Mark Downey's Phony No-Satan Dogma, #1

I have This series of brochures is not only directed personally toward Mark Downey, but to all those who are promoting this same fallacious doctrine of “no-devil”. By promoting this heretical concept, it expunges the foundation of Genesis 3:15 upon which all the rest of the Biblical Gospel story rests. For if there is no Satan, then there was no physical seduction of Eve, and in turn no “seed of the serpent”. And if there was no “seed of the serpent” to bruise the “seed of the woman”, we as Adamites have no salvation! And without being redeemed by a bruised Messiah, we shall forever remain in our graves! As you can clearly comprehend, the implications of such a diabolical heresy are utterly un-Christian. I don’t know what kind of bloodless “christ” Downey and his ilk venerate, but my “Christ” was “bruised” by the lineal descendants of the serpent (i.e. the Satan). Repeating: If there is no Satan, Christ was not bruised and we are still in our sins without any hope of a resurrection!

In rebuttal to Mark Downey and his no-Satan concept, I will cite several of his faulty remarks from eight articles he has posted on the Internet: Suppose Satan is Real, What Difference Does It Make?; What If Satan Isn’t Real, Can Christianity Survive?; Why We Hate Jews (Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, & 5) and The Fallen Angel Theory.

Because page numbers can vary when viewing or printing out articles from the Internet, depending on the size of the browser window, I will give the number of the paragraph (“¶”) of the article instead. To find Mark Downey’s website, type kinsmanredeemer.com into the URL line. Because Downey takes the “no-Satan” position, it subtracts in merit anything truthful he might express. In other words +2 plus  -2 = Zero.

Mark Downey shows his puffed up pride and a judgmental spirit in his writings. This is what I designate as a “god-syndrome”. To demonstrate this I will quote from ¶8 of his What If Satan Isn’t Real, Can Christianity Survive?: “If satan is not real, the dual seedliners are not only wrong, they are in grave danger of forfeiting any chance of redemption to enter the Kingdom. It would be better for them to do nothing and shut their mouths, than to be barking ‘satan is real’ outside the New Jerusalem with the rest of the dogs, idolaters and whosoever loves and makes a lie (Rev. 22:15).” Question: What is going to be Mark Downey’s destiny if he is wrong? For Downey, “god- syndrome” is an understatement, and at the judgment it will be rather late to take his inflammatory words back! One can always discern a person with a “god-syndrome” as they will habitually talk down to one (i.e. big me and little you).

What is Mark Downey going to do with Luke 10:18 where it says in red letters: “And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.”? Is Mark Downey going to declare to Yahshua Christ Himself that He didn’t really behold Satan as lightning fall from heaven? Is Mark Downey going to proclaim to Yahshua Christ Himself that He only had an illusion (meaning a mistaken idea)? For myself, I will take Yahshua Christ’s Word without arguing. If He said “I beheld”, I will take him at His Word that He saw it! By Downey’s criteria Christ Himself will be one of those “... outside the New Jerusalem with the rest of the dogs, idolaters and whosoever loves and makes a lie”. It all boils down to this: either Yahshua Christ’s Words are untruthful or Mark Downey is a liar, and I’ll place trust in Yahshua, a name which Mark Downey denies! Who then is this Mark Downey to tell Yahshua Christ what He saw or what He didn’t see?! The word “beheld” at Luke 10:18 is Strong’s #2334, and in my Zodhiates NT Word Study Dictionary it says in part: “... to look closely at. To gaze, to look with interest and for a purpose, usually indicating the careful observation of details ...” This was hardly an inadvertent “beheld” on Yahshua’s part, and Mark Downey has the gall to reciprocate adversely, “What difference Does it Make?”

In his Suppose Satan is Real, What Difference Does It Make? at ¶4, Downey makes the statement: “The attribute of Satan as a pronoun promotes the concept of a supernatural being.” Then in his What If Satan Isn’t Real, Can Christianity Survive? ¶15, Downey writes: “Now you can capitalize Wicked and One as they do with the alleged pronoun Satan, but that would change the intent of God’s Word.”

Evidently Downey never paid much attention during his English classes or he wouldn’t be insisting that the proper name “Satan” is a pronoun. From his two statements here, Downey’s ignorance about the parts of speech is glaringly lacking. I have a two volume set of books entitled Practical English by Madeline Semmelmeyer. In the chapter entitled “The Parts Of Speech”, vol. 1, on page 15 it says:

“PRONOUNS substitutes for nouns: You will often find it necessary to refer to a name a number of times in a single sentence. This repetition usually results in a sentence that is very awkward or monotonous. You can readily see what might happen from the following illustration:

“Jack went to Jack’s closet and took out Jack’s new suit because Jack was going to a dance given by Jack’s company.

“In this sentence the word Jack is stated five times. This awkward repetition of the word Jack and Jack’s could be avoided by substituting another part of speech for these words.

“Jack went to his closet and took out his new suit because he was going to a dance given by his company.

“The words his and he used in the revision of the sentence are called pronouns. They are substitutes for the noun Jack. The prefix pro in the word pronoun means for. The word pronoun simply means for a noun, or in place of a noun.”

Inasmuch as Mark Downey insists that “Satan” is a pronoun which he wrongly writes with a lower case “s”, what then is the noun for which “satan” is a substitute, as in the case above where he and his are substitutes for Jack? Why doesn’t Downey name the noun for which “satan” is a substitute if he’s such an authority on the parts of speech? It should be quite evident here that one cannot have a pronoun without first having a noun. And if the noun is not initially stated, who would have any idea who “he” or “his” or any other pronoun stood for?

On the very next page, 16, of this same book are listed 56 examples of various pronouns as follows: “I, my, me, mine, we, our, ours, us, you, yours, your, he, his, him, she, her, hers, it, its, they, their, theirs, them, which, what, who, whose, whom, this, that, these, those, all, any, both, each, either, neither, few, many, none, some, several, other, another, anybody, everybody, nobody, somebody, no one, someone, everyone, one, whoever, whosoever, anyone.” Question: Does it seem logical that the term “Satan” should somehow fit with these pronouns as Downey demands? No, it’s illogical! It’s fantastic even to suggest such a thing!

In addition to Mark Downey’s lack of understanding of the proper use of nouns and pronouns, he is sadly lacking the knowledge of the importance of the part of speech called the article. In Practical English, chapter 2, entitled “The Parts Of Speech II”, page 6, we find a definition for what articles consist of in English: “The words a, an, and the are adjectives although in grammar they are called articles. The word the is called the definite article. The words a and an are called the indefinite articles. When we say, the book on the table, we are pointing out a particular book on a particular table. When we say, I have a book, no specific or particular book is indicated.”

Surely, most of you who are reading this paper and remember your English classes in school know that this description of the English definite and indefinite articles is correct. Whereupon knowing this, you will immediately be wary once you observe Downey and his ilk abusing the Hebrew and Greek articles. I have already given you two examples where he has done this. Like the English definite article, both the Hebrew and Greek articles modify the subject to a noun.

There are grammatical cases for nouns and pronouns as explained by Practical English, chapter 9, page 5, entitled “Case Of Nouns And Pronouns”: “There are only three cases in English: the nominative case, the objective case, and the possessive case. The nominative case is the case of the subject. The objective case is the case of the object. The possessive case is the case that shows ownership.” In Greek, there are eight Grammatical Cases, and each noun may have up to five different forms, some forms being used by more than one case. The inflectional ending of a Greek noun determines its case. Practical English further states: “The word case is used in grammar to indicate the relationship a noun or a pronoun has to other words in the sentence.”

A device of grammar which employs a definite article along with a verb or an adjective is called a Substantive. We shall discuss Substantives in detail a bit later. For now, note that a Substantive is basically a group of words which function as a noun. For now we shall look deeper into the proper use of nouns, pronouns and articles. From the five volume Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, vol. Q-Z, page 282, we read:

“1 References to Satan. 1. In the OT. Without the article the Heb. term rendered Satan has the general meaning of ‘an adversary,’ ‘an enemy.’ Thus in 1 Samuel 29:4 it is used of David as a possible enemy in battle; in 1 Kings 11:14, 23, 25 it designates political adversaries to Solomon; in Numbers 22:22 it is applied to the angel of the Lord who opposed Balaam. In Psalm 109:6 it is used of a human accuser. With the article, ‘the Adversary,’ it becomes a proper name and denotes the personal Satan.” [emphasis mine]

From the Funk and Wagnalls New Standard Bible Dictionary, ©1936, page 811, we find the following: “SATAN, sē´tən (שטן, with the art., hassātan), ‘the adversary’. 1. Name. In general, one who places himself in another’s way and thus opposes him. In this sense, the Heb. word occurs in Nu 22:22, 32; I K 11:25 (EVV ‘adversary’); also in Ps 109:6 (RV, ‘Satan’ AV), but with a rather more specialized application as an accuser at law. As the proper name of one superhuman being it first occurs in Zec 3:1, where the article (‘the Satan’) indicates its application to a definite person. Thus it becomes a proper noun, and is used with increasing frequency (I Ch 21:1; Job 1:6f., etc.; in the N T Σατάν, Σατάνας, Mt 4:10; Jn 13:27; Ac 5:3; I Co 5:5; Rev 2:9, etc.) ...” [emphases mine]

Next I will quote from Insight On The Scriptures, volume 2, page 866: “SATAN [Resister] In many places in the Hebrew Scriptures, the word ‘sa-tan’ appears without the definite article. Used in this way, it applies in its first appearance to the angel that stood in the road to resist Balaam as he set out with the objective of cursing the Israelites. (Nu 22:22, 32). In other instances it refers to individuals as resistors of other men. (1Sa 29:4; 2 Sa 19:21, 22; 1 Ki 5:4; 11:14, 23, 25). But it is used with the definite article ha to refer to Satan the devil, the chief Adversary of God. (Job 1:6; 2:1-7; Zec 3:1,2). In the Greek Scriptures the word ‘sa-ta-nas’ applies to Satan the Devil in nearly all of its occurrences and is usually accompanied by the definite article, ho.” [emphases mine]

Another witness on this is from The Pictorial Bible Dictionary, published by Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois, page 755: “SATAN (satan; Hebrew satan, Greek Sa-tán or Satanás, an adversary), the chief of the fallen spirits, the grand adversary of God and man. Without the article the Hebrew word is used in a general sense to denote someone who is an opponent, an adversary; thus, the angel who stood in Balaam’s way (Num. 22:22); David as a possible opponent in battle (1 Sam. 29:4); a political adversary (1 Kings 11:14). With the definite article prefixed it is a  proper noun in Job 1-2, Zechariah 3:1-2, designating Satan as a personality. In Psalm 109:6 the article is lacking, and reference may be to a human adversary (cf. AVS ‘an adversary’), but it is generally conceded that in 1 Chronicles 21:1 the word is a proper name without the article. The teaching concerning evil and a personal devil finds its full presentation only in the New Testament. In the New Testament the term Satan, transliterated from the Hebrew, always designates the personal Satan (but cf. Matt. 16:23; Mark 8:33). The malignant foe is known in the New Testament by a number of other names and descriptive designations. He is frequently called ‘the devil’ (Greek diábolos), meaning the slanderer (Matt. 4:1; Luke 4:2; John 8:44; Eph. 6:11; Rev. 12:12 etc.). (‘Devils’: in KJV and ERV are properly ‘demons’). Other titles or descriptive designations applied to him are ‘Abaddon’ or ‘Apollyon’ (Rev. 9:11); ‘Accuser of the brethren’ (Rev. 12:10); ‘Adversary,’ Greek antídikos (1 Pet. 5:8); ‘Beelzebub’ (Matt 12:24); ‘Belial’ (II Cor. 6:15); ‘the deceiver of the whole world’ (Rev. 12:9); ‘the great dragon’ (Rev. 12:9); ‘the evil one’ (Matt. 13:19, 38; 1 John 2:13; 5:19); ‘the father of lies’ (John 8:44); ‘the god of this world’ (II Cor. 4:4); ‘a murderer’ (John 8:44); ‘the old serpent’ (Rev. 12:9); ‘the prince of this world’ (John 12:31; 14:30); ‘the prince of the power of the air’ (Eph. 2:2); ‘the tempter’ (Matt. 4:5; 1 Thess. 3:5).” [emphases mine]

The World Scope Encyclopedia, volume 1, under Article says: “Article ..., in grammar, one of a class of limiting adjectives, which embrace the adjective elements, a, an and the. A is used before consonant sounds and an before vowel sounds; both are called indefinite articles, because they refer to any one of two or more objects. The is called the definite article.”

The Reader’s Digest Great Encyclopedic Dictionary, page 1933, has this to say about what an article is: “article A special form of adjective. ‘The’ is called the definite article. ‘A’ and ‘an’ are indefinite articles.”

The Encyclopedia Americana, 1948 edition, volume 1, page 357, says this of the Article: “Article, in grammar, a part of speech used before nouns to limit or define their application. In the English language a or an is the indefinite article (the latter form being used before a vowel sound) and the the definite article. The English indefinite article is really a modified form of the numeral adjective one; so the German ein and the French un stand for the numeral and the article. There are traces in various languages showing that the definite article was originally a pronoun; thus the English the is closely akin to both this and that. The Latin language has neither the definite nor the indefinite article; the Greek has the definite; the Hebrew and Arabic definite article was prefixed to its noun, while on the other hand, in the Syriac and Chaldee it was affixed to the noun, as it is in the Icelandic. In the Scandinavian language the definite article is appended to the end of the word as hus-et, the house. There is no article in Russian.”

Why is it so necessary to stress the use of the article when we study the Scriptures? For one reason, if we don’t know about the use of the article, whether it is there or absent, we cannot know what the Scriptures are saying. Not only do we have to know what the article means in English, but we have to understand the article in Hebrew and Greek. With the definite article, the Scriptures are speaking of a genuine personal devil or Satan. Now there is one language which the Bible was translated into which doesn’t have an article and that is Latin. Does this create problems? — you bet it creates problems. In the book Latin For Americans, First Book, published by The Macmillan Company, page 413 says this: “Article — definite (the), indefinite (a, an). There is no word in Latin for ‘the’ or ‘a’.” [all emphases mine]

I hope I don’t lose you at this point, but we have to go a step further when speaking of the article. Articles, as we have read above, are a type of adjective that modifies the subject to a proper noun. The article, placed before an adjective such as satan, or before certain forms of a verb, becomes a proper noun, as we have seen in the definitions for Satan supplied above. This type of use of the article forms what is called a Substantive, which shall be discussed at length later in this series. There are two kinds of nouns: (1) a common noun such as a book, chair, table etc.; (2) a proper noun such as John, Mary, Ohio, etc. As a rule, proper nouns always are capitalized and common nouns are not. In English, proper nouns do not need the word “the” (the definite article) in front of them to denote the object, person or entity intended. A personal name is a proper noun and is already definite in the English, and is capitalized to indicate that it is a proper noun. But in Greek, one may, and more often than not does, see the definite article before a noun, including proper nouns. Examples are the Michael, the Isaac, the Tamar, the Herod, the John, which when translated into English are simply Michael, Isaac, Tamar, Herod or John. This is why, in the Bible, we see that Ò F"J"<l, a proper noun, is simply Satan in English.

Now let’s read Revelation 12:9 in English, and I will put the Greek article in bold type: “And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.”

In the Greek, it reads a little differently and the article is a little different than in English (this is from the Emphatic Diaglott — Green’s Interlinear reads very similarly)— let’s take a look at it: “And was cast the dragon the great, the serpent the old, the one being called accuser, and the adversary, the one deceiving the habitable earth whole, was cast into the earth, and the messengers of him with him were cast.”

There are twenty four forms of the Greek article (though some are duplicates), reflecting the gender, number (singular or plural) and grammatical case of the object being mentioned. The Nominative singular is the dictionary form, found at #3588 in the Greek Dictionary in Strong’s Concordance. These are ὁ, ἡ and τό. The masculine ὁ is found with masculine nouns and proper names, and likewise ἡ for the feminine. The neuter τό is found with nouns as being neuter. Where the Greek adjective σατανᾶς appears with the article, it is always the masculine ὁ. Our purpose, in this lesson, is to prove with the Greek definite article there is a genuine person known as Satan. At this time, it should be pointed out that in the Greek there is no indefinite article, only the definite article. In the book, New Testament Greek Study Aids, page 182, by Walter Jerry Clark, it is explained like this:

“The Article: Also closely related to the noun is the article. ‘If it is desired to represent the thing designated by the noun as particular or known, we may use the article’ (Dana and Mantey, Manual Grammar). In English we have both the definite article (‘the’) and an indefinite article (‘a’ or ‘an’). Greek, however has only the definite article and it is therefore referred to simply as ‘the article.’ There are two general rules which it will be helpful for us to know when dealing with the article. These are: the presence of the article denotes the noun as a definite or particular in some sense, and the absence of the article indicates the noun as either indefinite or qualitative. There are exceptions and qualifying circumstances to these rules, but these are the simplest and most common uses of the article.” [all emphases mine]

Mark Downey didn’t explain all this, did he? Out of the clear blue sky, he proclaims that the term “satan” is a pronoun, and shows no documentation whatsoever. And we’re supposed to take his word for it! If the term “satan” were something other than a proper noun, it would be an adjective rather than a pronoun! This demonstrates Downey’s gross ignorance concerning the parts of speech. Yet, referring to the two seedliners, he vomits out “It would be better for them to do nothing and shut their mouths ...” Nauseating puke!