"An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have heard one side of the case. God has written all the books"
About this Quote
Butler slides a shiv into the velvet glove of Victorian certainty. "An apology for the devil" sounds like a mischievous parlor provocation, but the real target is the rigged nature of moral storytelling: the cosmos, as officially narrated, is a one-author universe. If "God has written all the books", then history, scripture, and conscience arrive pre-edited, the villain already cast, the prosecution already printed and distributed. The joke lands because it exposes a theological version of media monopoly. Of course the devil looks bad; he lost control of the publishing house.
The subtext is less Satanic sympathy than epistemic skepticism. Butler is poking at how power determines what counts as evidence. When only the victor gets to write, truth starts to resemble brand management. The line also slyly mocks pious appeals to authority: if God is the author of every text, then dissent is not merely wrong, it's impossible - and the very concept of "hearing both sides" becomes heresy. That tension gives the quote its bite: it borrows the language of liberal fairness ("one side of the case") to reveal a system that can't tolerate fairness at all.
Context matters. Butler lived in the aftershocks of Darwin, when traditional accounts of design and providence were being stress-tested by science. His broader work often needles institutional religion with a straight face and a sharpened pen. Here, he weaponizes irony to ask a dangerous question for his era: if morality is told by an omnipotent narrator, how do we distinguish justice from authorship?
The subtext is less Satanic sympathy than epistemic skepticism. Butler is poking at how power determines what counts as evidence. When only the victor gets to write, truth starts to resemble brand management. The line also slyly mocks pious appeals to authority: if God is the author of every text, then dissent is not merely wrong, it's impossible - and the very concept of "hearing both sides" becomes heresy. That tension gives the quote its bite: it borrows the language of liberal fairness ("one side of the case") to reveal a system that can't tolerate fairness at all.
Context matters. Butler lived in the aftershocks of Darwin, when traditional accounts of design and providence were being stress-tested by science. His broader work often needles institutional religion with a straight face and a sharpened pen. Here, he weaponizes irony to ask a dangerous question for his era: if morality is told by an omnipotent narrator, how do we distinguish justice from authorship?
Quote Details
| Topic | God |
|---|
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