René Girard - I See Satan Fall Like Lightning

I See Satan
Fall Like
Lightning

I See Satan
Fall Like
Lightning

Ren Girard

Translated, with a Foreword,
by James G. Williams

Originally published as Je vois Satan tomber comme l'clair by Ren Girard, copyright 1999 by Editions Grasset & Fasquelle, 61, rue des Saints-Pres, 75006 Paris, France.

English translation copyright 2001 by Orbis Books.

Published in the United States by Orbis Books, Maryknoll, NY 10545-0308.

Published in Canada by Novalis, Saint Paul University, 223 Main Street, Ottawa, Ontario K 1S 1C4.

Published in England by Gracewing, 2 Southern Avenue, Leominster, Herefordshire HR6 0QF

All rights reserved.

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EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-57075-319-0

I saw Satan fall like like lightning from heaven...
Luke 10:18

Foreword

R EN GIRARD is the world's premier thinker about the role of violence in cultural origins, and about the Bible's illumination of these origins and our present human condition. Girard retired in 1996 after a distinguished teaching career, most recently at Stanford University. He is well known in his native France, where one of his books, Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World , provoked an intense debate among intellectuals and clergy in the late 1970s. The present work was repeatedly on the bestseller list in his native land after its publication in 1999. The attention his writings have drawn has been less dramatic in the English-speaking world than in France and the rest of Europe. However, his work is becoming more and more widely disseminated, influencing literary critics, theologians, psychologists, and many others who are concerned with what it means to be human in light of our biblical heritage.

Ren Girard offers a new way of seeing ourselves and our biblical heritage. His method is to begin, not with theology or the revelation of God, but with an understanding of human beings and human relations that the Bible and the early Christian tradition disclose. This understanding of humankind he articulates is an anthropology ("anthropologos," or discourse about what it means to be human).

Girard's anthropology focuses first on desire and its consequences. He calls it "mimetic desire" or "mimesis." It's a desire that comes into being through imitation of others. These others we imitate Girard calls "models," models of desire. He has also used the word "mediators," because they are "go-betweens," acting as agents between the individual imitating them and the world. There are various words in ordinary language that suggest what Girard is getting at: for example, "heroes" and "role models." Even fashion models who "model" clothes are acting in this way for their public in the setting of clothing fashion. They present the clothing (bodies) that suggests what their admirers should desire.

The desire that lives through imitation almost always leads to conflict, and this conflict frequently leads to violence. The Bible unveils this process of imitative desire leading to conflict and violence, and its distinctive narratives reveal at the same time that God takes the part of victims. In the Gospels the process of unveiling or revelation is radicalized: God himself, the Word become flesh in Jesus, becomes the victim . The innocent victim who is crucified is vindicated through his resurrection from the dead. The disciples of Jesus finally undergo a complete conversion as they move from being lost in the mimetic desire of the crowd to imitating Christ, which occurs through their experience of Jesus' resurrection. Their conversion and the resurrection of Christ are two aspects of the same event.

To introduce the reader to what Girard offers in this, his most recent, book, I will present a series of questions and answers about his basic concepts. Getting a grasp of these concepts is essential for understanding what Girard has to say about desire, sacrifice, scapegoating, Satan, and other important topics. I hope this will be helpful, especially to the reader not already familiar with his thought.

1. What is the chief identifying characteristic of human beings?

Answer: To answer this at the anthropological level (leaving aside any question about the human soul or spirit) : mimetic desire. The tenth commandment of the Decalogue in the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy addresses mimetic desire directly. The tenth commandment does not prohibit simply one desire, "coveting," but deals with desire as such. Desire is not an instinct; it is not some-thing programmed into us, so it doesn't work like instincts in other creatures. It is rather a potential that must become activated for an infant to become human, and it becomes actual for the infant as he or she observes and imitates the other, the "neighbor." We want what our neighbor possesses. We desire what our neighbor desires or what we think he or she desires. Of course, the chief neighbors, or "near ones," for the infant are its parents. This desire that comes into being through following models of desire is not bad; it is good. To desire what models desire is necessary if the child is to be able to learn and love and deal with the world. But it can and does lead to conflict and violence.

2. How does mimetic desire lead to conflict and violence?

Answer: If our desire to be like a model is strong enough, if we identify with that person closely enough, we will want to have what the model has or be what the model is. If this is carried far enough and if there are no safeguards braking desire (one of the functions of religion and culture), then we become rivals of our models. Or we compete with one another to become better imitators of the same model, and we imitate our rivals even as we compete with them. This rivalistic situation opens human societies to the possibility of scandal.

3. What does Girard mean by "scandal"?

Answer: "Scandal" translates words from both Hebrew and Greek that mean "stumbling block," something that people stumble over. (It can also mean "trap" or "snare," a closely related meaning.) Girard means specifically a situation that comes about when a per-son or a group of persons feel themselves blocked or obstructed as they desire some specific object of power, prestige, or property that their model possesses or is imagined to possess. They cannot obtain it, either because they cannot displace the model and acquire what he or she has or because the rivalry with others in the group is so in-tense that everyone prevents everyone else from succeeding. When this kind of situation occurs often enough, there is an accumulation of scandals to the point that those involved must "let off steam" or the social fabric will burst. Then all those involved in this tangle of rivalry turn their frustrated desire against a victim, someone who is blamed, who is identified as an offender causing scandal.

The whole process of scandal developing to a breaking point is an unconscious one. Girard calls the identification and lynching of a victim the "single victim mechanism." This mechanism or operation is the community's unconscious way of converging upon someone it blames for its troubles. When this happens, the community actually believes the accusation it makes against the unfortunate person. One way to put this, in the language of the Bible, especially the Gospels, is that this entire single victim process is the work of Satan. Indeed, it is Satan.