 You are doubtless familiar with the old cartoon device of a miniature angel and demon that sit on a character’s shoulders and whisper conflicting urgings into each ear. As a comedic device, it is a good one. It sets up instant conflict; a miniature point of drama. We laugh at the central character, who tends to comes off as a sap who is torn between good and evil and is bound to make the wrong choice. Another reason the device works is because it has a grain of truth in it. We are all split, every day, between following God’s will and following our own, or someone else’s will. Our choices are rarely so clear-cut as “good vs. evil,” however; at least on the face of it. Most of the time the choices we make fall somewhere on a continuum between absolute good and absolute evil. (Given the readership of this column, I trust our collective choices tilt way more often on the “absolute good” side than on the other.) But this is not to say that the little demon has abandoned his post or lost fervor for his mission of derailing us from truth. Most of us, if we could see evil for what it is, wouldn’t fall for it for a minute. But that’s a big IF. The devil isn’t so much in the details as he is in the “if” word. The key to the success of evil is to disguise itself past recognition. Knowing that the choices we face are usually subtle, the voice of evil employs extreme cunning in confusing our thinking. I suspect the devil’s favorite coup is his success at substituting his own ideas for God’s in our minds, so that even goodhearted and sincere people can spin off into bitterly opposing camps, all the while convinced they are doing God’s will. This explains why, as the popular expression goes, “people of good will can differ” on moral matters such as right-to-life issues, new definitions of marriage, responsibilities towards oppressed peoples, and so on. Yes, we can and do differ, but does that make all opposing viewpoints right? What would Jesus do? Knowing that our own minds and opinions are not reliable witnesses to truth, one way Christians try to discern God’s will is by consulting Scripture. The importance of knowing Scripture can not be trivialized, but if this were a foolproof method I suspect we wouldn’t have so many denominations or divisions within denominations. And anyway, “the devil can cite Scripture for his purpose,” as Shakespeare warns us in The Merchant of Venice. How can this be? How can goodhearted people, including Christians, get so confused sometimes? The answer is in the “If” word: if we saw evil (and its consequences) clearly we probably wouldn’t choose it. But “now we see through a glass, darkly.” Our brains and emotions filter the raw information we come across through a myriad layers of interpretation. These come from our past experience, our personal proclivities, our pain, our hopes, our culture, our education or lack thereof, our beliefs and traditions, and a thousand other ingrained sources. If you have ever known a person who is mentally ill, you will have seen a stark representation of the filtering of information based on faulty brain functioning. A paranoid person can become rigid with fear in the most innocuous settings. A clinically depressed person may sense an unbearable foreboding of doom while reading the Sunday funnies. Similarly, the devil reinforces the distorting filters that were formed by our sins--our lust, resentment, self-righteousness, fear, fecklessness. When we read the Word of God through these invisible filters we misinterpret it, or only “hear” a small portion of the whole truth. Even for the average healthy person, it is hard to tease out or bypass our dysfunctional filters in order to clear the channels with which we hear the authentic voice of God. Rather than continuing to be persuaded by our own passionate beliefs (remembering that they can be hijacked by the wrong spiritual powers), it behooves the best of us to spend more time in prayer and meditation, on our knees or even on our faces, asking God to illumine our hearts and minds with His point of view. Achieving this spiritual clarity is one of the primary goals of soul-searching, and also of preparing to confess our sins before God. It requires unusual humility to be willing to see and acknowledge our own wrong in order to clear away the filters that inhibit our right understanding of truth. But that humility is a grace God will give us, if we continue to seek Him sincerely and repentantly. For now we see through a glass darkly but then, face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but, the greatest of these is love. (I Corinthians 13:12-13)
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