Page 66 - 112-2小論文

The Dialectical Interaction between God and Satan –
Exploring Modern Western Humanism in Literature through Satanism

I. Introduction

(I) Motivation

Satan, in the general public’s perception, is commonly seen as the embodiment of evil,
whether it be by Christians or people who don’t have a religion or belief of any kind.

Accordingly, the researcher, who belongs to the latter group, used to hold this view, until
one day he came across the Satanic tenets online and found that they didn’t seem to embody
the evil normally associated with the word/character, “Satan.” Instead, they appeared to
have a degree of self-discipline and philanthropy, such as the one found on The Satanic
Temple’s official website: “One should strive to act with compassion and empathy

toward all creatures in accordance with reason.” (The Satanic Temple, n.d.) This
piqued the researcher’s curiosity, and after conducting online research, the researcher has
discovered that the two mainstream atheistic Satanic sects, The Church of Satan and The

Satanic Temple, both of which claim that much of their inspiration comes from John
Milton’s religious epic Paradise Lost, as shown in the following quote:

“Whatever the author’s intentions in writing Paradise Lost, there is little
doubt that Milton’s epic is the true Satanic Bible, establishing our

understanding of Satan as rebel against tyranny over the body and mind. ”
(The Satanic Temple, n.d.)

This finding, again, surprised the researcher as his English teacher once told him that
Milton was a God-serving person, who said, in his own work, that the purpose of
composing this work was to “justify the ways of God to men.” (John Milton, 1991) Could
a God-serving man secretly—or unknowingly—be an advocatus diaboli (Latin for devil’s
advocate)? And how did a 17th-century literary work exercise such an influence on two

popular modern religious sects that it is unanimously—despite their differences in
doctrines and rituals—regarded as their spiritual inspiration? Finally, why and how did
such “unorthodox”—if not downright antichrist—religious sects grow out of the Christian

and literary traditions of the West? It is to answer these questions that the researcher
conducted this research.

(II) Definition

Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries defines the word ”sect” as “a small group of people who
belong to a particular religion but who have some beliefs or practices which separate
them from the rest of the group” ,and the word “Satanism” as two meanings, “the

worship of Satan” and “a system of belief based on personal freedom that has Satan as
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