As you may have noticed, I’ve been doing a fair amount of studying and thinking about the Christian doctrine of universalism or inclusionism. In a nutshell, it says that all people eventually go to heaven regardless of whether you sin or don’t have faith or anything. The idea is that Jesus’s sacrifice wiped clean the slate, and that God’s love is unconditional and infinite. Many mainline Christians see this as nothing short heresy, and attribute this “false doctrine” to the Devil.

In a way, I can understand their difficulty with the doctrine. It causes a certain cognitive dissonance with what they have been taught to believe and interpret of the Bible. Suddenly, all the characters they know and love are recast in a new light that’s difficult to navigate without a healthy dose of imagination and historical background. In particular, one of the thornier issues if you accept universalism is: what to do with Satan? He’s one of the greatest characters of all time, but if God eventually brings everybody to Heaven, it seems like there’s really no need for him and his infernal shenanigans. As Beliefnet’s profile of Unitarian-Universalist belief explains:

Most do not believe that humanity inherited original sin from Adam and Eve or that Satan actually exists. Most believe that God is good and made people inherently good but also with free will and an imperfect nature that leads some to immoral behavior. Diverse beliefs. Some believe wrong is committed when people distance themselves from God. Some believe in “karma,” that what goes around comes around. Some believe wrongdoing is a matter of human nature, psychology, sociology, etc.

So for the most part, in that brand of universalism, Satan pretty much fades out. Which is a sad death for a much-beloved villain. Is there a way that we can still keep this good old baddie in the picture and still follow a doctrine of inclusion? Absolutely, I can think of two interlocking narratives which we could employ.

Before I ever heard of universalist doctrine, I explored the possibility of whether Satan himself would one day be saved by God. In some strains of universalism, Hell is viewed as a place of purification, where sins are not punished, but they are burned away. Purging yourself of sin would be something along the spiritual lines of having really bad diarrhea and vomiting. You suffer only so that you can release the toxins from your body, and re-enter a natural state of equilibrium. In this regard, we could view Satan simply as the greatest sinner, or having built up the most toxins, and thus suffering through the greatest torment. But once he flushes it all out, he would be welcome to come back up to Heaven.

That’s one possible way to extend the narrative. If we look to the Old Testament and the origin of the figure of Satan, we can find another which I think is even more compelling than the whole “spiritual diarrhea” scenario. As Wikipedia’s entry on Satan points out:

The Hebrew word “Satan” is used in the Hebrew Bible with the general connotation of “adversary,” being applied to:

1. An enemy in war and peace (1 Kings 5:4; 11:14, 23, 25)
2. An accuser before the judgment-seat (Psalm 109:6)
3. An antagonist who puts obstacles in the way, as in Numbers 22:22, where the angel of God is described as opposing Balaam as an adversary.
4. As an angel who works to find fault with Man, and acts as a prosecuting attorney against mankind (the Book of Job) on behalf of God to test them. The angels used are most often not mentioned by name.

As you can see, this is a rather more nuanced view of Satan’s purpose than simply “evil incarnate.” Rather than just saying he’s evil, it asks us what the purpose of evil could be. And it suggests that perhaps the purpose of evil is simply to challenge us to become better, rather than to simply drag us down into the muck. We might even go so far as to consider Satan as the “house player” in a casino, or “playing against the computer” in a video game. In order to enjoy a game and learn from it, we need someone to pit ourselves against. If there is no opponent, then there is no challenge to overcome and no opportunity for growth.

I’m also particularly keen on the original meaning of the word Satan in Hebrew as being something like “adversary” or “accuser.” He is often compared to the prosecuting attorney in a court room, as explained by Wikipedia here:

Where Satan does appear as an angel, he is clearly a member of God’s court and plays the role of the Accuser, much like a prosecuting attorney for God. Such a view is found in the prologue to the Book of Job, where Satan appears, together with other celestial beings, before God, replying to the inquiry of God as to whence he had come, with the words: “From going to and fro on the earth and from walking in it” (Job 1:7). Both question and answer, as well as the dialogue which follows, characterize Satan as that member of the divine council who watches over human activity with the purpose of searching out men’s sins and appearing as their accuser. He is, therefore, the celestial prosecutor (a type of lawyer), who sees only iniquity. For example, in Job 2:3-5, after Job passes Satan’s first test, Satan requests that Job be tested even further.

Though he doesn’t figure in the Old Testament, Jesus in this courtroom of God scenario would then play the part of the defense lawyer. We often hear that Jesus is seated at the “right hand” of God. Interestingly, in the American courtroom, the defense typically sits on the right hand side of the judge (from the judge’s perspective, that is). Anyway, the role of Satan as prosecuting attorney would be to point out every one of your faults and hold you as strictly to the letter of the law as possible. The role of Jesus as the Advocate, on the other hand, is to plead for mercy and compassion.

In Philip K. Dick’s excellent Divine Invasion he talks about what he calls the “Cosmic Justice Machine,” although we could easily substitute in the word “karma.” His idea is that the sum total of our life’s actions is a more or less mechanistic way of determining whether we are to be rewarded or punished. Satan, in this regard, is there to point out every little flaw, mistake, sin, error and thing we did wrong - holding us strictly to the Law of Karma. Jesus, on the other hand, or more broadly, the Advocate (Dick refers to this entity as the “Beside-Helper”) was an attempt by God to “feed mercy into the circuit.” Rather than totally reverse the laws which he had set in motion, God decided there should be another option so that people could escape from the mechanical deterministic wheel of fate. The way that they do this would be putting their trust in Jesus, who then stands in their place, and overloads the Cosmic Justice Machine.

Interestingly, we see this same theme appear in other Mediterranean mythologies as well. A while back, a reader sent me this story:

In ‘Further Along the Road Less Traveled,’ Dr. Peck talks about the story of Orestes. Orestes had murdered his mother Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus in revenge for their murder of his father Agamemnon. This was how he chose to settle his internal conflict between the horror of murdering his own mother and the compulsion to avenge the murder his father. He had to chose one or the other course of action.

In revenge he’s pursued by horrible hags known as the Erinyes, or Furies, and eventually put on trial, in Peck’s story, by the Gods. He is defended by Apollo. The Gods are getting ready to absolve him of all responsibility, but he refuses their offer, choosing instead to take full responsibility for his actions. With this gesture the Erinyes are all at once beings of light, joy, and creation — the Eumenides — and they bless him with life and good judgement.

Perhaps Satan could be understood in the same way. When we do something we know in our hearts is wrong, Satan pursues us, accusing us, and standing in our way. If we flee from him, saying we did nothing wrong, he eventually catches up to us, and forcibly purges the wrong from us in a way which is very painful because we are resisting. Or, we can “admit we’re a sinner” as mainline Christians are always recommending, and when we do, the power of Satan suddenly vanishes, and we are thrown on the “mercy of the court,” which is infinite and profound and is personified by Jesus. Maybe we could move into the heresy of heresies as well and suggest that Satan and Jesus are the same thing wearing a different mask based on the courage with which you come to them. Something along the lines of the Black Lodge in Twin Peaks:

There is also a legend of a place called The Black Lodge: the shadow self of the White Lodge, a place of dark forces that pull on this world. A world of nightmares: shamans reduced to crying children; angry spirits pouring from the woods; graves opening like flowers. […]

The legend says every spirit must pass through there on the path to perfection. There you will meet your own shadow self. My people call it the Dweller on the Threshold. But it is said that if you confront the Black Lodge with imperfect courage, it will utterly annihilate your soul.

No wonder mainstream Christians shy away from this stuff. It’s easier just to have a belief system where there’s a place for everything and everything in it’s place, than to confront these dizzying and invigorating paradoxes.