Does God love Satan?

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I’d side with no for now because you can’t love the unlovable. If that makes sense. 😃
 
followingtheway said:
Well, does he?
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How could He not? God is Love. Satan was made to be with God. His free will will took him away from God. It wasn’t God who moved away from Satan. It was the reverse. He still loves us, even with our many sins.
 
I said Yes. God is love and He can’t not love any of His created beings.

I imagine that Satan’s choices and actions are a source of great pain to God.
 
followingtheway said:
Well, does he?
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From the Jewish perspective, yes G-d loves Satan, since Satan is not the evil fallen angel he is according to Christianity and Islam, but rather a messenger of G-d’s, without free will himself, whose job is to tempt us so that our free will can become stronger in the service of G-d. He also has the responsibility of being the Angel of Death and the accuser.
 
Very interesting question, I believe St. Thomas Aquinas tried to answer it in the Summa when he asked;

“Whether we are bound to love the demons out of charity?”

The answer is no, because;
newadvent.org/summa/3025.htm#article11
I answer that, As stated above (Article 6), in the sinner, we are bound, out of charity, to love his nature, but to hate his sin. But the name of demon is given to designate a nature deformed by sin, wherefore demons should not be loved out of charity. Without however laying stress on the word, the question as to whether the spirits called demons ought to be loved out of charity, must be answered in accordance with the statement made above (A2,3), that a thing may be loved out of charity in two ways. First, a thing may be loved as the person who is the object of friendship, and thus we cannot have the friendship of charity towards the demons. For it is an essential part of friendship that one should be a well-wisher towards one’s friend; and it is impossible for us, out of charity, to desire the good of everlasting life, to which charity is referred, for those spirits whom God has condemned eternally, since this would be in opposition to our charity towards God whereby we approve of His justice.
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Secondly, we love a thing as being that which we desire to be enduring as another’s good. On this way we love irrational creatures out of charity, in as much as we wish them to endure, to give glory to God and be useful to man, as stated above (Article 3): and in this way too we can love the nature of the demons even out of charity, in as much as we desire those spirits to endure, as to their natural gifts, unto God’s glory.
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Reply to Objection 1. The possession of everlasting happiness is not impossible for the angelic mind as it is for the mind of a demon; consequently the friendship of charity which is based on the fellowship of everlasting life, rather than on the fellowship of nature, is possible towards the angels, but not towards the demons.
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Reply to Objection 2. In this life, men who are in sin retain the possibility of obtaining everlasting happiness: not so those who are lost in hell, who, in this respect, are in the same case as the demons.
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Reply to Objection 3. That the demons are useful to us is due not to their intention but to the ordering of Divine providence; hence this leads us to be friends, not with them, but with God, Who turns their perverse intention to our profit.
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SanAgustin said:
Very interesting question, I believe St. Thomas Aquinas tried to answer it in the Summa when he asked;

“Whether we are bound to love the demons out of charity?”

The answer is no, because;
newadvent.org/summa/3025.htm#article11
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We obviously are not required to love a demon, but “God’s ways are not our ways.” As other posters said, God is Love. Love is His very essence and the sum total of His actuality. To say that God could not love His creation is a bit like saying He could create a square circle.
 
God loved Satan in the beginning, and God has destined all to become one with Him in Heaven. But Satan fell away. But I would think God would continue to love Satan and to wish that Satan would have chosen to be without sin. I think if God didn’t love Satan, He wouldn’t have loved us after the fall. Yet, we see that even when our nature was tainted by sin, God continued to love us and to work for our salvation. This brings me to the conclusion that God has always loved all creation even the sinful parts and will always work to bring the sin back to glory. For all we know, there may be plans in the future to help Satan himself (but this probably won’t happen as Satan has clearly hardened his heart to a certain side). We can only pray for all the fallen and hope that God will do all He can for them.
 
There is indeed a way in which God loves Satan. God’s love, as St. Thomas states, is the cause of all goodness in things (ST I q.20 a.3) and all things in so far as they are (have being) are good. Thus Satan, in so far as he has being, is good, and in this sense is he loved by God, for his love is the cause of all being.
 
Heuchler said:
This brings me to the conclusion that God has always loved all creation even the sinful parts and will always work to bring the sin back to glory
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Now I’m stumped because I agree with you, I’m just trying to delve deeper into the subject, it’s kind of fascinated for some years. Now Aquinas kind of says the same thing you just said here;

newadvent.org/summa/1020.htm

Q20 (God’s love) : Article 2;
Objection 4. Further, it is written (Psalm 5:7): “Thou hatest all the workers of iniquity.” Now nothing is at the same time hated and loved. Therefore God does not love all things.
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On the contrary, It is said (Wisdom 11:25): “Thou lovest all things that are, and hatest none of the things which Thou hast made.”
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I answer that, God loves all existing things.
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Aquinias’ answer to Objection 4 in that same article;
Reply to Objection 4. Nothing prevents one and the same thing being loved under one aspect, while it is hated under another. God loves sinners in so far as they are existing natures; for they have existence and have it from Him. In so far as they are sinners, they have not existence at all, but fall short of it; and this in them is not from God. Hence under this aspect, they are hated by Him.
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That one kind of explains it well, I guess I may be misrepresenting the “should we love demons” questions incorrectly as it is addressed at us. However, if we are to be “perfect like your heavenly father”, why wouldn’t Aquinas say that we should have charity towards demons because they have existence from Him.
 
Evoken said:
There is indeed a way in which God loves Satan. God’s love, as St. Thomas states, is the cause of all goodness in things (ST I q.20 a.3) and all things in so far as they are (have being) are good. Thus Satan, in so far as he has being, is good, and in this sense is he loved by God, for his love is the cause of all being.
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See my reply, was writing it as you posted this! 🙂 However, I got that from q.20 a.2, not a.3, a.3 is about asking if God loves all things equally.
 
I believe he does. The very fact that God keeps Satan alive is proof of his love. And if you consider, in his mercy, God gives the devils, and every man who goes to hell, the least punishment they deserve. And it’s what they choose for themselves, separation from Him. If Hell could repent, God would pardon it in an instant, he is THAT loving! (That’s why he is our GOD! :)) His love is endless! Qualitatively AND quantitatively!
 
SanAgustin said:
Now I’m stumped because I agree with you, I’m just trying to delve deeper into the subject, it’s kind of fascinated for some years. Now Aquinas kind of says the same thing you just said here;

newadvent.org/summa/1020.htm

Q20 (God’s love) : Article 2;

Aquinias’ answer to Objection 4 in that same article;

That one kind of explains it well, I guess I may be misrepresenting the “should we love demons” questions incorrectly as it is addressed at us. However, if we are to be “perfect like your heavenly father”, why wouldn’t Aquinas say that we should have charity towards demons because they have existence from Him.
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Well in one of your qoutes from Aquinas it said something like “they are sinners and have no existence” If we look at sin from God’s perspective it is the abscence of God and is spiritual death and practically a loss of existence. So the souls of demons are literally dead and have nothing of God in them. But God loves all that he has created. So, God loves the Satan without sin who was his angel in Heaven. But Satan chose to take on sin fundamentally changing into a demon. So, when we love the sinner, we love him because he has the potential to become lovable and it is that aspect that we love. We don’t love murderers, we love those people because that may help them change their ways and become holy. As chesterton said “you have to love something for it to become lovable” But since Demons have no chance of redemption as they have turned against mercy and love, and have chose justice (but this is an assumption based on how God has dealt with us) they have no possibility to once again reach this potential. This means they have left God’s creation and become something else entirely of their making. So, while God loves Satan and all the other demons as they were, He would not find love for the totally changed and corrupted creatures we find today.
 
Greetings to Those posting and or reading this thread,

Yes God loves Satan. He created Satan out of love, for love and In the goodness of His love. God is Love. God cannot cease loving anything that He has created.

God Bless.
Anathama Sit
 
Lisa44 said:
No. God cannot love evil. And Satan is pure evil.
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Greetings Lisa44,

There is not such thing as personified evil. Satan is a creature created ex nihilo. What he does is evil, but in and of himself he has ontological goodness in the fact that he was created by God who is good. What he does is not morally good.

God Bless.
Anathama Sit
 
Lisa44 said:
No. God cannot love evil. And Satan is pure evil.
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“Evil is not a being, thing, substance, or entity. Being is either the Creator or his creature. Even Satan was once good. He is a good thing gone bad - in fact, a very good thing gone very bad. If he had not had the greatest ontological goodness of a powerful mind and will, he could never have become as morally corrupt as he is. “Lillies that fester smell far worse than weeds.” Corruptio optimi pessima.” - Peter Kreeft.
 
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