Can angels/demons be destroyed?

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FaithBuild18

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If not, what’s the point of fighting evil? Why does good fight evil if it can’t destroy it? Why do angels and demons fight if they can’t destroy each other. What decides who wins?

If we know God and all that is good will eventually triumph over evil, what is the point in resisting evil or doing good, if we already know the inevitable outcome? Is God’s victory an assured thing, or is it merely prophesied? Do God and the Angels actively require our participation to triumph over evil? Could God and the Angels actually lose?
 
Then why do they fight? What’s the point? And if neither can ever be destroyed, why would either ever “lose” a fight? Without a possibility of death/destruction, there’s no reason for retreat. Without a possibility of victory there’s no reason to enter the fight.
 
Nelka said:
Satan thinks he can but he cannot.

Pride!
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But Satan’s not stupid. Peter Kreeft says that all angels and demons are much more intelligent than humans. Why would Satan think something that is plainly false?

It just doesn’t make any sense for beings to “rebel” if there is no possibility of victory. That would just be stupid and idiotic battle tactics. Satan is evil, that doesn’t mean he is an imbecile.
 
You can’t “destroy evil,” since evil is itself destruction; it is lack of a due perfection. Whenever we do an evil action, it is not an action which is equal to its positive counterpart, but rather it is a lack of something good. Further, it would not befit God’s nature as a loving creator to destroy his creation, even members of his creation who rebelled against him. He gave some creatures the freedom to choose to love him, since love must be freely chosen. This also means the freedom to misuse that choice and choose against him, but if we did not have that, our love would not be real love.

-ACEGC
 
po18guy said:
They hate you. They want your soul to torment. Forever.

Worth fighting against?
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Yes, so my fight against evil is personal.

But before there was man there were angels and demons duking it out. Demons only hate us because they hate God, and we are made in God’s image. They really can’t beat God? Then why do they fight at all?
 
FaithBuild18 said:
Yes, so my fight against evil is personal.

But before there was man there were angels and demons duking it out. Demons only hate us because they hate God, and we are made in God’s image. They really can’t beat God? Then why do they fight at all?
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Pride can really blind someone from the truth, even if they are super intelligent.
 
edward_george said:
You can’t “destroy evil,” since evil is itself destruction; it is lack of a due perfection. Whenever we do an evil action, it is not an action which is equal to its positive counterpart, but rather it is a lack of something good. Further, it would not befit God’s nature as a loving creator to destroy his creation, even members of his creation who rebelled against him. He gave some creatures the freedom to choose to love him, since love must be freely chosen. This also means the freedom to misuse that choice and choose against him, but if we did not have that, our love would not be real love.

-ACEGC
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God has destroyed plenty of his creations throughout the Bible. Rather violently as well.

Was it not known to the fallen angels that they could not defeat God at the time they rebelled?

I just feel like there’s really no reason for me to pray for good, to pray for the angels, to even think about spiritual warfare, to hate evil, to pray for evil to be gone, when all I have to do is avoid evil, since good is guaranteed to win without exception. Why do we talk about a war between good spirits and evil spirits when it doesn’t really matter, since we already know that the angels win? Do the angels and demons already know who wins and loses?
 
FaithBuild18 said:
Yes, so my fight against evil is personal.

But before there was man there were angels and demons duking it out. Demons only hate us because they hate God, and we are made in God’s image. They really can’t beat God? Then why do they fight at all?
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Rebellious spirits. They rejected God. Nothing they do makes any sense to those of us who love God. Cancer seeks to destroy its host. Does that make any sense?
 
There’s not some ongoing battle between heaven and hell except for our souls. Upon their creation, angels were given an instantaneous choice to choose God or choose themselves. Those that chose themselves followed Lucifer and were banished to Hell. Those that chose God are in Heaven with him.

Satan tries to “win” by stealing as many souls as he can to Hell. While he knows he is doomed never to triumph, I see his efforts as attempts at creating a “Pyrrhic victory” for God.
 
God’s peace. Satan and his minions cannot be destroyed, but they can be successfully resisted, exorcised, and suppressed. This is what makes spiritual warfare worthwhile. Best of all, the outcome is certain: we have it on God’s own authority that at the Last Judgement, they will be cast into the lake of fire to be tormented forever–which as one poster has noted, is worse than being destroyed. So cheer up!

On Satan’s stupidity, I’m sure you have met Ph.D. types who are abysmally stupid about things not relating to their specialty–think of celebrity atheists. Imagine such a merely human personality magnified a million times–the intellect, the pride, and the stupidity–and you have Satan. Jonathan Edwards, the famed New England puritan, wrote that Satan must be the biggest blockhead in the universe to think that he could actually topple God! Blessings, ~Br. Carlo~
 
po18guy said:
Rebellious spirits. They rejected God. Nothing they do makes any sense to those of us who love God. Cancer seeks to destroy its host. Does that make any sense?
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If cancer seeks to destroy its host, its actions are reasonable since it actually can accomplish that. Demons can’t win, so there’s nothing reasonable about their rebellion. But I see what people are saying by suggesting that demons think they can win. Man, what idiotic beings, those demons. If I ever have the misfortune of meeting one face to face, I’m going to mock the living daylights out of its intellect. Apparently nobody has as of yet informed the demons that they can’t win. What morons these creatures are. If anybody can ever convince them that they can’t win, surely they’ll cease their futile rebellion.

So since you can’t destroy demons, the most you can do is drive them out? Can you “subdue” a demon, and banish it to hell, or that only something God can do? Does he even do that? I don’t really see how angels and demons can actually fight each other. I definitely see how they can fight over us, trying to push us one way or the other, but doesn’t Tradition also hold that they fight each other? What a senseless fight.
 
Br.Carlo said:
God’s peace. Satan and his minions cannot be destroyed, but they can be successfully resisted, exorcised, and suppressed. This is what makes spiritual warfare worthwhile. Best of all, the outcome is certain: we have it on God’s own authority that at the Last Judgement, they will be cast into the lake of fire to be tormented forever–which as one poster has noted, is worse than being destroyed. So cheer up!

On Satan’s stupidity, I’m sure you have met Ph.D. types who are abysmally stupid about things not relating to their specialty–think of celebrity atheists. Imagine such a merely human personality magnified a million times–the intellect, the pride, and the stupidity–and you have Satan. Jonathan Edwards, the famed New England puritan, wrote that Satan must be the biggest blockhead in the universe to think that he could actually topple God! Blessings, ~Br. Carlo~
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Haha. This was nice. Thanks.
 
The_Bucket said:
There’s not some ongoing battle between heaven and hell except for our souls. Upon their creation, angels were given an instantaneous choice to choose God or choose themselves. Those that chose themselves followed Lucifer and were banished to Hell. Those that chose God are in Heaven with him.

Satan tries to “win” by stealing as many souls as he can to Hell. While he knows he is doomed never to triumph, I see his efforts as attempts at creating a “Pyrrhic victory” for God.
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Peter Kreeft says there is an ongoing battle between angels and demons. So this is purely metaphorical for the fight over men’s souls? BUT didn’t this “fight” happen long before man ever came around?
 
po18guy said:
They hate you. They want your soul to torment. Forever.

Worth fighting against?
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Yes. I had a demon dream one time. I do NOT recommend talking to them but I was a newbie and didn’t really know better. I asked it, “Why do you bother people? You must know you are going to lose.” It looked at me and said, “Of course we know we are going to lose. We don’t care about that. We just want to destroy and take as many with us as possible.” Then it sneered and said, “That’s pure evil…pure evil.”
 
I still feel like praying for good isn’t worth as much now that I know that we’ve already got it in the bag. I’d have more of an incentive if I thought my prayers actually made a difference in the ultimate, final, most important outcome.
 
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