Free The Case Against Satan by Ray Russell Page A

Gregory, his equilibrium regained. “God exists.”
    â€œAs an entity? A being?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œYou’re absolutely sure?”
    â€œAbsolutely,” answered Gregory, a bit louder than he wished.
    The Bishop seemed satisfied. Then he asked, “And Diabolus?”
    The Latin name for the Devil, familiar as it was to Gregory in Latin contexts, seemed odd in a vernacular context—the sound of the word was cold, disturbing. “What about Diabolus?”
    â€œI’m asking you what you believe about him.”
    A floodgate of potential replies opened in Gregory’s mind: information, theories, dogma, a deluge of remembered reading and reflection. But he could only say, gropingly, “Diabolus, theDevil, is evil—I mean the force of evil in the world, everything that is negative, bad, corrupt—”
    â€œYes, yes,” the Bishop cut in, “but does he exist?”
    â€œOf course he exists,” said Gregory quickly, “but—”
    â€œBut!”
The syllable was like an arrow. “Gregory, this word
but
seems to be a favorite of yours. And how strange, how frightening that it crops up in your speech again and again only when you are talking about accepted articles of faith. I fear that word on your lips.”
    â€œI fear it myself,” said Gregory quietly, “although I was only going to say ‘But is the Devil as real as God?’”
    â€œThat’s
only
what you were going to say? Only that? Do you mean—but no, of course you don’t—you don’t mean that perhaps the Devil is only a symbol?”
    â€œYou know better than that, Your Excellency. Of course I don’t mean that. We have no symbols. The wafer and the wine we use in the Mass—they don’t simply represent the flesh and the blood of Christ, they
are
his flesh and blood, his literal, corporeal flesh and blood. So I can’t say the Devil is only a symbol. Not to you. You would tell me it was—heresy.”
    â€œYes, Gregory,” said the Bishop. “I would indeed.”
    â€œBut is it heresy,” asked Gregory, “to shrink from accepting a mustachioed villain out of grand opera? Do you want me to believe in a flamboyant red fool with horns and a tail, holding a trident?”
    The Bishop said,
“Yes
. If that would make Diabolus real to you, as real as this floor, as real as that chair, if it would stop this talk of symbols—”
    â€œYou
brought up symbols.”
    â€œOnly,” said the Bishop, “because I could hear the unspoken word in your voice. Gregory, a symbol can be a fog that obscures the truth and hides the bitterness of reality. Perhaps some people need that. But you and I—are we fools, are we children? We are men, and we are men of God.”
    â€œI
want
to believe!” said Gregory. “Do you think I
like
tottering on the brink of heresy? I want to believe—believe totally—more than anything else in the world. But I have a logical mind—”
    â€œLogical!” The Bishop’s eyes were like drills; his voice wasquietly but intensely angry. “Oh, please. Please. You tell me you believe in God. He exists, you say, He is real. But the reality of God’s Adversary you cannot believe in with the same conviction. All right—but when you have one set of beliefs for God and another for the Devil, when you cannot recognize a parallel when it stares you in the face, then please don’t try to pretend you’re using logic.”
    â€œAll right then!” Gregory almost shouted. “Call it instinct, or intuition, or faith.”
    â€œOh, now it’s faith, is it?”
    â€œThat’s right—faith.” Damping his temper, he said in a lowered voice, “There are plenty of logical reasons, plenty of perfect arguments for the existence of God, and I’ve heard most of them, used them myself. But it’s not because of them, not