Is satan's war against God -- more of a political one?

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delefin

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Most Christians were taught that satan rebelled against God…

some say, he wanted to overthrow God and take his place. Others say he was envious of man and now wants us all to perish in hell.

Most skeptics view this as almost “comic book like”, especially the first theological view. How can a someone who knows/sees an infinite being who created him ever come up with the idea that he can somewhat “kill him” for his throne?

It got me wondering if it possible that satan’s way of waging war with God is by attacking him on a political/philosophical way.

We Christians know God as completely perfect yet this can be viewed as philosophically disputable.

In where satan wants to show God that he actually made a mistake… how? by showing how much his creation was a botch. If he never created us (and even satan himself) would there be evils such as the Holocaust, 9/11, child sacrificing, random serial killers and rapists, poverty, etc? Hence raising a political argument against God’s principles and the whole image of “Perfect” being a factual attribute.

God will always be “perfect”, there is no one who can ever be equal to his level of power, wisdom, and righteousness.

However, as a creator did he make a mistake in creating us (and satan)… we all know he will come again, and his kingdom will have no end (as the Apostles Creed says) but, he isn’t winning it all because a few of his creations are still going to hell.

I’m not raising doubts on God, just my thoughts on how satan’s war may be.

This is not an actual theological view…
 
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The Fall of the Angels (much like the Fall of Man, although the Fall of Man was partially out of ignorance and therefore is not irrevocable) is from pride and envy.

Behind the disobedient choice of our first parents lurks a seductive voice, opposed to God, which makes them fall into death out of envy.266 Scripture and the Church’s Tradition see in this being a fallen angel, called “Satan” or the “devil”.267 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. CCC 391

Scripture speaks of a sin of these angels.269 This “fall” consists in the free choice of these created spirits, who radically and irrevocably rejected God and his reign. We find a reflection of that rebellion in the tempter’s words to our first parents: "You will be like God."270 The devil “has sinned from the beginning”; he is “a liar and the father of lies” CCC 392
 
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I’m not disputing this theology.

I’m just saying that satan’s way of attacking God is more political like than just out of power. It is showing or making the argument about God failed.
 
Satan makes himself his own god when he puts his will above the will of the Father.

When we obey the Father we imitate Jesus, and when we obey ourselves and commit mortal sin, we imitate the devil.
 
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delefin said:
This is not an actual theological view…
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It might be related to a theological viewpoint. One that I’m sure others have had. I’m not sure it’s the prevailing one, but one nonetheless. What’s in the CCC doesn’t really get into much detail, so you’d have to do more studying to see if this viewpoint is one that’s part of the theological milieu.

I think one could easily pull a viewpoint out of scripture as a whole that is closely related to what you’ve described in this thread. I think I could safely say that what you’re describing is a point of view that relates to the theological point that God Himself is veiled and cannot be completely understood even by angels. If we start from there then it’s not a stretch to see that satan could rebel and then find himself even further from God than he was before. At that point, it’s possible to say that satan cannot recognize certain things that have a good nature.

To get back to your specific point in relation to mine - if the “Word of God” is veiled then it’s entirely possible that satan uses the veil as a means to cause confusion and chaos, saying things like “surely you don’t believe that? that doesn’t make sense, can’t you see that’s not how it is?, how could God let that happen?”.

Jesus tells us why Scripture is veiled. So it could make sense that some people are easily distracted so that they cannot see and hear God. All it takes is for a few people to buy into pride and envy to blind them from God and you get some really terrible results that just serve to feed more doubt about God.
 
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Personally I don’t know (or think it matters too much, to us) the precise nature of Satan’s rebellion. One way or another it probably boiled down to the same thing for him as it does for us: preferring self to other. Preferring pride to humility, etc.

To be honest I doubt Satan’s stupid enough to think it’s intellectually ‘disputable’ that God is good and correct in everything He does. Satan is allegedly one of the cleverest of the angels (and all angels are theoretically cleverer than humans), so I think it’s highly unlikely that Satan thinks he can philosophize against truth and goodness itself (God being truth and goodness itself). Humans may be silly enough to get confused by the so-called ‘problem of evil’, but I doubt demons are. They may exploit human confusion about it – I just doubt that they’re confused about it themselves.

I think it’s more likely that Satan’s rebellion looks similar to the older brother’s rebellion, in the prodigal son story: the one who finds out that the Father forgives the younger brother and is throwing a feast to celebrate his return, and the older brother resents this and doesn’t want to join the party. More of a hissy fit of the heart than anything, and ultimately it boils down to ego, not intellect. Satan (like the older brother) wants the Father to judge the son, judge the sinner, and not forgive him. That refusal to join the forgiveness party is the problem. Hissy fit of the heart. Satan sees God’s goodness… he just doesn’t like it. (Possibly this is a variation of ‘Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit’, too: seeing God’s goodness, and calling it evil. The older brother (Satan) seeing the Father forgive the younger brother (humanity), and the older brother despising that goodness, and separating himself from it.)
 
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I don’t know if I want to call my view on this a “theological” one. It is more of fantasy at the moment due to no cosigning views from the Church or any respected theologian.

I don’t understand why satan would ever have the idea to rebel against God on anything related to power (i.e. taking over heaven). Because that is almost comic book like to me. Why would you ever build the assumption can over power God -the one who created you and can snap you out of existence in less than second? It’s pointless.

I do think that the only slight way of “victory” is by changing the perception of God. Like a form of politics. Making it arguable (even agreeable to others) that God made a mistake by creating us(or even creating satan himself).
 
delefin said:
I don’t understand why satan would ever have the idea to rebel against God on anything related to power (i.e. taking over heaven).
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It connects with PRIDE -

We see the same actuality from any human who tries to become “lord” over Earth and and all who dwell

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The way I tend to look at it is this:

Satan is, figuratively, a tantruming child. He’s not actually waging a coherent campaign so much as flailing and thrashing around wildly. Because he was an angel, his mad foolishness comes off as more thought out than humans are normally capable of, but he’s still just a child trying to smash his father’s stuff as he is sent to his room.
 
delefin said:
where satan wants to show God that he actually made a mistake…
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The Bible depicts the Enemy differently. In Job he is very loyal to God, in a very mean way, and God allows him to come in and test Job’s faith. There it looks like Satan has an envious devotion to God, as in he is the only one capable of deciding who is loyal to or not (see his reflection in us sometimes…).
In the NT he never argues with Christ about Christ’s identity and bows to Him. Which may have been the demi-legitimate reason why the Rabbis wondered with Whom Christ is performing miracles with. This is when Christ asks them if demons can heal and the Rabbis don’t answer.
He is also again mentioned when Peter tries to stop the Crucifixion. Here is where most Christian scholars are triumphantly contemplating Satan’s fear of failure in case the Son of God tricks him and lets him judge Christ (which Satan does and trips in the end). However it also a form of devotion (can’t say mean here) when he tries to save Christ from.Christ’s plan.
Satan appears again answering a failed exorcist that he refuses to.leave a man because he does not that exorcist like he knew Christ and Peter (this causes many agnostics to claim again that maybe Christ was doing things together with the demons which only proves the intelligence of the Enemy at sowing doubt).
So there is no war between Satan and God described in the Bible. When God wants to stop him He stops him. It is not a conflict or a battle it is authomatic use of power (unlike the way God deals with us even when He is mad at us).
There are no depictions of battle between Angels and Demons either. When Angels come against Demkns they just throw the Demons out, there is no epic story like between two parallel disputing powers.
So in the end we have very little biblical evidence of this war between Heaven and Hell. There is however a war between Hell and People as in the World. And the reason why the conflict is on parallel grounds and we can call it a war is God’s mercy who does not allow the full power of the Enemy to be present against us (or else we would be simply gone/destroyed).
 
Mary888 said:
There are no depictions of battle between Angels and Demons either. When Angels come against Demkns they just throw the Demons out, there is no epic story like between two parallel disputing powers.
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but doesn’t Jude give some sort of actual battle between Michael and satan?
 
delefin said:
but doesn’t Jude give some sort of actual battle between Michael and satan?
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I did not mean to say or sound like the Archangels and Satan are not opposing parties. I meant to say that there isn’t an epic conflict, like a war, between two parallel sides, like two countries. When the Holy Angels come Satan just falls down. St Jude even presents that Michael is not using powers or anything on His own, but instead He invokes God’s power:
“1:9 When Michael the archangel, disputing with the devil, contended about the body of Moses, he durst not bring against him the judgment of railing speech, but said: The Lord command thee.”
So what is described is only defeat (of the devil) and the Glory of God and His Angels. There is no ongoing battle like in a war between people.
When you turn on the light even the darkest room is simply no longer dark, because now there is light in it. There is no battle between light and darkness once the light is lit. Darkness simply ceases to exist, is dead, where the light is lit.
 
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Inquiry said:
Satan is, figuratively, a tantruming child. He’s not actually waging a coherent campaign so much as flailing and thrashing around wildly. Because he was an angel, his mad foolishness comes off as more thought out than humans are normally capable of, but he’s still just a child trying to smash his father’s stuff as he is sent to his room.
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Satan … and those who follow his lead - are warring against Jesus Christ…

_
 
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