When I was young my mother would sometimes chastise me by saying “you little devil”. It was a gentle rebuke. She never really thought I was possessed by the devil.
But, the devil was very real to me. He was the fallen angel, the prince of darkness. He was the serpent who ruined paradise by getting Adam and Eve to give into their animal desires and turn their backs on God.
It was the devil who led me into temptation. He came in all forms. Most of the time he was depicted as a gross beast, half human, with horns, cloven feet, and a tail. But he could take on a more human form.
It was because of the devil that I committed all sorts of sins from lying to cheating and stealing. As I grew older, I realised that the gravest sin of all was giving into my sexual fantasies. It was allowing the animal in me take over my soul. It was an insult to God in whose image I had been created.
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In fact, as a social tool, the devil was a good way of maintaining moral order. It was a way of keeping people docile and obedient to family, community and the church. Perhaps, some of the wildness in human nature did need to be tamed for civil life to develop. Other world religions have beliefs in evil spirits and gods, but none was as sophisticated, or as theologically developed, as Satan.
Sixty years ago, half of the Catholics in Ireland, who then formed 96 per cent of the population, fully accepted belief in the devil. It was a time when women were seen to be particularly prone to being possessed. The thinking seems to have been that women were the weaker sex and if possessed, moral chaos could ensue. The animal in human beings would be let loose. Social order would be ruined.
The devil was also closely linked to the idea of salvation and life after death. However, the fear of hell and of being burnt alive for eternity seems to have disappeared from the religious landscape.
There still is salvation but it is in this life. Instead of engaging in practices of self-denial, penance and mortification as a means of getting into heaven, we strive for self-realisation by leading healthy, happy, pleasurable lives for as long as possible.
The notion of what it is to live a good life is leaving the religious domain. It is increasingly dominated by the market and the media. Fear of the devil seems to be a thing of the past.
Religious coercion responded to the age-old fear of the animal nature in humans becoming dominant. Most institutional religions are rooted in a theology that sees humans as set apart and different from other animals. We are God’s chosen species.
The problem, then, is that we think we can achieve salvation without being attuned to other species. We have lost the sense of interdependence with other animals and the natural world. We have lost the sense that our salvation depends on the salvation of the earth. As a result, we humans, along with millions of other species, are slowly burning to death on earth. We have been alienated from our animalistic being.
To overcome this lack of connection to nature, it would be worthwhile rethinking our notion of God. Instead of seeing “him” as transcendent, as an external father figure in heaven, it would be better to think of “her” as immanent, as being in the world, as being in nature.
In doing so, we might develop a better sense of what it is to live a good life. We need to understand and accept that we have no God-given right to rule the earth and to use and abuse other species.
As part of a new moral theology, we need to rethink the notion of the devil and what constitutes evil in the modern world. Other animals live in attunement with nature. Humans are destroying it. We are possessed by power, greed and selfishness.
Maybe we need to see ourselves more as devils, to acknowledge our animal nature and live more in harmony with other species. We have civilised destructive animal urges but, in doing so, have we lost our animal connection with our environment.
When I was young, I was told that every time I had a bad thought, I was driving another nail into the body of Jesus as he was dying on the cross. Now I think every time I drive my car, fly in an aeroplane, eat meat and wander around shopping malls buying things I don’t really need that I am adding coals to the fires that are burning the earth.
Tom Inglis is a sociologist