
I don’t mean that Satan is never to blame. What I mean is, he does a lot more wickedness by striking at the source (our philosophies and worldview) and then watching as the consequences naturally unfold. He probably doesn’t get involved on the small stuff unless he has to; if the natural man urges us on, Satan won’t waste time on us unless it looks as if we’re about to overcome. So we can’t necessarily blame him directly for as many of our transgressions and sins as we’re wont to do. Sometimes it really is him, yes, but sometimes it’s not, and blaming the devil isn’t going to help us at all.
Shirley: I really like the last line of that quote: “God would not exert any compulsory means, and the devil could not” (emphasis mine).
And yes, knowing how Satan tends to take God’s truth and twist it in subtle ways, I really do think that he uses the same principle as Joseph Smith and the Lord. He knows it’s effective.
Imagine an army of thousands of little tin soldiers, all alive. (Yes, I’m borrowing from C.S. Lewis here. :)) You want the army to go from point A to point B. You could, of course, pick each one up and place it at the right spot, but since the soldiers are alive, wouldn’t it be easier to convince them that going to point B is a good thing, and then let them move themselves? It’s all about economy.
Holly: I figured. :)