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

[Wesrock]

Bonaventurian:

No he wasn’t. A perceived good is entirely subjective.

Not for an angel.

Yes, for an angel. The angel chooses what he personally feels is the best choice asked on what he desire’s most. This isn’t an objectively best choice, just what he desires as the best.

 

[Wesrock]

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.

A person can fully know that time spent playing video games is objectively not as good as using that time in charity work. That he chooses the former doesn’t mean he’s ignorant.

I think you’re not understanding “rational” as Aquinas meant it. He didn’t mean it like a computer algorithm weighing objective bests.

 

[RealisticCatholic]

He would be ignorant that it’s not worth doing the former than the latter. In Heaven, in such a hypothetical scenario, we wouldn’t prefer video games to charity work, precisely because we will know the good.

 

[Wesrock]

In Heaven, in such a hypothetical scenario, we wouldn’t prefer video games to charity work, precisely because we will know the good.

No. It would be because we’re cleansed of our attachment to sin.

 

[John10]

So if the devil knew his true fulfillment was in God, why would he willingly choose to sin and receive eternal suffering in hell?

Because the same as we, God gave them freewill. That is the only way true love can be found, by giving it freely (or rejecting of course). However, they immediately got severely punished and became demons. God indeed is really merciful and patient to us humans, otherwise we would have been long ago condemned.

 

[Magnanimity]

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,

From the Angel section in the ST:

“But he [the angel] desired resemblance with God in this respect—by desiring, as his last end of beatitude, something which he could attain by the virtue of his own nature, turning his appetite away from supernatural beatitude, which is attained by God’s grace. Or, if he desired as his last end that likeness of God which is bestowed by grace, he sought to have it by the power of his own nature; and not from Divine assistance according to God’s ordering. This harmonizes with Anselm’s opinion, who says [De casu diaboli, iv.] that “he sought that to which he would have come had he stood fast.” These two views in a manner coincide; because according to both, he sought to have final beatitude of his own power, whereas this is proper to God.” ST.1.63.3

@RealisticCatholic, so it’s not ignorance of the proper order of things, it’s simply a rejection of that order? Is this describing self-determination? I will determine for myself and accomplish by myself my own beatitude?

 

[EZweber]

Yes, for an angel. The angel chooses what he personally feels is the best choice asked on what he desire’s most.

Angels can’t feel. They have no physical attributes. They make choices based on knowledge, love, and nothing else.

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

Yes, for an angel. The angel chooses what he personally feels is the best choice asked on what he desire’s most.

Angels can’t feel. They have no physical attributes. They make choices based on knowledge, love, and nothing else.

Yes, they have no passible emotions or sensible appetites, but they can still prioritize objects for their will.

“Feel” in my post also wasn’t being used in reference to emotion or passible human-like feelings, but thank you for offering this chance to clarify.

 

[EZweber]

I would argue that an angel’s view cannot be biased because of this.

 

[po18guy]

No dilemma. No difficulty.

They had freedom.

 

[Pattylt]

Hopefully, I don’t sound too ignorant with this question (even though I am) but why are Satan and the others permanently in Hell for their choice? In humans, pride is forgivable isnt it? Why not Satan…or is he still unrepentant?

 

[Prodigal1984]

You know what’s weird? Satan is a fallen angel right, but doesn’t 1 John say he was evil since the beginning?

 

[EZweber]

Hopefully, I don’t sound too ignorant with this question (even though I am) but why are Satan and the others permanently in Hell for their choice? In humans, pride is forgivable isnt it? Why not Satan…or is he still unrepentant?

The simple answer is that Satan is still unrepentant. An angelic choice can only be irrevocable, so he will never repent. A common analogy is that when you go to Hell, you have a “key” for the door that God can enter at and you don’t like God, so you lock the door and swallow the key.

 

[midori]

You know what’s weird? Satan is a fallen angel right, but doesn’t 1 John say he was evil since the beginning?

Sure.

Suppose there’s a three-year-old kid who kicks puppies and pulls the wings off flies and steals candy bars. Suppose by the time he’s in junior high, he’s progressed to dealing drugs and beating up kids who run afoul of his biz. Suppose he graduates to gang violence and being a cartel enforcer. Suppose he kills 20 or 30 people for the cartel, before he’s caught and sent to prison.

People will say, “He was bad from the beginning,” because even early on, he was showing signs of selfishness and an indifference to the suffering of others. But it didn’t mean he was committing crimes and hurting people on purpose as a newborn baby. It’s a true statement, even if it’s not meant to be taken literally.

The angels’ ability to choose happened very shortly after their creation. They were created; they were given the opportunity to choose of their own free will to follow God; and they were given the perfect knowledge of what would happen if they did not follow God. Choices were made; the Fall happened; and the ones who chose God were then admitted into the full beatific vision.

But didn’t all that happen inside of eternity, where there isn’t quite time the way we perceive it?

To say that anyone was evil since the beginning would be to say that God had deliberately created something corrupt. And we know that God didn’t do that, which is our clue that the emphasis isn’t meant to be on how long the devil has sinned during his own life, but rather, that since sin has existed, the devil has been there encouraging others around him to fall along with him.

Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.
The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.
No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God.
This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister.

If you’re going to read the passage literally, we might as well start arguing that none of us are born of God, because we all continue to sin, even when know inside, “You know, I really shouldn’t check my phone for fun while I’m on the clock because I’m stealing time from my employer” or “Perhaps I shouldn’t have yelled at my kids to leave me alone when I’m playing video games instead of making their dinner.”

 

[RealisticCatholic]

But can we sin in Heaven? No, because we won’t be ignorant of what is the true Good. We will see God and not prefer anything else. Everything will be rightly ordered.

We have to wonder why we are attached to sin in this life, then. Is the attachment our fault?

 

[Prodigal1984]

Wouldn’t God have known Satan would have rebelled even before he created the Angel’s? Like sure he had free will but so did Adam and Eve yet God knew they would rebel. So why would God create an angel who would have rebelled?
I don’t know this subject on the fall of satan always confused me.

 

[RealisticCatholic]

It’s just hard, because where is the desire stemming from? What makes one angel desire one thing, and another angel desire another? Unless we want to say God makes each angel such that he will either desire or reject God… But no one wants to go there, of course, since God doesn’t create evil.

So what made the devil fall, but not St. Michael? They were both pure spirits. Right?

 

[RealisticCatholic]

I think it is distinct and is not the same issue.

I don’t find it troubling for God to create a creature knowing it would reject him, after all, so goes the traditional understanding, love is based on freedom. So if hell is truly getting what you want, God would allow his creature to choose such.

Of course, that is assuming that hell, in itself, makes sense as eternal state freely chosen.

 

[midori]

So why would God create an angel who would have rebelled?

Why do you rebel against a God who died for you? Yet God created you anyways.

You know that the Incarnation happened-- a God who was so great went ahead and assumed humanity. That’s something he never did for the angels— and yet, we’re all ho-hum, yeah, so what? And yet, so many of the angels chose to Fall because they couldn’t mentally come to grips with it.

We live in a time when the Passion, Death, and Redemption already happened— and yet we continue to choose other things over God. Whether it’s skipping Mass, because gosh, I’m sleepy; or whether it’s porn; or whether it’s stealing the good pens from the office supply cupboard at work; or whether it’s trying to cheat the parking garage out of a day’s parking by sneaking out when the attendant takes a bathroom break; or whether it’s prioritizing our wants over the needs of those God has entrusted to us… we’re like, “Yeah, it’s not really a big deal, right?”

But God not only chose to create us, but he chose to allow us to muddle our way through life and realize, “You know, this is wrong.” And so you are diligent about your Mass attendance; you throw the porn in the trash; you buy your own pens if you want them so badly; you support someone else’s biz by paying the rate, even if you think it’s robbery anyways; you get off the Internet and go play Candy Land for the fifty-bazillionth time because it makes your kid happy.

So, he allows us to grow in our love by allowing us to choose it— rather than being static puppets from the get-go. But not being static puppets also gives us the ability to be willful at times. Sometimes we sin. Sometimes we lead others into sin. Sometimes we make terrible errors in judgment that we need to carry for the rest of our lives. And those errors can either destroy us… or they can force us to wake up and grow into the people God wanted us to be from the beginning.

Rather than worrying about the Fall of others, our focus needs to be partially on ourselves— because that’s the one person God will hold us responsible for. And our focus needs to be partially on those we’re responsible for— bringing up our children in the right paths; counseling our friends to choose right; not enabling those around us to choose wrong. But most of all, our focus needs to be on Jesus— because that’s the measuring-stick we’ll all be measured against, and every single one of us will fall short. We know we’ll have our Judgment Day— we’ll get two of them— and so the Four Last Things need to be in the back of our minds, and color our choices and our actions, rather than being sloppy and drifting through life.

 

[midori]

So, ultimately, the big secret about the devil is that he’s very, very weak. Weaker than a kitten. All he can do is give us ideas, but he can’t actually force us to cooperate with him. We have to actually make the decision to say, “You know, that’s a great idea, playing in traffic on the interstate. I think I’ll do it.” Or whatever its spiritual equivalent is. Once you realize that all he can do is inspire you to do wrong— it makes wrong easier to avoid, because you realize that the actual follow-through is totally up to you.

But all of us are given the same thing-- free will-- and each of us is given a differing amount of graces to go along with it, because God is a loving God who wants us to choose to love him, not just make himself a giant Disneyland full of automatons compelled to worship him. And it’s what we do with the graces we’re given that are the big thing. The person with the most graces doesn’t necessarily end up in first place, because every one of us wastes graces and opportunities. The ones who use their resources the best are the ones who are the great flowers in God’s garden… and the rest of us are teeny tiny wildflowers. The ones who reject their role in God’s garden aren’t there, but not for lack of his invitation.