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

[IWantGod]

For Judaism, this is not an issue because the angels do NOT have free will; they MUST obey Gd, and that includes HaSatan: the tempter, the accuser, and the angel of death. What makes mankind unique is that he is the ONLY one of Gd’s Creation who has the free will to choose good or evil.

However, this is a Catholic Forum, so carry on…

While we are different religions we all share the same root (the 3 main religions being Judaism, Islam, and Christianity),

So, from my perspective at least, it would be interesting to know the genesis of this particular teaching (the idea that angels have no free-will)

 

[Ghosty1981]

He did not do this particular thing in ignorance, however he was most certainly a fool. Having said that, had he experienced the complete divine wisdom of God it’s seems impossible that he would have chosen sin, thus perhaps there is some kind of ignorance in being a fool.

I think Aquinas usually reserves the term ignorance for knowledge that a being could/should have, so he doesn’t call creatures ignorant for lacking Divine Wisdom. That being said, I think we can use the term ignorance in an absolute sense for all creatures who lack a share in Divine Wisdom. In this sense we might say that Lucifer was ignorant, but there is no real deprivation or culpability in it.

Creatures who do share in Divine Wisdom, such as in the case of the Beatific Vision and the possession Divine Life, can’t sin not because they lack free-will, but because their will is entirely aligned with and informed by God in total cooperation. That is the end that God intends for humans and angels, but it requires a kind of surrender to the unseen that may not come easily to a being that sees every created thing perfectly in all its splendor, and sees this within himself.

Peace and God bless!

 

[IWantGod]

that Lucifer was ignorant, but there is no real deprivation or culpability in it.

Yes that’s what i mean If by that you mean Lucifer did have ignorance in choosing sin but having that ignorance did not make him lack culpability for his actions.

 

[Ghosty1981]

Yes that’s what i mean If by that you mean Lucifer did have ignorance in choosing sin but having that ignorance did not make him lack culpability for his actions.

I just mean that even the highest and most perfect creaturely knowledge falls short of Divine Knowledge, and so can be said to be ignorance in comparison. Creatures aren’t judged according to this ignorance, however, as it isn’t possible for them to have Divine Knowledge without Grace. Lucifer could know that his greatest good was outside of himself, but he couldn’t truly know what that good entailed in a clear way. He’s not faulted for being ignorant of the Divine Nature, but he can be faulted for choosing his own nature over the mystery that was his actual final good.

 

[IWantGod]

Creatures who do share in Divine Wisdom, such as in the case of the Beatific Vision and the possession Divine Life, can’t sin not because they lack free-will, but because their will is entirely aligned with and informed by God in total cooperation.

I’m not sure i entirely agree with this. I think the beatific vision makes it impossible to sin because in truth it is only possible to be perfectly good through the sanctifying grace of God. But i don’t see that impossibility as lacking free-will, but instead i see it as essentially lacking any desire to sin.

I could be wrong.

 

[Ghosty1981]

I’m not sure i entirely agree with this. I think the beatific vision makes it impossible to sin because in truth it is only possible to be perfectly good through the sanctifying grace of God. But i don’t see that impossibility as lacking free-will, but instead i see it as essentially lacking any desire to sin.

I agree with you. I am saying that it is not due to a lack of free-will that those in Heaven can’t sin. They still possess their own will, but in a sense they also possess the Divine Will through Grace, and they have achieved the highest possible good which is the “goal” of every will. They have both an unerring free-Will and possess the “object” of this will. They are united to the Divine Nature both as a “supplement” to their own nature that enhances their own abilities, and as an object of contemplation and joy. It’s literally unfathomable what Lucifer could have been had he united his exalted created nature to the Divine Nature through submission and acceptance.

Peace and God bless!

 

[IWantGod]

It’s literally unfathomable what Lucifer could have been had he united his exalted created nature to the Divine Nature through submission and acceptance.

It’s true!

 

[meltzerboy2]

The genesis is in the Book of Genesis and how Jews interpret the sin of Adam and Eve, the role of the snake, and the expulsion from the Garden of Eden. That is a thread–more like a treatise–in itself. In addition to biblical evidence, there is also Talmudic rabbinical interpretation regarding the nature of angels and their role with respect to Gd. One commentary suggests that angels are not perfect compared to the infinite perfection of Gd. Thus they make mistakes and sin but NOT in the human way: rather, their sins are sins of righteousness, or wishing to be more righteous than their angelic nature enables them to be. Thus they occasionally take credit for achievements that really belong to the justice and mercy of Gd alone. It is not that they are jealous of Gd or arrogant; on the contrary, their intentions are good but they are imperfect and so they sometimes strive too far. They do not, however, have the free will to disobey Gd in the traditional sense of choosing evil. Their choice is, on the contrary, one of excessive holiness.

 

[IWantGod]

The genesis is in the Book of Genesis and how Jews interpret the sin of Adam and Eve, the role of the snake, and the expulsion from the Garden of Eden.

But isn’t the presentation of a snake, which is in my mind an analogous representation of the devil tempting humans to sin, contrary to the good nature or intentions of angels and the will of God? I mean, a snake is a good choice in representing evil, since in the sting of it’s venom is death, and in the sting of sin is death. So it seems that the interpretation you present is a bit odd as it would suggest that God sends angels to tempt and deceive humanity into sin and eternal death. This, at least to me, seems to go against the great divine commission of righteousness.

Although i predict that you might interpret that behaviour as being the good intention to test who is good and who is evil. But i’m not sure that really works. If you lead somebody down the garden path you bare some responsibility for their sin even if you are not the one doing it.

Secondly, if an angel can take God’s good and attribute it to themselves, it would suggest not only vanity but also a will that can act contrary to God’s will.

In any case thanks for sharing because i find your interpretation interesting non-the-less and kind of endearing, at least the idea of an angel so loving the good that he goes too far.

 

[Rasoleil]

Exactly! And I think that Satan, in his angelic forum, though himself to be superior to mere creatures like us, made of flesh, subject to death, decay, bodily functions, etc. inferior to their pure spiritual form.

 

[meltzerboy2]

HaSatan in Hebrew means the adversarial prosecutor. The “Ha” denotes the role of this angel as a servant of Gd’s. It is a nasty role, for sure, and thus we might misinterpret his function (according to Judaism) as one of an evil-doer. HaSatan tempts us constantly (beginning in the Garden of Eden) to test our faithfulness, not really wanting us to succumb; HaSatan is likewise the prosecutor, the accuser, who has recorded our earthly sins and recounts them in the heavenly tribunal; finally, HaSatan is the angel of death, who, after our judging of our own lives and after Gd’s passing sentence, is the one who executes that sentence, particularly in the case of our spiritual death by transporting us to hell, which Gd cannot bear to do on His own. Thus, in Genesis, HaSatan represents the tempter, who tests our faith and our free will to choose good or evil. According to Jewish thought, Gd created everything, and that means EVERYTHING including evil and our evil inclination, as well as goodness and our righteous inclination. Testing us is not perceived as being devious; indeed, the Jewish people believe we are STILL being tested by Gd, as Job was tested by Gd by means of his angelic servant, HaSatan.

 

[IWantGod]

Gd created everything, and that means EVERYTHING including evil and our evil inclination, as well as goodness and our righteous inclination.

So you don’t see evil (the word itself) as representing a perversion of that which is good, but rather you see evil as a thing in and of itself that God has created and put in us?

 

[meltzerboy2]

My personal beliefs about this and so many other religious issues I will keep personal, mainly because I have not reached any definitive conclusions. Nonetheless, the (Orthodox) Jewish interpretation stands: evil was created by Gd, as was goodness, and everything else in the universe and beyond including nature, time, space, etc. Further, in Judaism, there is definite reluctance to acknowledge a cosmic battle between Gd and HaSatan, even if Gd must ultimately win. The notion of a battle of polar opposites is unthinkable in itself.

 

[EZweber]

I think the problem is in my reasoning, which is why I want to better understand what he’s saying, and also why I’m asking these questions on hell.

Aquinas was so much smarter than I, yet he does not believe in determinism. He believes we are free precisely because we are not totally latched on to the complete good yet (like in heaven) but can instead use reason to determine what good we’d rather choose.

In other words I’m probably missing pieces to the puzzle. I have ordered like 4+ books on Aquinas within the last two weeks. lol

Unfortunately, three books I got by Brain Davies — one a commentary of the Summa, one a summary of Aquinas, and one a summary of his thought — don’t even talk about hell. They do talk about human action, but I wish they got into hell.

My brother is a philosophy major, entering major seminary this year, and he says that almost all philosophers nowadays agree that Aquinas’s ideas would lead to determinism. I’m not saying that Aquinas was determinist.

 

[IWantGod]

The notion of a battle of polar opposites is unthinkable in itself.

This is not really how Christians (at least Catholics) view it. There is not a war between good and evil if by evil one means there is an actual being in reality that is evil by it’s very nature. Evil is a corruption of something Good. We view God as creating something good that was corrupted by the will of those whom seek to serve the good of themselves rather than goodness itself. So what is really happening (in the mind of a Catholic) is that there is a war between the “self” and the “good”; good being the proper natural end of any created will. The word evil simply means that somebody has used the good of their will for there own self gratification and glorification at the expense of it’s proper end which is love, and in doing so they perverted that which is good and in essence have gone to war with God’s will. Evil is essentially a selfish act, it is not a being

For example the pleasure of sex is good, but the use of sex is only righteous when it is consistent with it’s proper end which is the union of a man and a women in love and marriage. Outside of that union, sex is a perverted act, or rather we pervert the good of that act.

The devil was created good, but he perverted that good when he aligned it with his own self gratification rather than with it’s proper end which is in God. So in the mind of a Catholic Satan has a corrupt will and he is eternally fallen. Now the devil seeks the destruction of God’s creation, the human race. The book of Genesis is our first introduction to the devils corrupt will and his agenda for humanity and his war against love.

 

[meltzerboy2]

Not entirely agreed, but understood. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[RealisticCatholic]

This may be an obvious question, but why did the devil deserve hell and not just a natural happiness?

 

[Ghosty1981]

This may be an obvious question, but why did the devil deserve hell and not just a natural happiness?

Lucifer, with full knowledge, made a concious choice to turn away from God. He turned his will away from God permanently, so he will forever be away from God.

Creatures can’t be their own natural happiness, so those that turn their will towards themselves (or any other creature) will never find their goal. Creatures are in themselves nothing, so seeking a creature as a final end gains nothing.

There is pious speculation that human infants who are not Baptised will be granted natural happiness by God because they have not yet turned against God by choice, but they also haven’t received Divine Grace. This is the closest a creature can get to God without Grace, and these creatures haven’t rejected God, so they are granted the happiness of being turned towards goodness yet not grasping the highest good. This is only speculation, and many believe that these infants are granted the choice of God at some moment before death.

Even in the best scenario Lucifer rejected his final end by concious choice, so he rejected even natural happiness. His nature was turned towards God, but he turned it away by his will. His nature is unfulfilled, and he has turned away from all of God’s help.

Peace and God bless!

 

[RealisticCatholic]

So surely if Lucifer comprehended his nature and what would fulfill it, he wouldn’t have fallen…

What a terrible result. To get it wrong and then spend eternity paying for the error.

 

[RealisticCatholic]

Creatures can’t be their own natural happiness, so those that turn their will towards themselves (or any other creature) will never find their goal. Creatures are in themselves nothing, so seeking a creature as a final end gains nothing.

Creatures can’t be their own natural happiness, so those that turn their will towards themselves (or any other creature) will never find their goal. Creatures are in themselves nothing, so seeking a creature as a final end gains nothing.

Well, I think you mean rational creatures.