This quote from the article is interesting because this unbeliever is unwittingly describing the Antichrist:
What would suit the Devil more is if he managed to convince the world that he and his minions were God’s representatives, and that God’s true representatives were sinners and demons.
If Satan existed, this would be his most effective tactic to win the War on Heaven. And he’d be doing it in a way that would insult God the most: What could be more blasphemous than glorifying Satan and demonizing God?
And then he begins his argument.
If Satan is as devious as he’s made out to be, then it’s exactly the kind of thing he would do. If he’s as powerful as he’s made out to be, then he could certainly do it. And if Satan could and would do such a thing, how can anyone tell whether he’s already done it?
Devious? Yes. Powerful? Not powerful enough to prevail against the Church.
For the sake of this intellectual exercise, let’s consider the following hypotheses:
Satan exists and he is extremely evil and extremely powerful.
Extremely evil? Yes. Extremely powerful? Not compared to God.
The author also exaggerates the historical evils attributed, rightly or wrongly, to the Church.
Remember that if this scheme is to work, Satan would have been there from the beginning. And convincing people would have been a lot easier back then when people were more credulous and skepticism was not held as a virtue. All Satan would have to do would be to convince uneducated desert-dwellers I’m certain that even the least educated modern-day criminal is capable of such deception. What more the Prince of Deception himself? Even if Satan managed just this and then kept his distance, time and tradition could have done the rest. What more if his influence was present in each step of a process that took two thousand years?
I’m sure that more than a few Catholics reading this will start to feel some doubt. What if all this is true? What if I’ve been praying to Satan all my life?
God would not permit this. It would be irrational for there to be a good God and for Him never to reveal himself to humanity, but to permit a fallen angel to do so for the sake of causing evil.
If a good God existed (in addition to the version of Satan above) he would know what his adversary was up to and would try to counter it. He would also know that his adversary would try to distort whatever teaching he tried to impart. So this good God would beat Satan by embedding in his human creation something to counter Satan’s deception: doubt.
No. The good God would act directly, for if He permits the Adversary to act directly, he would not allow His Adversary to have greater power than He.
I find the arguments presented too unconvincing for me to be motivated to argue against them. Maybe somebody else can. But from my point of view, if there is a good, logical God, then the scenario presented is not believable because that is not how a good, logical God would act. I could only be convinced by it if I didn’t believe in the existence of a good God in the first place.
