The Devil’s Advocate

I think it was necessary for Ivan in The Brothers Karamazov to meet The Devil. Maybe, I think, it is necessary to meet him sometimes. But what is freakier is that we meet him all the time. He’s here, there, everywhere. Maybe that is why God Chose to Disagree with the Property of Being Omnipresent. He’d rather be Omniscient – which is much cooler. In a way, it’s a bit cheap to be here, there and everywhere, like a stalker. But then again – that’s what he does best.

Beauty is the battlefield where God and the Devil contend with one another for the heart of man. I think it’s a bit disingenuous to claim that existentialists don’t really care about the God Question. Nowadays, we’ve gone a step further, delving into Dawkinsian delusions. When Iblis meets Ivan in the chapter that I have posted below, he tries to ‘deconstruct’ many of our delusions. And now see – Dostoevsky was writing this before 1880 – and he was able to resolve intriguing questions about God and morality, and the glue that holds us all together: freewill. And we are still scratching our heads wondering if really we are looking at the wrong answers. Forget asking the right questions. Even the Angels asked. And were duly Answered. But dialoging with the Devil can be pretty delirious, if not delusional. It seems that through Ivan, the disbeliever (I will not call him an unbeliever, as that would remove him from tragic grace which is the result of his fall), Dostoevsky was able to make the Devil elucidate comprehensively what he meant in his Khutbah in 14:22. He says:

Verily, Allah promised you a promise of truth. And I too promised you, but I betrayed you. I had no authority over you except that I called you, and you responded to me. So blame me not, but blame yourselves. I cannot help you, nor can you help me. I deny your former act in associating me as a partner with Allah. Verily, there is a painful torment for the Zalimun.

Now here’s the catch: the Devil is super-smart. From the very beginning – ab initio – he knew how to argue. He’s so intellectually sophisticated that he can easily be called the father of rhetoric. And we have always been told not to follow pathos and ethos during argumentation. Logos all the way – the mantra that’ll perhaps stall your fall from grace. So, he made a perfect case, which he presented quite logically. And he made perfect sense. I’m made out of fire, this random doll is made out of clay. I’ve served you more, this random doll is a lousy new arrival. And therefore, it so follows, that I am better than him. Which he was, he still is, for he always wins, every case, every situation. As Al Pacino said in the movie to Kevin, “Who could deny that the 20th century wasn’t mine… it was mine. All of it.” And that’s a claim and a conclusion which is a bit hard to defend.

And so, ex post facto, the battle began. And Adam was the first bait. But if he’s saying that he has no authority over us, then what’s the problem. The Devil does not believe in possession really. If possessed, the game is over. What’s thrilling about the sport is the chase. It’s the chase that allows you to outwit, maneuver, manipulate, charm, and so, deceive: and I ‘too’ promised – but I betrayed you. A failed promise is a much tragic thing than a false promise. The problem is that he has advocated a case for a promise whose falsehood is its, and so, our failure. Almost all of us, who agree with him, in word or deed, believe and so incarnate his primeval smugness – I am better than him. Interestingly and ironically enough, in Arabic the word ‘ghuroor’ which we normally understand as arrogance is translated as “delusion”. And that’s what’s the rat-race is about: The blind leading the blind in the dark, each one chanting how he is (was) better than the other, in one way or the other. You can practically hear the angels saying, tsk tsk tsk. And Iblis perhaps doing the same. The only difference is that he’ll probably have a grin on his face. My translation of the novel sums this up perfectly: “If my thoughts agree with yours, it only does me honour,” the gentleman said with dignity and tact.

“My dear friend, above all things I want to behave like a gentleman and to be recognized as such,” the visitor began in an access of deprecating and simple-hearted pride, typical of a poor relation. “I am poor, but... I won’t say very honest, but... it’s an axiom generally accepted in society that I am a fallen angel. I certainly can't conceive how I can ever have been an angel. If I ever was, it must have been so long ago that there’s no harm in forgetting it. Now I only prize the reputation of being a gentlemanly person and live as I can, trying to make myself agreeable. I love men genuinely, I've been greatly calumniated! Here when I stay with you from time to time, my life gains a kind of reality and that's what I like most of all. You see, like you, I suffer from the fantastic and so I love the realism of earth. Here, with you, everything is circumscribed, here all is formulated and geometrical, while we have nothing but indeterminate equations!”

And that is this biggest promise that is fulfilled by us on the other side: we decide what the Devil desires and make him real, by being so agreeable. And that is the Devil’s defence – to self-deprecate, and out of that self-deprecation, rises a false, failed sense of guilt to combat that sorry state of pity, and this guilt tempts one to feel secure, and so, a bit too sure, and ipso facto, one is deluded into believing that everything is circumscribed, while in reality, it’s nothing but indeterminate equations fumbling to reach quod erat demonstrandum or better recognized as QED.

Hecate made perfect sense when she said, “Security is mortals’ chiefest enemy.” And it was Iblis’s too. Inil kafiroona illa fee ghuroor. He Calls them disbelievers too – perhaps Allowing that trial and error – that margin to be saved from further tragically falling from grace…in the pits, literally.