Is Lucifer really evil?

[thistle]

You are correct about everything except “LATER chose to reject God.”

Later implies that time passed between when Satan was created and when he rejected God. Time does not exist in heaven.

That’s how he can be created good and also be evil from the beginning.

Frankly, that is nonsense. Satan (like all angels) was created good. He was not created good and evil. You are wrong!

The Church teaching:

CCC 391 Behind the disobedient choice of our first parents lurks a seductive voice, opposed to God, which makes them fall into death out of envy. Scripture and the Church’s Tradition see in this being a 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."

 

[mikekle]

Frankly, that is nonsense. Satan (like all angels) was created good. He was not created good and evil. You are wrong!

The Church teaching:

“The devil and the other demons were indeed created naturally good by God, but they became evil by their own doing.”

If this is true, then SOME passage of time HAD to take place…?

BTW, how could satan have been a murderer from the beginning…who did he kill? also the very word…beginning, suggests passage of time as well…?

 

[MtnDwellar]

Frankly, that is nonsense. Satan (like all angels) was created good. He was not created good and evil. You are wrong!

The Church teaching:

CCC 391 Behind the disobedient choice of our first parents lurks a seductive voice, opposed to God, which makes them fall into death out of envy. Scripture and the Church’s Tradition see in this being a 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."

Either you misunderstood or are putting words in my mouth. I never said that he was created good and evil. I merely said that he was created good and was evil from the beginning. My statements are completely consistent with CCC and scripture.

 

[MtnDwellar]

If this is true, then SOME passage of time HAD to take place…?

BTW, how could satan have been a murderer from the beginning…who did he kill? also the very word…beginning, suggests passage of time as well…?

No passage of time could have taken place because time was non-existent. Living a temporal life makes it very hard to consider anything else.

Beginning may suggest time, but not necessarily. In spirit, events take place in order, but no time passes in between. I know it sounds strange. You might also ask, How could Jesus die for yours and my sins if we weren’t even born yet?

In the beginning all beings were immortal. I don’t think it refers to murder the way we think of it. My understanding is that John is describing Satan’s essence, rather than actual crimes.

 

[thistle]

No passage of time could have taken place because time was non-existent. Living a temporal life makes it very hard to consider anything else.

Beginning may suggest time, but not necessarily. In spirit, events take place in order, but no time passes in between. I know it sounds strange. You might also ask, How could Jesus die for yours and my sins if we weren’t even born yet?

In the beginning all beings were immortal. I don’t think it refers to murder the way we think of it. My understanding is that John is describing Satan’s essence, rather than actual crimes.

He was not evil from the beginning. That would contradict the Church teaching that said he was created good and then BECAME evil. Became means a passage of time. Sorry but the Church teaching trumps your private interpretation.

 

[TK421]

God is able to use even evil actions in order to serve a good end, but this is no ways justifies the evil in itself, nor was it God’s will that such an evil action be committed. This applies to Satan as it does to all of us.

If we may use another example from the New Testament, it was not God’s will that Judas would betray Jesus, or that Pilot turn a blind eye to his trial, or that Peter should deny Christ three times, yet God still salvaged all of these unfortunate events and in his foresight, wrapped them into Christ’s salvific mission. It may be the case that with an addiction to a sin of attraction, such as lust or alcoholism, that through their struggle, God may be ridding the person of an even greater evil of their pride and their dependency on their own strength. That through the pains of fleeing from attractive sin, and the embarrassment and anxiety and the severity that come with it, they are uprooted from other sins that are far less visible.

It is false to say that sin is therefore a servant to God, because had sin not been present at all to begin with, it would have been just as well.

 

[MtnDwellar]

He was not evil from the beginning. That would contradict the Church teaching that said he was created good and then BECAME evil. Became means a passage of time. Sorry but the Church teaching trumps your private interpretation.

You would be correct if it was only my interpretation. Some theologians agree that time does not exist in heaven. Please read Thomas Aquinas who states that God and the angels are outside of time. St. Thomas is even more specific when he explains that angles can act within time and space, but do so from outside of time and space.

 

[Nanotwerp]

You would be correct if it was only my interpretation. Some theologians agree that time does not exist in heaven. Please read Thomas Aquinas who states that God and the angels are outside of time. St. Thomas is even more specific when he explains that angles can act within time and space, but do so from outside of time and space.

Outside of our subjective time. Since heaven is eternity, this means they’re living through everything from the inside of subjective time, but sequences still happen.

 

[MtnDwellar]

Outside of our subjective time. Since heaven is eternity, this means they’re living through everything from the inside of subjective time, but sequences still happen.

Yes. That’s my understanding. Sequences happen. Time does not apply.

More on topic, from a human perspective, the events of creating angels and them falling happened before even “subjective time” existed.

 

[Nanotwerp]

Yes. That’s my understanding. Sequences happen. Time does not apply.

More on topic, from a human perspective, the events of creating angels and them falling happened before even “subjective time” existed.

When you said Lucifer was created good and evil from the beginning, what exactly did you mean? Did you mean he was created good with the affinity to be evil, or something of that nature? I’m confused.

 

[ready]

As I said, but didn’t make clear, God created Lucifer good. He had the choice to be evil, which he chose. When he became Satan, Lucifer essentially ‘created’ himself into Satan, and not God. Do you truly believe God would create an entity already destined to have eternal punishment from the start?

What you say here is true, Nanotwerp. God made Lucifer good, Lucifer chose to do evil and made himself into a devil. And no, God would not create an entity already destined to have eternal punishment from the start.

 

[MtnDwellar]

When you said Lucifer was created good and evil from the beginning, what exactly did you mean? Did you mean he was created good with the affinity to be evil, or something of that nature? I’m confused.

I never said that.

The closest I came was saying that Satan was created good and was evil from the beginning.
This is not the same as saying he was created good and evil from the beginning.

My understanding, which has developed from various theologians, priests, and exorcist priests, is to think about it as everything happened in an instant. The creation, the fall, the battle, and casting Satan to earth. They happen for all of eternity. For this reason, the fallen angels can’t change their minds. The ways of heaven are so far above us that it’s really incomprehensible.

 

[ready]

When God created the heavens He created Lucifer and the other angels and He created every one of them good. At the beginning of time when Adam and Eve were created Satan (Lucifer) lied to them (as he still does to us), and though his lie, killed the supernatural life of Adam and Eve, thus he is the father of lies and a murder from the beginning. God bless you.

 

[Richca]

Rabbinical Judaism seems to have a view that makes more sense to me: That Lucifer isn’t evil, but is ordered by God to tempt humans. This makes more sense to me, because it would suit the need for the Serpent (AKA ‘Satan’) to be in the Garden with Adam and Eve. Are these beliefs heretical?

Lucifer is evil because he has an unchangable evil will that is against all good and God. Jesus calls the devil a murderer from the beginning, a liar and the father of all lies. A murderer and a liar is a spirit that is evil.

 

[Nanotwerp]

I never said that.

The closest I came was saying that Satan was created good and was evil from the beginning.
This is not the same as saying he was created good and evil from the beginning.

My understanding, which has developed from various theologians, priests, and exorcist priests, is to think about it as everything happened in an instant. The creation, the fall, the battle, and casting Satan to earth. They happen for all of eternity. For this reason, the fallen angels can’t change their minds. The ways of heaven are so far above us that it’s really incomprehensible.

I never stated you said that, I was just trying to understand what you already did say.

 

[thistle]

You would be correct if it was only my interpretation. Some theologians agree that time does not exist in heaven. Please read Thomas Aquinas who states that God and the angels are outside of time. St. Thomas is even more specific when he explains that angles can act within time and space, but do so from outside of time and space.

A Church teaching cannot be in error. It trumps everyone’s opinion and that includes Aquinas. Don’t forget Aquinas did not believe in the Immaculate Conception. He was wrong.

 

[ready]

EDIT:

When God created the heavens He created Lucifer and the other angels and He created every one of them good. At the beginning of time when Adam and Eve were created Satan (Lucifer) lied to them (as he still does to us), and through his lie, killed the supernatural life of Adam and Eve, thus he is the father of lies and a murder from the beginning. God bless you.

 

[mikekle]

Lucifer is evil because he has an unchangable evil will that is against all good and God. Jesus calls the devil a murderer from the beginning, a liar and the father of all lies. A murderer and a liar is a spirit that is evil.

Well, if that is true, then God CREATED a being that was evil from the beginning…and Gods statement “EVERYTHING I have made is GOOD” would be completely false.

 

[Nanotwerp]

Lucifer is evil because he has an unchangable evil will that is against all good and God. Jesus calls the devil a murderer from the beginning, a liar and the father of all lies. A murderer and a liar is a spirit that is evil.

Note how Jesus said ‘The Devil’, instead of ‘Lucifer’. Just as how God didn’t create evil, neither did Lucifer. What Lucifer turned into, i.e ‘Satan’ created evil.

 

[MtnDwellar]

Note how Jesus said ‘The Devil’, instead of ‘Lucifer’. Just as how God didn’t create evil, neither did Lucifer. What Lucifer turned into, i.e ‘Satan’ created evil.

No one created evil.

Evil is not at thing that has to be created. No one ever said, “Let there be evil.” God created all things good. These things included angels and man to whom he gave free will. Free will is used to either accept good or reject good. Rejection of good is evil.