Elliot Rose on "Evil"

Some readers might be surprised or concerned about the link, but I've been looking for something like this quote for a while.

Evil, simply as such, cannot be pursued as an end; if Satan wants to encourage some particular sin, he will have to make a truce with some particular virtue. Satan himself cannot be absolutely evil, and remain effective. To suppose him formidable is to suppose him strong, intelligent, determined; and that is better than to be week, foolish, and inconstant. What is better is relatively good, and without the assistance of relative good, Satan would be powerless. [...]
That which is good in itself does not cease to be good in itself because it is used for evil purposes; beauty is still beauty, though a snare; skill remains skill though the handmaid of crime; knowledge is still knowledge though twisted to support a lie; and they remain, in themselves, better than ugliness, ineptitude, or ignorance. Even moral goodness so perverted remains intrinsically good. Courage is still admirable though a burglar needs to possess it; and the patience required to pick a lock is a virtue though in the man who so misuses it it is found in conjunction with avarice, which is a sin. The commendable qualities of Satan, if any, are to be commended; and if he has none, he is not to be feared.

I realised a number of years back when I was considering the issue of Satanism that for a being to fully consistently seek to oppose all good would be self-defeating: ones own existence, pleasure etc would have to be eschewed while pain for pain's sake and squalor for its own sake etc pursued. It would simply be inconceivable. The quote goes on to talk helpfully about the portrayal of Satan in Paradise Lost as a case in point. I'm pretty certain that CS Lewis makes the same point, I suspect in Mere Christianity. I'm intending to check that out in due course and perhaps copy the passage on this blog. Meanwhile it's here to refer to.

For those concerned about where the link leads, two things. One is that

Elliot Rose is a moderate-to-liberal Christian with a very down-to-Earth humanistic concept of "Evil." ... he explains why it is not logically possible for a being with any power at all to be consistently devoted to "Evil" in the sense in which Rose uses that term.

The other thing is that the concept of theistic Satanism is precisely not to do with Christian concepts of Satan. Labels get in the way here. Maybe the Masque of the Red Death is an artistic aid here?

Elliot Rose on "Evil":
Filed in: evil, philosophy, good, Satan