The Devil as the Cause of Sin

The devil cannot be the direct cause of human sin, for he cannot directly move man’s will. God is the only external cause that can directly move the will, and God never moves the will to sin. The will moves itself to its object. The devil may induceman to sin by persuasion, by presenting attractive objects to humanappetites. Only thus can the devil cause man to sin.

The devil exercises his powers of persuasion by stirring a man’s imagination and by cooperating with whatever moves the sensitive appetites. Thus does the devil inwardly instigate a man to sin.

In a man who is possessed, the devil may compel acts of sin, but these are not human acts of the man himself, for he is not free. For the rest, the devil can in no wise compel a man tosin.

In one sense the devil is the cause of every human sin,for he induced the first man to commit the sin that has infected human nature with the tendency to sin. But apart from this, the devil is not the cause of all human sins. Origen (Peri Archon. iii) says that even if the devil were to cease to exist, man would still be subject to inordinate desires and to the abuse of free will by sin.