July 8 2023
OUR DEAL WITH THE DEVIL.
The God thou servest is thine own appetite. (Doctor Faustus)
A deal with the Devil (also called a pact with the Devil, Faustian bargain, or Mephistophelian bargain) is a cultural motif exemplified by the legend of Faust and the figure of Mephistopheles, as well as being elemental to many Christian traditions. According to traditional Christian belief about witchcraft, the pact is between a person and the Devil or another demon, trading a soul for diabolical favours, which vary by the tale, but tend to include youth, knowledge, wealth, fame and power. (Source Wikipedia).
George Monbiot, in his book, HEAT, (My good friend George T. gave it to me) subtitled, “How to stop the PLANET from burning”, knows that the only solution is a new mentality: wishful thinking.
In it, George Monbiot, a columnist with the British the Guardian cites a play, written in 1590, by Christopher Marlowe, “The tragical history of Doctor Faustus”. Marlowe describes how Doctor Faustus draws a circle and summons the Devil’s servant, Mephistopheles, and offers him a deal: if the Devil will grant him twenty-five years in which to live ‘in all voluptuousness’, Faustus will, at the end of that period surrender his soul to hell.
So, the bargain is struck, signed in blood, and Faustus acquires his magical powers.
My immigration to Canada, in1951, my betrothed’s arrival in 1952, our marriage in 1953, and the birth of the first of our five children in 1954, coincided with the world’s most extreme era of our deal with the Devil, now, in 2023, revealing its lethal finale. I have been a willing participant.
Long, long ago….
Of course, our deal with the Devil goes back many millennia, but then, what is time? Historic time is that short period between the Urzeit and the End-Time. Our lives as humans in the world are but a brief moment: behind us we have the horizon of primeval time and before us the now visible dawn of the end-time, and these two are identical.
Dominated by the Devil.
The deal with the Devil is an historic event: it happened in history; it took place a few millennia ago, yet it is a supra-historical event because it had consequences for all subsequent centuries, finding its culmination in my life-time, the years we now experience. All of history can only be understood in terms of this one event when we made the deal with the Devil.
Where we are heading?
We can now see where it is heading. George Monbiot, in his book, HEAT, written some 20 years ago, may have outlined some preventive measures to avoid the final HEAT, but we know now that ‘the deal we made with the Devil’, is final, proving again the old adage: The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, or as C.S. Lewis coined it: “Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one-the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.” That’s us today, a world ending in God’s judgement.
This reminds me, again, of Bonhoeffer’s acute observation that it is unique to the Christian Faith to see God, the Creator and his creation as unified, just as we identify our great human artists, Bach, Shakespeare, Rembrandt, by their compositions, plays and paintings.
The Flood then, and today’s final stretch.
God, after the Flood, promised not to repeat that event, knowing full well that this time around we, ourselves, would do the job. Deuteronomy 32: 20 is a striking example of God’s irony: “I will hide my face from them, he said, to see what their end will be; for they are a perverse generation, children who are unfaithful.”
‘Unfaithful’ indicates our deal with the Devil, abolishing, seemingly, God’s indictment, “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food.” (Genesis 3: 19). We, for a while, could bypass that burden, using those buried carbon treasures to make travel easy, to make housework simple, to engage in agriculture in airconditioned luxury, to live in comfort year-round, no matter cold or heat.
Our life, apart from God, abusing God’s creation, our deal with the Devil, is now turning deadly, is now literally making hell a human invention, a self-inflicted curse.
George Monbiot ends his book on a negative note. “Our campaign against climate change….is a campaign not for abundance but for austerity….. not for freedom, but for less….Strangest of all, it is a campaign not just against other people, but also against ourselves.”
Contrast this with Jesus’ words, “I have come that we have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10).
The Bible ends with seas of abundance, “On each side of the river stood the Tree of Life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month”