Sympathy for the Devil: Belief in Satan and Moral Beliefs

ABSTRACT

Previous research suggests that religious service attendance, biblical literalism, images of God, and other measures of religion are related to moral beliefs (i.e., that certain behaviors are wrong or deviant). Given previous theory and research on spiritual appraisals (particularly demonization and desecration), we argue that belief in Satan should also predict moral beliefs. Using the first four waves of the Baylor Religion Survey, we tested the association between belief in Satan and belief in the wrongfulness of twelve different behaviors related to abortion, family matters, sexuality, and substance use. Although religious service attendance and biblical literalism were consistently related to moral beliefs, belief in Satan was significantly related to six of the twelve moral beliefs. Furthermore, there was a significant interaction effect between religious service attendance and belief in Satan for ten of the twelve moral beliefs, suggesting that religious service attendance has little or no effect on moral beliefs when people do not also believe in Satan.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ Of course, one can have ideas about God without believing, such as imagining God as a bearded old man simply because he/she has seen that image frequently.

² Satan is the Anglicization of the Hebrew common noun שָׂטָן and is a derivation of the root STN (śāṭān). It is generally taken to mean opposer, or adversary (Russell 1990). The devil, on the other hand, is the Anglicized version of the Late Latin word taken from the Ecclesiastical Greek diabolos – which means accuser, or slanderer. In the Septuagint, Satan was usually translated as diabolos, a practice that continued in the various versions of the bible that followed the Vulgate. While there is general agreement that Satan is not used as a proper name in the original Hebrew texts of the Old Testament (Pagels 1991), modern discourse tends to treat Satan and the devil interchangeably.

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Notes on contributors

Scott A. Desmond

Scott A. Desmond is an Assistant Professor of Sociology in the Division of Liberal Arts at Indiana University Purdue University-Columbus. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Washington. Although his research focuses primarily on how religion is related to delinquency, substance use, and subjective well-being, he also studies how neighborhood characteristics and low self-control contribute to crime, delinquency, and substance use.

Tom Clark

Tom Clark is a Lecturer in Research Methods at the University of Sheffield. He is interested in all aspects of research method and methodology, particularly with respect to learning and teaching. His other interests have variously focused on the sociology of evil, student experiences of higher education, and soccer fandom.

Christopher D. Bader

Christopher D. Bader is a Professor of Sociology at Chapman University and Campbell Professor of Behavioral Sciences. He is affiliated with the Institute for Religion, Economics, and Society (IRES) and is co-director of the annual Chapman University Survey of American Fears. He is associate director of the Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA), funded by the Templeton Foundation and Lilly Foundation. Christopher is the author of five books and over 50 articles and chapters in the fields of sociology, deviance, criminology, the sociology of religion, and education.