How was it even possible for Satan to fall/reject God?

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The angels did not lack ignorance, nor did they have passions (being immaterial). This is standard Thomistic philosophical jargon.

OK.

Now, what could have motivated the devil’s (and the other demons’) fall?

Dilemma: All rational creatures, human and angels, are built for the good. “Our hearts are restless until they rest in God” (Augustine, paraphrase). Aquinas would say anyone who acts, acts for a perceived good. OK. So if the devil knew his true fulfillment was in God, why would he willingly choose to sin and receive eternal suffering in hell?

@magnanimity I suppose even universalists need a way to explain this one; alternatively, answering how the devil could sin may help us understand why (and if) any human person chooses hell.
 
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EZweber said:
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RealisticCatholic:
Aquinas would say anyone who acts, acts for a perceived good.
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I don’t say this often but… Aquinas was wrong.
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No he wasn’t. A perceived good is entirely subjective. Abortion is objectively evil, but millions of people perceive it as a good through their own subjective reasoning.

To answer the topic, Satan did possess knowledge that fulfillment was to be found in God. The issue here is not his knowledge but the fact that he decided to reject the higher Good for love of himself, therefore committing the sin of pride. Your average Catholic knows that fulfillment can only be found in God, but we still sin anyway. The difference between a human sinning and an angel sinning is that the angel is pure intellect and will, therefore they can completely understand the consequences. This means they only get one shot and that’s it.
 
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RealisticCatholic said:
So if the devil knew his true fulfillment was in God, why would he willingly choose to sin and receive eternal suffering in hell?
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@RealisticCatholic, you ask great questions, as always. Your probing and restless mind is a thing of beauty! If only more folks would feel so free to probe and prod, I think the church would be a better place…

It’s a good question—what would the angels have known regarding their future state? The Satanic line in Milton is “better to reign in Hell than to serve in heaven,” Paradise Lost. I’m sure there are countless others here who have thought about the sin of pride at length and could offer much more. But if pride is basically the rejection of one’s status and the inordinate desire for more (better/more powerful/more knowledgeable) then I suppose it’s possible to seek to be other and better than you are. And this is pride.

Although, this is more of a thorny problem for Thomists, etc. For anyone who believes in apokatastasis panton, all things will be restored to a better state, in the end, to include the angels. But you raise a good point: could an inordinate desire entail an extreme punishment like the medieval hell? Maybe not. Fundamentally, pride is an error in judgment, right? The prideful creature has gotten it wrong, isn’t that correct?
 
I heard it once explained by an exorcist that the angels were shown Christ in his humanity, during his Passion. And Lucifer was like, “Do we really want to follow a God who’s so weak?” Because none of it made any sense for a God who was so powerful to create everything, to subject himself to such extremes. In addition, they were shown a vision of Mary, and were told that she would be over them— even though, as a human creature, she should have been “less”. And so that was where a lot of the problem came from-- rather than trusting God to know what he was doing, and that it would all make sense, many of them decided that they knew better than God. Which is what we do every day, in one form or another…

Interestingly enough, another thing that the exorcist has said was that one of the reasons why St. Michael is so powerful over them, was that he was a nobody-- a “little angel.” But in the battle, he defended God very strongly, without anyone else to follow or copy. And so many/most/all of the graces and privileges that had been given to the fallen angels ended up being redistributed to him as a reward for his great faithfulness… and that was how he became great, and continues to be a key player in exorcisms to this day.
 
midori said:
Interestingly enough, another thing that the exorcist has said was that one of the reasons why St. Michael is so powerful over them, was that he was a nobody-- a “little angel.” But in the battle, he defended God very strongly, without anyone else to follow or copy. And so many/most/all of the graces and privileges that had been given to the fallen angels ended up being redistributed to him as a reward for his great faithfulness… and that was how he became great, and continues to be a key player in exorcisms to this day.
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What I find most interesting about angels is how they “battle:” it’s more of a formal argument than swords and shields. St. Michael defeated Satan with a single phrase: “Quis ut deus?” Who is like God? (Which is Michael’s own name!) Imagine the power to be able to defeat someone with a single phrase.

I love talking about angels, fascinating creatures.
 
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The angels fell when they learned that God the Son was going to take on human flesh and raise it above the angels. Mary would be Queen of heaven and all would have to bow to Jesus. Their pride couldn’t stand the thought that they would be put in second place and they rebelled against God!
 
Angels are extremely powerful purely spiritual beings, having intellect and will. I have heard it suggested that God may have shown them Jesus Christ in his human nature, perhaps in his passion, and said “This is my beloved Son. Worship him.” One thing that could tempt a powerful angelic being is pride: Me, worship a human being? Impossible. Or as Satan might have asserted, Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.

It is not that different from Adam and Eve. God gave them everything they could desire, but he also gave them a command of something they must not do. Naturally, their pride and Satan’s temptation urged them to do it.
 
RealisticCatholic said:
So if the devil knew his true fulfillment was in God, why would he willingly choose to sin and receive eternal suffering in hell?
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Because he’s Prideful and Arrogant. He willfully rejected God’s plan and instead pursues his own twisted agenda.
 
Saint Thomas Aquinas said that satan fell at the moment of his creation. He fell because creating man was a blow to his pride–he saw how men were going to raised above the angels, because the word became man, as a previous poster said.
I don’t see how he could not have fallen. Even the most intelligent man can fall. It is true that all creature desire the good. If that is so, how can men sin mortally? But they do, and satan did.
 
Yes!

The first time that I’d read that angels battle with their will, rather than swords or shields---- it made so many things suddenly make sense. It’s like, you knew it-- because it would be ridiculous for spiritual beings to fight with such clunky, physical objects-- but you hadn’t really thought it through, because you’re so used to seeing weaponry in art and literature.

But when you realize that spiritual combat is all about the will— then suddenly, it becomes so much more relatable. Because every day, our inner battles aren’t about things that can be defeated with swords and shields— but with a simple “yes” or “no” as we accept or reject that which is in our path. 💙
 
I believe God has the power to destroy the devil but doesn’t because of free will? If the devil though had full knowledge of everything unlike humans, wouldn’t violating this free will be just?
 
My thought is that when a creature with autonomous will is created, whether angelic beings, man, or animals, the possibility always exists that this new will is going to want something contrary to previously existing wills.
 
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If I remember correctly, Aquinas believed that one always acts towards what they believe to be the greatest good, but this would mean determinism. Aquinas believed that determinism is false, so either one stance or the other is wrong. I could be wrong.
 
I always think it is a good thing when somebody (😇) simply can’t understand or empathize with the devil’s (😈) motivations.
 
RealisticCatholic said:
Dilemma: All rational creatures, human and angels, are built for the good. “Our hearts are restless until they rest in God” (Augustine, paraphrase). Aquinas would say anyone who acts, acts for a perceived good. OK. So if the devil knew his true fulfillment was in God, why would he willingly choose to sin and receive eternal suffering in hell?
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The greatest good is to be God. Created beings can seek to perceive themselves as that good. For all practical purposes that was Adam’s error. Aquinas characterized pride as “inordinate self-love”, or to desire an inordinate excellence for oneself. We’re actually here to learn the fallacy of Adam’s choice, that of disbelieving and disobeying God. At that point Adam became his own “god”, and man has been occupying that space ever since, with all the consequences, often ugly, that we can witness in our world and ourselves as the result. Men and angels were meant for communion with God, and He wishes to elevate man to a status approaching His own to the greatest extent possible, but we cannot achieve that without Him; we don’t get to be God.
 
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I’m not really asking about the nature of the fall, like whether or not the devils saw that the Son of God would become man.

I’m more asking how it was even possible for a creature like an angel to fall, in the first place — at least knowingly and deliberately.

If an angel or man (like Adam) can sin by Pride without ignorance or passion, then I’d like to see that argument. However, if that is the case, then it seems fully-fledged Pride (assuming it can be committed without ignorance or passion) is the only kind of sin worthy of sending one to an eternity of hell.

Because wouldn’t it then be the case that other kinds of sins ARE indeed due to ignorance of some form or another- — ignorance of what the greater good is, etc.
 
So I think the main issue for me would come down to:

(1) How is Pride committed in its own right, apart from ignorance (and obviously apart from passions, which angels don’t have).

(2) If Pride can be committed and deserves hell, then how do we apply this to other sins, which are arguably always due to some kind of ignorance or another since, as we keep saying, the rational creatures acts for goodness, even if that is only what is currently perceived as good in the moment. This is standard Thomistic understanding of human action. We can know sex outside of marriage is wrong, but in the moment due to passion or whatever, we perceive fornication as worth pursuing – as good. This is an error in judgment. Etc.
 
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