Does God love Satan?

[MindOverMatter2]

Hi, Bsy,

Do you have any references to support your position?

I realize that God is Love and He declared that His Creation is very good (Gen 1). So, tell me, where do you find that God created evil? What God did create is Free Will and His acceptance of our decisions.

Satan is one of God’s creatures - and for Satan to remain in existence God must keep him in existence. Since God is Love, everything He does is Love - so, it is God’s Love for Satan that keeps Satan in existence.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

God bless

Very well reasoned. The problem is, Bsy is reading everything out of context and thus ending up with a contradictory position. Everything you have said is correct in the context of Gods ontological nature which is eternal love. God does not stop loving. People stop loving God.

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Mdisse,

I think you hit the nail on the head!

God bless

the God i know loves everything in his creation! everyone from the mother theresas to the adolf hitlers! but that also doesnt free you from the consequeces of your actions.

 

[tqualey]

Hi, MOM2,

One of the biggest surprises I have found on this thread is what appears to be an equation of our understand of human love and God’s Nature of Pure Love. We are limited - God is without ANY at limits. It becomes obvious that if we were to destroy entire cities (like Sodom) and all the inhabitants- we would have to HATE them with them with a tremendous and uncontrolled passion. We are judging from man’s standards - and not God’s standards. While this is understandable - at least in the early stages … (we just did not know any better…) we need to start putting on the mind of Christ *** St. Paul says (Phil 2:1-11).

I have been trying to see what there is in saying that God DOES NOT love Satan - and I am having a problem with the responses that have said God stopped loving (began hating?) Satan. If this were true, God would stop being the True Spirit of Love that He is - He would have an ‘on & off’ switch. We could claim that God does not love us (after all, since it is now possible for Him to not love Satan - when I sin, this must mean God does not love me!). al The distnction between one’s very being and the actons one takes is now totally lost. Aning on the Cross.d, this creates a whole host of other philosophical, moral, ethical and psychological problems for each of us. Fortunately, God loves us - and has never stopped loving us - even when Jesus was dying on the Cross!

Thank you for your kind words.

God bless

Very well reasoned. The problem is, Bsy is reading everything out of context and thus ending up with a contradictory position. Everything you have said is correct in the context of Gods ontological nature which is eternal love. God does not stop loving. People stop loving God.

 

[perro_sarnoso]

Yes,

God loves His entire creation. Satan may hate God because he see God as the oppressor of his freedom to do as he pleases but, God does not hate Satan.

As a matter of fact - when Lucifer and his angels wanted to be as far away from God as possible, God ratified their desire by casting them to hell.

Lucifer and the demons percieve themselves “far away from” God but, they also know that God is everywhere. They cannot escape this reality. This is their eternal torture…God is Love and God is everywhere.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

That brings up an interesting question: which is the superior being, the angel or the human?

I think it was Catholicism for Dummies that drew a hierarchy of that and it said that angels are superior than men.

Angels are more superior, in terms of their essential nature and power. They are more closer to God in the sense that they are not physical like us and thus have fewer limitations. They are more intelligent than us and have more knowledge because they lack the physical limitations we have. The less physical you are the more closer you are to God in terms of nature.

However, the closer you are to God, the greater the moral responsibility you have. Angels make one eternal choice, because they have greater knowledge of God and are closer to him in terms of their nature and therefore have fewer excuses for failure. We are born ignorant of God, we have the limitation of time and other physical conditions, and thus we can have a life full of mistakes and still be saved. Perhaps Satan is jealous of that.

But then again, satan envies man, so perhaps man is superior.

The nature of love has a tendency to express most of its attention to those who are least able. Catholic theology expresses this in analogous terms, basically saying that God loves the sinner more than the saint. Jesus came for the sinner, not the saved. But you have to look at this in context, for there are different expressions of love. For example; my sister has brain damage, this meant that my mother spent more time with my sister and expressed more of her loving care and attention for her than she did for me. But this was not because she valued me any less than my sister, but because my sister needed that care and attention because of her disability. In the same sense, relatively speaking, God expresses a tremendous amount of care and attention on the least of his creation, and it is understandable that an angel would feel jealous. Although i am not sure that is why the angels fell from heaven.

It is said that the greatest in heaven will be the least in heaven, the first shall be last.

 

[tonyrey]

The devil’s advocate would say "Of course it’s crazy to love me. I love myself. What more do I need? It’s only fools who think they need God’s love - or anyone else’s for that matter. We can exist by ourselves quite nicely, thank you very much. We don’t need God to tell us how to live. We’ve got only one life and we should make the most of it - and to hell with rest! :tanning:

 

[Anathama_Sit]

The devil’s advocate would say "Of course it’s crazy to love me. I love myself. What more do I need? It’s only fools who think they need God’s love - or anyone else’s for that matter. We can exist by ourselves quite nicely, thank you very much. We don’t need God to tell us how to live. We’ve got only one life and we should make the most of it - and to hell with rest! :tanning:

Greetings Tonyrey,

And then they find themselves going to Hell with the rest.

God Bless.
Anathama Sit

 

[Dymphna82]

I think God’s relationship with Satan is similar to his relationship with us. What I mean is, we are all God’s creations, so he is all our Father. But if a parent sees their child thinks themselves to have more authority than them, is destructive towards all his other children, and they know that child will never change, then sending him away is the best thing to do. If Satan stayed in Heaven, it wouldn’t be a Heavenly place to be.

God can’t send Satan to a therapist. There is no one that can help Satan but God. But since Satan thinks himself above God, he will never turn to him.

We Christians have learned to turn to him. I still hope that somehow the Devil learns to move on. I mean, talk about a grudge?

 

[tonyrey]

I think God’s relationship with Satan is similar to his relationship with us. What I mean is, we are all God’s creations, so he is all our Father. But if a parent sees their child thinks themselves to have more authority than them, is destructive towards all his other children, and they know that child will never change, then sending him away is the best thing to do. If Satan stayed in Heaven, it wouldn’t be a Heavenly place to be.

God can’t send Satan to a therapist. There is no one that can help Satan but God. But since Satan thinks himself above God, he will never turn to him.

We Christians have learned to turn to him. I still hope that somehow the Devil learns to move on. I mean, talk about a grudge?

Hope springs eternal for those who are made in God’s image and have free will…

 

[mdisse]

I think God’s relationship with Satan is similar to his relationship with us. What I mean is, we are all God’s creations, so he is all our Father. But if a parent sees their child thinks themselves to have more authority than them, is destructive towards all his other children, and they know that child will never change, then sending him away is the best thing to do. If Satan stayed in Heaven, it wouldn’t be a Heavenly place to be.

God can’t send Satan to a therapist. There is no one that can help Satan but God. But since Satan thinks himself above God, he will never turn to him.

We Christians have learned to turn to him. I still hope that somehow the Devil learns to move on. I mean, talk about a grudge?

Wonderfully said.

 

[BrunoMaria]

I really do not understand, how anybody could even think of such thing, like God loving Satan. They all take the easy way out of the topic and simply say: “YES, GOD LOVES SATAN TOO, AS GOD LOVES ALL HIS CREATURES”.
There is little thought behind that, for God did NOT create Satan but God created an Angel - Satan however made himself a bad creature and so turned by free will from an Angel to a Devil.
First mistake all made, is: Not to love, does not mean to hate. Hate is not at all necessarily the absence of love. But God’s indifference towards Satan, they put behind God’s assumed love for Satan, which I strictly must deny.
OK. Never mind - I will not answer in CAF and let them fancy their belief, as it doesn’t hurt anyone. In the Bible we read in many verses, that Satan tries in vain, to prevent God’s salvation. How could God love a reature, who fights God’s plans?!
But let’s have a glance at Catechism:
In # 391 …there lurks a seductive voice, opposed to God, which makes them fall into death out of envy… the fallen angel, called “Satan” or the “devil”. The Church teaches that Satan was at first a good angel, made by God: "The devil and the other demons were indeed created naturally good by God, but they became evil by their own doing.
How could God love a creature, who is opposed to God?!
392 Scripture speaks of a sin of these angels. This “fall” consists in the free choice of these created spirits, who radically and irrevocably rejected God and his reign… The devil “has sinned from the beginning”; he is “a liar and the father of lies”.
394 Scripture witnesses to the disastrous influence of the one Jesus calls “a murderer from the beginning”, who would even try to divert Jesus from the mission received from his Father. “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.” In its consequences the gravest of these works was the mendacious seduction that led man to disobey God.
How could God love a creature, who keeps trying to make man disobey God?!?!
395 ……Satan’s might is, nonetheless, not infinite. …although his action may cause grave injuries - of a spiritual nature and, indirectly, even of a physical nature- to each man and to society, the action is permitted by divine providence which with strength and gentleness guides human and cosmic history. It is a great mystery that providence should permit diabolical activity, but “we know that in everything God works for good with those who love him.”
How could God love a creature, who keeps trying to destroy God’s works and to ruin God’s beloved people?!
And there is a lot more evidence in Catholic doctrines, that prove that the question and it’s positive affirmation “DOES GOD LOVE SATAN”, is simply outrageous

Yours
Bruno

 

[MindOverMatter2]

How could God love a creature, who keeps trying to destroy God’s works and to ruin God’s beloved people?!

Like “Tqualey” said, the very fact that God sustains the devil in being is an act of Gods love. Love is Gods intrinsic and fundamental nature which means that everything God does is an act of love. Permitting the devil to go to hell is an act of love. He allows this because he loves the devil.

1. Ontological evil does not exist.
2. Evil only exists as a privation of good.
3. Existence is intrinsically good.
4. God loves all that is good.
5. While Satan’s actions are evil; Satan’s existence is essentially good in the sense of his ontology.
6. The absence of everything good in Satan would therefore also mean the absence of his existence also.
7. Existence is good.
8. Thus the existence of any created essence is also good because of its participation in existence.
9. If Satan could exist without anything good in him, that would mean that Satan is an ontological evil; which contradicts the fact that being is good.
10. Just like nothingness is the absence of ontological reality, Evil, like davidv explained, is defined as the absence of good, but instead of being a negation it is a privation in reference to the nature of good. Evil is not the ontological presence of evil, just like nothingness is not the ontological presence of nothing. These things are not beings but rather they are privations and negations of being.
11. Evil is merely a perversion of good; it is not a being. In other-words Satan takes something that is good (his existence), and uses it in a way that does not conform to the nature of love (God).

Conclusion: Therefore God, in so far as God’s love is an eternal act and his being is an eternal expression of love, it follows therefore that anything which participates in God’s existence is loved regardless of whether or not the creature loves God back. Thus God loves the existence of Satan as equally as everybody else because his love is a gift that he never takes back. His love is not given because we deserve it. God is the bases and the giver of the very thing which God loves and is defined as good. Gods very being sustains the essence of Satan in existence; which makes no sense unless God loves Satan; much like a committed mother never truly stops loving her son even if he forever commits evil.

It is not a coincidence that catholic theology says that you should love the person but hate sin. This statement applies to all conscious beings. I do not hate Satan, i hate the sin he embraces and represents.

 

[BrunoMaria]

OK
I give up! But without going off from what I wrote!
He who is wrong, pays the other a beer when we see in heaven

Yours
Bruno

 

[Anathama_Sit]

Like “Tqualey” said, the very fact that God sustains the devil in being is an act of Gods love. Love is Gods intrinsic and fundamental nature which means that everything God does is an act of love. Permitting the devil to go to hell is an act of love. He allows this because he loves the devil.

1. Ontological evil does not exist.
2. Evil only exists as a privation of good.
3. Existence is intrinsically good.
4. God loves all that is good.
5. While Satan’s actions are evil; Satan’s existence is essentially good in the sense of his ontology.
6. The absence of everything good in Satan would therefore also mean the absence of his existence also.
7. Existence is good.
8. Thus the existence of any created essence is also good because of its participation in existence.
9. If Satan could exist without anything good in him, that would mean that Satan is an ontological evil; which contradicts the fact that being is good.
10. Just like nothingness is the absence of ontological reality, Evil, like davidv explained, is defined as the absence of good, but instead of being a negation it is a privation in reference to the nature of good. Evil is not the ontological presence of evil, just like nothingness is not the ontological presence of nothing. These things are not beings but rather they are privations and negations of being.
11. Evil is merely a perversion of good; it is not a being. In other-words Satan takes something that is good (his existence), and uses it in a way that does not conform to the nature of love (God).

Conclusion: Therefore God, in so far as God’s love is an eternal act and his being is an eternal expression of love, it follows therefore that anything which participates in God’s existence is loved regardless of whether or not the creature loves God back. Thus God loves the existence of Satan as equally as everybody else because his love is a gift that he never takes back. His love is not given because we deserve it. God is the bases and the giver of the very thing which God loves and is defined as good. Gods very being sustains the essence of Satan in existence; which makes no sense unless God loves Satan; much like a committed mother never truly stops loving her son even if he forever commits evil.

It is not a coincidence that catholic theology says that you should love the person but hate sin. This statement applies to all conscious beings. I do not hate Satan, i hate the sin he embraces and represents.

Greetings MindoverMatter2,

Thank you for posting this post. I have been trying to drive this home again and again, but others seem not to be wanting to accept this.

God bless you for bringing much needed clarity to this thread.

Anathama Sit

 

[tonyrey]

Greetings MindoverMatter2,

Thank you for posting this post. I have been trying to drive this home again and again, but others seem not to be wanting to accept this.

God bless you for bringing much needed clarity to this thread.

Anathama Sit

Hear, hear!

 

[tonyrey]

MindOverMatter2

Hear, hear!

 

[tqualey]

Hi, MOM2,

That is not only impressive … but it is right on accurate…

Hey, Bruno, did you get all that … ? … I have a hunch you are going to have a lot of beers to buy!! :extrahappy:

So, let me add my, “Hear! Hear!”, too…

God bless

Like “Tqualey” said, the very fact that God sustains the devil in being is an act of Gods love. Love is Gods intrinsic and fundamental nature which means that everything God does is an act of love. Permitting the devil to go to hell is an act of love. He allows this because he loves the devil.

1. Ontological evil does not exist.
2. Evil only exists as a privation of good.
3. Existence is intrinsically good.
4. God loves all that is good.
5. While Satan’s actions are evil; Satan’s existence is essentially good in the sense of his ontology.
6. The absence of everything good in Satan would therefore also mean the absence of his existence also.
7. Existence is good.
8. Thus the existence of any created essence is also good because of its participation in existence.
9. If Satan could exist without anything good in him, that would mean that Satan is an ontological evil; which contradicts the fact that being is good.
10. Just like nothingness is the absence of ontological reality, Evil, like davidv explained, is defined as the absence of good, but instead of being a negation it is a privation in reference to the nature of good. Evil is not the ontological presence of evil, just like nothingness is not the ontological presence of nothing. These things are not beings but rather they are privations and negations of being.
11. Evil is merely a perversion of good; it is not a being. In other-words Satan takes something that is good (his existence), and uses it in a way that does not conform to the nature of love (God).

Conclusion: Therefore God, in so far as God’s love is an eternal act and his being is an eternal expression of love, it follows therefore that anything which participates in God’s existence is loved regardless of whether or not the creature loves God back. Thus God loves the existence of Satan as equally as everybody else because his love is a gift that he never takes back. His love is not given because we deserve it. God is the bases and the giver of the very thing which God loves and is defined as good. Gods very being sustains the essence of Satan in existence; which makes no sense unless God loves Satan; much like a committed mother never truly stops loving her son even if he forever commits evil.

It is not a coincidence that catholic theology says that you should love the person but hate sin. This statement applies to all conscious beings. I do not hate Satan, i hate the sin he embraces and represents.

 

[tonyrey]

And there is a lot more evidence in Catholic doctrines, that prove that the question and its positive affirmation “DOES GOD LOVE SATAN”, is simply outrageous.

It’s outrageous to believe God hates one of His children…

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Tonyrey,

How about TOTALLY outrageous?

The real issue - just like with humans - is to love the sinner and hate the sin. God is not pleased with Satan’s behavior… but, for God to HATE anything or anyone would mean God, Who Is Love (1John 4:8) - would have to act outside of His Nature - and this is impossible.

God bless

It’s outrageous to believe God hates one of His children…

 

[tonyrey]

It’s outrageous to believe God hates

I agree. We could also say “infernally outrageous” because it implies that our Creator is dominated by diabolical rage, a sadistic lust for revenge and the desire to inflict everlasting torture on anyone who dares to defy Him.

God bless (not curse!)