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The Dialectical Interaction between God and Satan –
Exploring Modern Western Humanism in Literature through Satanism
latter as a cultural characteristic would have been something totally different from what we
have long taken for granted today. To make the point more concrete, let’s rephrase the
hypothesis: without the snake (the contradiction between God and man), it would be
impossible for God to play the role of absolute justice as required and indispensable in

orthodox Christian doctrines; without the snake, again, we would live a perfect and eternal
life, and we wouldn’t know ourselves as human beings in terms of humanity as we know it
today.

(II) Development

According to the research, in the age-old conflict between humanity and divinity, the
former has been constantly evolving over time. Taking the three works we have chosen as

examples, Milton’s Satan established the precedent of the Satanic hero, inspiring Shelley to
write Prometheus Unbound. However, unlike Satan in biblical canons, who did not defeat
God, Shelley arranged for the character Demogorgon to ultimately successfully defeat

Jupiter, representing divinity. (Robert Percival, 2000) In fact, this is not Shelley’s first time
introducing the concept of resistance to authority in works. In the famous science fiction
novel Frankenstein written by his wife, Mary Shelley, the concept of the monster
confronting the doctor (its creator) throughout the book also stems from Shelley’s
insistence on wanting to change the ending of Milton’s Paradise Lost, where Satan fails.

(Phillip Wade, 1976) Nietzsche then further elevates humanity by not establishing a
specific representative for humanity, but directly negating divinity through human identity.
Although Nietzsche regards religious works such as the Buddhist scriptures and Greek

mythology as ordinary books (Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, 2016), he continuously and
intentionally refers to Dionysus, considering him as the representative of his rebellious
consciousness, which inspired Anton LaVey to establish The Church of Satan, the
foundation of modern Satanism. (Andrade Gabriel, 2018) It is the first non-theistic faith of
Satanism, which does not actually worship Satan but embraces its spirit of rebellion.

However, it is still bound by the concepts of traditional church forms. Therefore, in 2013,
The Satanic Temple was established as the first entirely non-theistic Satanist organization
based on the core concept of "The Eternal Rebel."(The Satanic Temple n.d. )

V. Conclusion and Suggestions

Human beings, as part of the natural world, are an extremely unique species. They not only
possess an exceptionally large brain capacity that other living creatures lack but also exhibit a

duality not found in other species: on one hand, humans aspire to perfection (Christianity),
but on the other hand, they cannot rid themselves of the ordinary (base) characteristics they
share with other organisms (such as eating, drinking, and excreting), as suggested in another

passage from Foucault’s work:
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