Nor misses once the track; but presses on,
Till forced at last to the tremendous verge,
At once she sinks to everlasting ruin.”
95. But I conceive that the existence of a devil is irreconcilable with all goodness and omnipotency; and that, were a devil created by God, the Creator would be answerable for all the acts of the being so created. Evidently, the devil could be nothing else but what omnipotence should make him, and could do nothing but what prescience would foresee. The acts of the devil would therefore be indirectly those of his maker.
96. I would inquire of those who rely on the Bible as the source of their opinions, how it happens that Moses makes no allusion to Satan as an agent in the events of which he is the narrator?
97. Though Milton represents that malevolent being as taking the form of the serpent, Moses, far from sanctioning that idea, makes not only the individual snake, but the whole genus forever amenable for the part performed.
98. In his description of hell, Josephus represents an archangel as the janitor, which is quite inconsistent with Satan’s being the jailor. Is it conceivable that an archangel should be doorkeeper to the devil?
99. Moreover, in stating the reasons why the doom of the rich man (broiling to eternity) was irremediable, no allusion is made to the satanic despot whose inexorable malevolence would have had to be counteracted.
100. It would seem to be an axiom, that whenever any event does not take place, it must be because there is no being who has at once the power and the wish to cause it to happen; and when any event does ensue, there can exist no being having at once the power and wish to prevent it from happening. Moreover, consistently, no agent can exist whose destruction is desired by another being, who, having the right, is competent by mere volition to destroy that agent.
101. It follows, that if there actually does exist any being, such as is designated by the words Devil, Satan, Beelzebub, to treat him as the creature of God, would be inconsistent either with the attribute of all goodness or of omnipotence.