Rene Girard's I See Satan Fall Like Lighting

The brilliance in Rene Girard’s theory of mimetic desire is how it reveals the uniqueness of the Passion narrative through ordinary themes that run through human nature, literature, and religious practice. Girard’s version of a Christus Victor focuses on the lessons learned by the Christian faith in the aftermath of the crucifixion. In his book, I See Satan Fall Like Lighting, he first expands his reasoning for mimetic desire based upon his readings of Christian scripture, archaic religious traditions, and historical events. Girard then takes the themes that defined human behavior in each case to extrapolate what causes man to sin. His work then comes full circle when it defends the importance of the Christian faith based on what the Passion …show more content…
With this knowledge he set out to discover what causes violence and people unable to follow the Ten Commandments. What Girard realized in observing the world and works around him was that there seemed to be a common theme of envy that ran through the Bible, ancient religion, and even petty things such as advertising. With respect to the commandments, he realized that the longest commandment regulates the desire of the possessions of your neighbor and for the most part many others also attempt to limit envy. When he viewed this through the lens of how he saw the world around him operating, Girard realized that it was simply human nature to desire that of your neighbor. The more alarming part of his argument was how he showed that mimetic desire would eventually develop in mimetic rivalry and build up within the group. With the only way to replace hatred of a rival would be to focus that hate upon a common enemy of the community, tensions would bubble over and scapegoats would be chosen to blame the conflict on. Archaic religions including Christianity of the Old Testament would often rely upon sacrifice to save the collective group. The seemingly normal nature of Christ’s crucifixion would be the only way for the Devil to be defeated by lifting the veil on that had previously justified the scapegoat