"Evil, and evil spirits, devils and devil possession, are the outgrowth of man's inadequate consciousness of God. We must avoid thinking of evil as a thing in itself - a force that works against man or, against God, if you will"
About this Quote
Butterworth is trying to take a hammer to a very old mental furniture: the comforting drama of a cosmic enemy. By calling devils and possession an "outgrowth" of inadequate consciousness of God, he reframes evil as misperception rather than rival power. The move is pastoral and strategic. If evil is not a thing in itself, it can’t demand your fear, your superstition, or your scapegoating. It becomes, instead, a symptom of spiritual amnesia.
The subtext is a quiet rebuke to religious theatricality. Demon language can externalize responsibility and turn moral struggle into paranormal spectacle: the devil made me do it, the world is cursed, other people are agents of darkness. Butterworth counters with a metaphysical psychology that keeps the struggle internal and corrigible. Your job is not to win a war against an entity; it’s to widen awareness, to recover a sense of God as the underlying reality. That’s why the phrase "if you will" matters: he acknowledges the rhetorical convenience of imagining a force "against God", then gently dismisses it as a category error.
Contextually, this sits squarely in 20th-century New Thought-inflected spirituality, where "consciousness" is not just a mood but a lens that shapes experience. For an educator-preacher in that tradition, demystifying evil is an ethical project: reduce fear, reduce blame-casting, increase agency. The risk, of course, is that it can sound like a spiritualized way of soft-pedaling harm. Butterworth’s intent isn’t to deny suffering; it’s to deny evil the prestige of metaphysical independence.
The subtext is a quiet rebuke to religious theatricality. Demon language can externalize responsibility and turn moral struggle into paranormal spectacle: the devil made me do it, the world is cursed, other people are agents of darkness. Butterworth counters with a metaphysical psychology that keeps the struggle internal and corrigible. Your job is not to win a war against an entity; it’s to widen awareness, to recover a sense of God as the underlying reality. That’s why the phrase "if you will" matters: he acknowledges the rhetorical convenience of imagining a force "against God", then gently dismisses it as a category error.
Contextually, this sits squarely in 20th-century New Thought-inflected spirituality, where "consciousness" is not just a mood but a lens that shapes experience. For an educator-preacher in that tradition, demystifying evil is an ethical project: reduce fear, reduce blame-casting, increase agency. The risk, of course, is that it can sound like a spiritualized way of soft-pedaling harm. Butterworth’s intent isn’t to deny suffering; it’s to deny evil the prestige of metaphysical independence.
Quote Details
| Topic | God |
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