Jennifer Senior interviews Antonin Scalia and discovers that he thinks that the devil is “a real person” and that all Catholics believe that.
SENIOR: Isn’t it terribly frightening to believe in the Devil?
SCALIA: You’re looking at me as though I’m weird. My God! Are you so out of touch with most of America, most of which believes in the Devil? I mean, Jesus Christ believed in the Devil! It’s in the Gospels! You travel in circles that are so, so removed from mainstream America that you are appalled that anybody would believe in the Devil! Most of mankind has believed in the Devil, for all of history. Many more intelligent people than you or me have believed in the Devil.
SENIOR:I hope you weren’t sensing contempt from me. It wasn’t your belief that surprised me so much as how boldly you expressed it.
SCALIA: I was offended by that. I really was.
Scalia is somewhat puzzled that the devil was a co-star of the New Testament but isn’t even getting cameo roles lately. But he has an explanation. The devil is “wilier” than he used to be.
Also, Scalia refuses to read the New York Times or the Washington Post because they are too liberal. He gets his news from the Wall Street Journal and Washington Times. He also listens to Bill Bennett’s gambling-advice radio show in the morning while he is shaving. In this way, he avoids elevating himself above “mainstream America” and distinguishing himself as above average in any way. Because, when we say that we want a Supreme Court that is reflective of the diversity of the country, what we really mean is that we need to have at least two total morons serving there.
The devil wears a black judicial robe. (Apologies to author Lauren Weisberger.)
I was thinking the same thing. She wasn’t looking at him like he was dumb. She was shocked that Old Nick would reveal himself so brazenly.
Yes, and there was also a time when “most of the people” fervently believed that this very same devil was what was responsible for the behavior of the mentally ill.
Yes, Mr. Scalia. Enlightenment seems to play havoc with silly Bronze Age superstitions on a very regular basis throughout history. But it’s understandable that you would be uninformed. You probably don’t hear much about that from Bill Bennett or the Washington Times.
I am absolutely certain that Scalia believes the Devil IS responsible for at least some of the mentally ill. Once you say he exists, you have to give him something to do. And what could be wilier than than creating the mentally ill?
Oh, I don’t know. The Tea Party, maybe? Or would that just be a subset of the mentally ill?
So now you can’t believe in the supernatural or you’re a moron?
Yes, because believing that the devil is a “real person” who doesn’t make regular appearances anymore because he’s “wily” is the exact same thing as believing in the “supernatural.”
Then explain to me the difference here, because that’s what it seems like you said to me.
“Supernatural” refers to the belief in things that either cannot be explained by science or exist on a plane that science cannot approach. Satanic forces could exist on such a plane, but “real people” don’t exist on such a plane.
He’s basically positing a Trinity for the devil and saying that he’s keeping a low profile these days.
You can believe in evil and spirits and God and not believe that the devil is a real person who is very “wily.”
Read the interview. Scalia’s “spirituality” is as developed as an eight-year old’s.
Ghosts could exist on such a plane, but “real people” don’t exist on such a plane.
Mylindor the Reti could exist on such a plane, but “real people” don’t exist on a such a plane.
‘Supernatural’ = ‘shit that exists on a plane other than the real one.’
So I read the article.
It seems closer to “real people” = “evil entity that can interact with humans” to me. Believing that exists is no different from believing ghosts exist, or God exists and can do the same. I’m willing to label that under the blanket terminology of supernatural. In that, I agree with Geov Parrish though he obviously isn’t a Christian and I am a Christian.
In fact, Geov and n1cholas below essentially say that people who believe in the supernatural are fools. Now that’s fine, it’s certainly a sentiment that pervades the left blogosphere. In the past you’ve always been careful to avoid that in the front page posts or emphasize your respect for those people and judge by actions, but I’m not seeing that here.
So it definitely looks to me like you’re saying Scalia believes in the devil as a discreet existence, therefore Scalia is a moron. As opposed to all the other reasons he’s a moron.
yes, I agree he seems to be saying the devil is “real people” just hiding out.
ok I’m afraid I’ll have to read the interview – thanks, Booman – because i thought he was saying the devil is “natural”
Yes, Boo, Scalia is using the word “person” somewhat as it is used in the three persons of the Trinity, except how can he posit a trinity for the devil? He is not saying that the devil is what catholics call a “human person”, just a “person”.
He’s just saying this stuff to mess with your mind, but it is “doctrinally” correct. He’s acting as a provocateur. Don’t fall for it.
Um…yes, actually, it is. More accurately, believing in the existing of something (or someone) for which there is absolutely no physical evidence is, literally, believing in the supernatural.
One needn’t disparage that belief to observe that there is absolutely no evidence for it other than the similar belief of many others throughout history. For some people, that’s plenty.
Exact ≠ more accurately.
To be clear, this is the logical fallacy here.
p1. Scalia believes that the Sun is blue.
p2. People who believe the Sun is blue are morons.
Conl. People who believe the Sun is a color are morons.
That conclusion doesn’t follow from the premises. The logically sound argument is:
Conl. Scalia is a moron.
So essentially you have to believe the devil is a metaphor or literary personification?
you don’t have to believe that.
but what Scalia said is moronic.
You jumped from that to insisting that if you believe one supernatural thing then everyone who also believes in some supernatural thing is just as big a moron as you.
That doesn’t follow.
I just want to say, I appreciate in this discussion how patient you’ve been in response to my questions. I hope in this particular discussion I’ve not come across as trying to bait you. I honestly don’t understand the distinction you’re making.
What Scalia says is there is a sentient supernatural force that can effect observable physical reality. And it did so at/by a different rate/method in the past because of conscious decision.
That’s what I thought you called moronic.
I don’t see how that is necessarily moronic (though some disagree) and this definition could equally apply to God, or a shinigami, or Gaia or whatever.
Is there a different way you can explain what you read Scalia to have said?
I also don’t understand what “positing a Trinity for the devil” means.
Okay.
Without getting too complicated, the Trinity is a doctrine that God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost are all equally manifestations of a single God. For our purposes, the important thing is that God became a “real person” in Jesus of Nazareth.
Scalia is saying that the devil can be and has been incarnated in a “real person.” It’s a corollary theory to the Trinity. This real person used to walk around quite openly in the first century of our Common Era, but he has for some inexplicable reason decided not to make himself manifest in the 21st century. Instead, he is being very “wily” and trying to lead people away from their religious beliefs.
Now, you can believe in a spiritual world without believing that the devil became a man in the same sense as God supposedly became Jesus. Even if you want to say that one is no more ridiculous than the other, very few people argue that Jesus is a living man today and that’s he’s staying on the down-low. Finally, Scalia is saying that all Catholics believe precisely as he does.
Any way you slice it, he’s a whack-a-doodle.
Ah, thank you! Yes, I’m familiar with the Trinity, but I didn’t get that Scalia was saying there was an incarnation at ALL.
I’m going to reread it with that interpretation in mind.
Wow, even being around religious righty Bible-literalists hasn’t exposed me to that bit of, erm…theology. But then again, said religious righty Biblie-literalists don’t see Catholics as Christians.
What Scalia said is not moronic. It’s deliberately provocative. He’s a trouble maker and he thinks he’s very clever. He’s trying to get a rise out of “liberals”. His fans eat this stuff up.
ok, I read it, at least the devil part. Sounds like he’s saying the devil is like D.B. Cooper for whom there was evidence in the past but not recently. In the past there was evidence for devil’s existence (i.e. testimony of ancient people, New Testament, for example, which Scalia is taking as eyewitness accounts) but now he’s hiding out so there are no more demon possession incidents etc.
Can you actually believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster (may His noodly appendage touch us all) without being considered a moron?
doesn’t sound like he believes the devil is supernatural, sounds like he believes devil is natrual, probably part of Natural Law
Supernatural in the sense of “cannot be explained by science” or maybe even “native to a spiritual plane of existence” but can still effect the physical world in some way.
yes, I had to read the interview. but my analogy would be that he think the devil is like D B Cooper, an existent entity for which there is no current physical evidence because he’s hiding out (become wilier) though in the past there was physical evidence (demon possessions, etc). he says he decided the devil has become wilier in answer to his own questioning why there are no exorcisms nowadays.
I don’t think moran covers it.
Well I think it’s certainly possible that DB Cooper survived and got away with it!
As I said above, I self identify as Christian myself and while I don’t agree with Scalia theologically (in fact I think he’s probably going to hell for the suffering he’s imposed on people) and for instance, don’t view the Bible as literal or even inerrant, I also don’t agree that believing a supernatural force can impact the physical world automatically qualifies as moronic.
I agree with you. I don’t think that’s what ppl were saying is moronic. For me what is problematic in Scalia’s reply is that his, what I would say is simplistic concept of evil is related to all the suffering his judgments have imposed on people. I’m a big fan of liberation theology, for example Dom Helder Camera (The Spiral of Violence http://www.alastairmcintosh.com/general/spiral-of-violence.htm) and Gustavo Gutierrez (link, Gutierrez on the preferential option for the poor
http://eruptionofhope.wordpress.com/2011/11/08/gustavo-gutierrez-and-the-preferential-option-for-the
-poor/
Well, the devil is in the details anyway. that’s where I always find him.
Are the details the fine print and the legal boiler plate that no one bothers to read.?
One thing is for certain, Scalia will never read about you saying he is a total moron. Thanks bubble.
In Tony’s case, perhaps a variation on the poker proverb applies:
If you look around and don’t see the Devil, then the Devil is you.
Yeah, saying that a person of uncertain historical existence believed in a literal personification of evil, based on a text patched together from multiply-translated sources is totally slam-dunk convincing proof of that literal personification of evil. Because reasons. QED.
This guy is a US Supreme Court Justice. I am offended by that. I really am.
I could find a lot worse things to criticize about Scalia than the fact that he believes in the devil. The devil is the personification of evil, and it’s more important that you understand what evil is through whatever symbols communicate it to you. That’s just putting a cultural face on a real thing that is beyond any particular culture.
Otherwise you’re ridiculing the culture itself, not a good idea, as Scalia, in his own inimitable way, was trying to get across, expecting the interviewer would not “get it”, which would just add a soupcon of épater le bourgeois for his culture-warrior fans. I’m not going to play that game, slinging symbols around.
Although it is fascinating that the concept of Satan in Iran has the same name and pretty much the same look as that nasty guy that sent Underwood ham to eternal torment.
http://couponsavingsista.swtstylez.com/?p=36390
(It would kind of make sense to Muslims and Jews that ham should end up there.)
The real problem with Scalia is that his belief in the symbol seems to short-circuit moral judgment. Scalia is a lousy judge because he has a very confused idea of what is or is not evil in any particular case. This is probably because he’s so proud of himself for believing in the devil. Symbols help us think and remember, but we should never put the symbol above the thing. That’s the sin of idolatry. And pride, as you may know, is one of the seven deadly sins.
Once when I was talking to a Dominican friar he asked me, with a mischievous look in his eye, whether I believed in angels, and that they were all around us. When I replied that I did, it took the wind right out of his sails.
Not the new-agey Angels people are always talking about, good old medieval angels, the kind that watch over people, cities, bring good thoughts, etc.
They should carve that into the steps of the SCOTUS building.
well, no to your first paragraph. There’s centuries of important philosophy and writing about evil, about the social good, etc. one would hope a SCOTUS justice would have something more developed conceptually re: evil than a rudimentary personification. How does one go about discussing slavery, for example? In recent decades Liberation theology, for example, made major contributions with the concept of structural or systemic evil
I don’t see anything in my first paragraph that would go against that.
hmm, how to explain. in legal discussion, and political science discussion and the topics that concern this blog and SCOTUS, to talk about evil in terms of how it is personified or symbolized short circuits the level of complex discussion that is required, which really must be conceptual (not symbolic) and analytical. For example slavery is evil, in my opinion. talking about the devil or other cultural personifications of evil shuts off the level of discussion that is really required to move forward in a discussion of slavery as an evil (what do we mean when we say it is evil? what is our basis for saying that? etc). that’s why I brought up liberation theology and the concept of evil that Gustavo Gutierrez developed (structural or systemic evil) – it’s a concept that leads us somewhere in dealing with issues we face. Scalia’s devil concept just shuts down discussion, as he does in his interview.
My point was actually very similar. I said that was exactly what seems to be the case with Scalia.
The only difference is that I’m saying it CAN happen, not that it MUST happen. Any jerk can say “the devil made me do it”, but even the most complex investigation of the cases of evil does not rule out personifying evil.
We’re talking about different levels of discourse. One can shut off the other, but one can also enhance the other.
Of course we don’t have much call to speak of the devil here (thanks, Scalia), but we do talk a lot about his works.
I see what you’re saying, but the more analytical conceptualizations don’t allow for personification. take a look at the two links I posted below, I think you’ll find them interesting, about evil as a process in the first case, Dom Helder Camera (The Spiral of Violence http://www.alastairmcintosh.com/general/spiral-of-violence.htm).
the second is more the context for thinking about good and evil that Gutierrez sets up (link, Gutierrez on the preferential option for the poor
http://eruptionofhope.wordpress.com/2011/11/08/gustavo-gutierrez-and-the-preferential-option-for-the
-poor/
Also this:
http://www.ushistoryscene.com/uncategorized/chavez/
talks about both liberation theology and distributism …
very interesting, thanks
I see what you’re saying, but the more analytical conceptualizations don’t allow for personification. take a look at the two links I posted below, I think you’ll find them interesting, about evil as a process in the first case, Dom Helder Camera (The Spiral of Violence http://www.alastairmcintosh.com/general/spiral-of-violence.htm).
the second is more the context for thinking about good and evil that Gutierrez sets up (link, Gutierrez on the preferential option for the poor
http://eruptionofhope.wordpress.com/2011/11/08/gustavo-gutierrez-and-the-preferential-option-for-the
-poor/
I absolutely agree that charity is a poor substitute for justice, especially when the people providing the charitable pittance are the same ones denying the justice.
Economic justice is not a new issue with the churches, it did not start with liberation theology. Probably it was necessary to deal with the extreme forms of exploitation in post-colonial countries.
It has been an issue of moral theology in England and Ireland especially since the widespread enclosures of common lands and the creation of a pauper class from the peasants who had enjoyed low rents on church lands that were stolen by Henry VIII and “redistributed” upward to the rich.
In our own country, the stealing of Indian lands is a close parallel and was promoted by the same rationales (especially John Locke’s justification for enclosure of the commons in his Second treatise of civil government).
I wonder if you know this web site.
http://distributistreview.com/mag/2011/07/the-austrian-version-of-the-english-enclosures/
no I hadn’t seen this site and am not familiar with this school of thought, thanks for the link. it does look, however, like they are doing something a little different from liberation theology because the focus is economic systems whereas liberation theology is really theology, i.e. dealing with concepts such as christology, escatology, incarnation (as Booman was writing about above) ecclesiology, etc.
what interests me – and what got me started on it on this thread- is how they reconceptualized the concept of sin and evil as social-structural rather than prinipally individual in derivation, i.e. not in first order that of individual actions although individual culpability, etc is of course important. I think Helder Camera The Cycle of Violence conveys this, although it’s Gutierrez who did the rigorous theology which is remarkable conceptually.
BS (before Scalia) the devil had become a schmoo version of the Satan metaphor. Great advertising gimmick and Halloween costume for little kids. But as an “originalist,” Scalia wants to bring it back to its reputation during the Inquisition and the witch hunts because those were such good historical periods for brutal, stupid white men. Do feminists = devil worshiping witches in Scalialand?
I would like to invent a time machine, and use it to visit the genius(es) who first came up with the christian conception of the afterlife, with hell and heaven and the devil and the angels and whatnot. And punch him/her/them in the nuts.
That was borrowed from the Jews who borrowed it from the Persians (or possibly the Babylonians, but I think it was the Persians).
Yeah, there might have to be a lot of nut punching to get the job done.
Sorta sounds like a job position in “hell” eh?
Mark Twain said somewhere that Jesus invented Hell. Which seems to be true if what he refers to is the New Testament.
Because, when we say that we want a Supreme Court that is reflective of the diversity of the country, what we really mean is that we need to have at least two total morons serving there.
Well … we do have 4 serving there .. and probably a 5th
Then Sen. Roman Hruska got his wish:
“Even if he were mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren’t they, and a little chance? We can’t have all Brandeises, Frankfurters and Cardozos.”
Antonin Scalia is not a serious person. Which is why Dubya probably did us all a favor not making him Chief Justice.
Christianity used to posit a duality between God and Mammon, and state that you cannot serve both. It seems to me that Scalia, in the Citizen’s United judgement, has equated the two and made people equivalent to corporations and money the equivalence of conscience and free speech. By their deeds you shall no them…
Remembering that Scalia went hunting with Dick Cheney, I would deffer to Justice Scalia that the devil is capable of taking the human form.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2013/09/scalia-forms-search-committee-for-new-p
ope.html
I seem to recall reading a poll that said many more Americans believe in God than believe in the Devil.
I suspect this is because many nominal Christians are really Deists but they don’t know the term.
Scalia’s remarkable shallowness seems to protect him from having to deal with the complications of proclaiming a real Satan. Like the omnipotent Christian God who could blow him away if he wanted to — So the God who made and controls everything made Satan and keeps him/her around. So why should we object to Satan if the Christian God doesn’t?
Just one of the hundreds of self-contradictions that arise when this box is opened. Scalia doesn’t seem to be talking about abstract metaphors but about a “real” or literal entity. So yeah, I think it’s fair to call him kinda dumb because he believes without thinking.
That’s kind of what I was trying to get at, only better said. Thanks.
Frankly, this shocking statement makes his comments about the Devil seem enlightened. Both the NYT and the WaPo are the epitome of today’s “Both sides do it” courtier press, while the WSJ has been reduced to a Murdoch tabloid, and The Wash. Times is a just plain fever-swamp nuts. And Scalia has the stones to accuse the reporter of being “removed from mainstream America”?!
I don’t care if he believes in angels, demons or munchkins. The news sources he relies on make clear he’s a closed-minded moron.
Yes, I agree. He is a close-minded moron just like Clarence Thomas.
Ok, is it okay to call this BS moronic!
Bachmann: ‘End Times’ Are Coming Because Obama Is Supporting Al-Qaeda
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/bachmann-end-times-are-coming-because-obama-is-supporting-al-q
aeda
BooMan, you mad genius, you just gave away Fat Tony’s alter ego: He’s Kevin Kline’s character “Otto” from “A Fish Called Wanda!”