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Robert_Sock
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How long does it take the Son of God to extinguish evil if He does not actually tolerate it, and is all powerful? Something seems very inconstant with your statement.
LOVE!
Can Satan, or any of us, do anything that is beyond God's will?
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LOVE!
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Robert_Sock
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bisco
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you tell me, i’m just giving you the biblical view. i suppose He could squash it today, if that were his desire.
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Robert_Sock
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Satan seems alive and well today, which seem to contradict your belief.
Where in the bible does God actually oppose Satan. Why wait to squelch Satan, as is implied in the Book of Revelations?
LOVE!
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bisco
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it’s actually satan who opposes God.
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Robert_Sock
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JamalChristophr
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Along the general thrust of this thread, I read, I think, somewhere in St. Catherine of Siena’s Dialog that even the fallen angels serve Him (God), though unwillingly by proving and fortifying His True Servants in Charity and Faith, etc., aiding them in gaining merit and virtue as they pass through this life. For virtue is proven by its contraries.
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Robert_Sock
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Robert_Sock
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CHRISTINE77
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God is beyond all human understanding and yes, we have free will. That is how we can turn away from the goodness of God and sin against Him. Satan fell from God’s grace through his own pride.Is it rational to assume that God would create beings who can go against His will? My claim is no, everything in the worlds is ultimately in conformity with God’s will.
LOVE!
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Robert_Sock
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Yes, we have free will, but what I’m saying is that this free will is finite, not infinite like God. Same goes for Satan. I deeply believe that most people underestimate what Satan can, and does, do, but Satan is still finite, and cannot exceed God’s will. As Saint Paul states: “In all things, God works for the good.”
What I’m saying in this thread is good because it puts a lot of things in proper perspective: Whatever happens, it’s within God’s will!
LOVE!
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Usagi
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Robert,
I don’t think that anyone will disagree that God is ultimately in control and must at least tolerate/permit everything that occurs, including the actions of demons and sinning humans. And you’re right that God, being omnipotent, doesn’t actually have to put forth time and effort “fighting” Satan, and therefore His delay in bringing the world to its consummation must be for a good purpose even though it means permitting evils that would not otherwise occur.
Where you are getting pushback, I think, is when it comes to any notion that my sins, for example, are therefore good or approved by God. He might use even my sins for good, by reminding me how dependent I am on His grace to resist temptation or molding me eventually into a spectacularly changed person like St. Paul, but that does not mean He wants me to commit the sins themselves. Likewise, He may use the fallen angels’ rebellious actions to promote rather than inhibit sanctity in their human victims, but that does not mean He created those angels to fall and become His unwilling agents in that way. I firmly believe that God would very much have preferred a world in which both Lucifer/Samael/whatever you want to call the unfallen Satan and Adam simply lived in His presence forever in mutual love. Of course, that’s kind of a weird counterfactual, since God presumably knew how the whole thing would go from the beginning, so I don’t actually know how God “thinks” in that situation. But I think whenever He has said “Don’t do the things” (to borrow from a recent Facebook meme), He really meant that creatures ought not to do those things and would be better off if they did not.
Usagi
I don’t think that anyone will disagree that God is ultimately in control and must at least tolerate/permit everything that occurs, including the actions of demons and sinning humans. And you’re right that God, being omnipotent, doesn’t actually have to put forth time and effort “fighting” Satan, and therefore His delay in bringing the world to its consummation must be for a good purpose even though it means permitting evils that would not otherwise occur.
Where you are getting pushback, I think, is when it comes to any notion that my sins, for example, are therefore good or approved by God. He might use even my sins for good, by reminding me how dependent I am on His grace to resist temptation or molding me eventually into a spectacularly changed person like St. Paul, but that does not mean He wants me to commit the sins themselves. Likewise, He may use the fallen angels’ rebellious actions to promote rather than inhibit sanctity in their human victims, but that does not mean He created those angels to fall and become His unwilling agents in that way. I firmly believe that God would very much have preferred a world in which both Lucifer/Samael/whatever you want to call the unfallen Satan and Adam simply lived in His presence forever in mutual love. Of course, that’s kind of a weird counterfactual, since God presumably knew how the whole thing would go from the beginning, so I don’t actually know how God “thinks” in that situation. But I think whenever He has said “Don’t do the things” (to borrow from a recent Facebook meme), He really meant that creatures ought not to do those things and would be better off if they did not.
Usagi
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bisco
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again, God’s will, and what he ‘allows’ are two different things. it’s not that complicated.
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Robert_Sock
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I’m just trying to put things into proper perspective. Reading many posts here on CAF, I think I’ve noticed that many assume that Satan somehow goes beyond God’s will, and that God is diametrically opposed to Satan to the degree that they war against each other. For example, when Satan opposed God, God allowed it, just as God allows Satan to torment us today; the evil that Satan does in our world is fully within God’s will, and God will take that evil and bring about goodness.
I would warn everyone that just because God allows evil to exist is not a license for us to commit it. Indeed, we need to fear the Lord, for although He is slow to anger, we know that His wrath is a reality. Choose LOVE!
Taking what I want to convey one step further, we ought to be willing, to the point of being eager, to forgive evildoers for we do not know the type of spirit they are under; nor are we ever sure that God will not ever forgive them.
LOVE!
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Robert_Sock
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Amandil
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Everything that Satan or any of the devils do, no matter how wicked, can only ever achieve to redound to God’s greater glory. Even in trying to defy God in their every act they only further serve Him and His will.
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Amandil
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No their not. AFAIK There’s what God actively wills and what He passively wills, in either instance, as it is in all things, it is still God’s will.
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bisco
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not sure what active vs passive means, but i think i can run with it. i take it when scripture says ‘God wills that all men be saved’, that this is what God wants, but won’t force us. it’s what He wants. but we’re free to reject His gratuitous gift.
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Amandil
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There you’re writing about the difference between God’s antecedent will and consequent will, 1 Timothy 2:4 is the former.
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bisco
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okay.
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