The devil’s advocate

SUPPLEMENTAL KNOWLEDGE
Jhunie B. Wahayna

A devil's advocate is someone who takes a position he or she does not necessarily agree with for the sake of argument. This process can also be used to test the quality of the original argument and identify weaknesses in its structure.

During the canonization process of the Roman Catholic Church, the Promoter of the Faith (Latin: promotor fidei), popularly known as the Devil's advocate (Latin: advocatus diaboli), is a canon lawyer appointed by Church authorities to argue against the canonization of the candidate.

It is his or her job to take a skeptical view of the candidate's character, to look for holes in the evidence, to argue that any miracles attributed to the candidate were fraudulent, etc. The Devil's advocate opposes God's advocate (Latin: advocatus Dei; also known as the Promoter of the Cause), whose task is to make the argument in favor of canonization. This task is now performed by the Promoter of Justice (promotor iustitiae), who is in charge of examining how accurate is the inquiry on the saintliness of the candidate.

The office was established in 1587 during the reign of Pope Sixtus V and eliminated by Pope John Paul II in 1983. This reform changed the canonization process helping Pope John Paul II to usher in an unprecedented number of elevations: nearly 500 individuals were canonized and over 1,300 were beatified during his tenure as Pope as compared to only 98 canonizations by all his 20th-century predecessors.

Such a dramatic increase suggests that the office of the Devil's Advocate had served to reduce the number of canonizations. Some argue that it served a useful role in ensuring that canonizations did not proceed without due care and hence the status of sainthood was not easily achieved. In cases of controversy, the Vatican may still seek to informally solicit the testimony of critics of a candidate for canonization.

The British born American columnist Christopher Hitchens was famously asked to testify against the beatification of Mother Teresa in 2002, a role he would later humorously describe as being akin to "representing the Evil One, as it were, pro bono".

In modern Christian cultures, a devil also known as satan or lucifer is said to be the infamous figurehead of all evil. He is popularly given many descriptions: he has horns, a forked tail, and a forked tongue. He’s sometimes beast-like, hairy, repulsive, and fire-breathing. He is the commander of the underworld - the land of the dead - and causes death and destruction.

He is believed to be an angel who rebelled against God - and also the one who spoke through the serpent and seduced Eve into disobeying God's command. His ultimate goal is to lead people away from the love of God - to lead them to fallacies which God opposes. The Devil is also identified as the accuser of Job, the tempter in the Gospels, the secret power of lawlessness in 2 Thessalonians 2:7, and the dragon in the Book of Revelation.

Before his insurrection, the devil was among the highest of all angels and the "brightest in the sky". His pride is considered a reason why he would not bow to God as all other angels did, but sought to rule heaven himself. The popularly held beliefs that the Devil was once a prideful angel who eventually rebels against God, however, are barely portrayed explicitly in the Bible and are mostly based on inference (e.g., Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14:12-17).

In mainstream Christianity he is called "the ruler of the demons" (Matt. 12:24), "the ruler of the world" and "the god of this world". (2 Cor. 4:4). The Book of Revelation describes how the devil will be cast out of Heaven, down to the earth, having "great anger" and waging war against "those who obey God's commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus". Ultimately, the devil is thrown into the "lake of fire" (Revelation 20:10), not as ruler, but as one among many, being tormented day and night for all eternity.

In other Christian beliefs (e.g. the beliefs of the Christadelphians) the word "devil" in the Bible is not regarded as referring to a supernatural, personal being but to any "adversary" and figuratively refers to human sin and temptation.