From the
Catechism, 395:
“The power of Satan is, nonetheless, not infinite. He is only a creature, powerful from the fact that he is pure spirit, but still a creature. He cannot prevent the building up of God’s reign. Although Satan may act in the world out of hatred for God and his kingdom in Christ Jesus, and although his action may cause grave injuries - of a spiritual nature and, indirectly, even of a physical nature - to each man and to society, the action is permitted by divine providence which with strength and gentleness guides human and cosmic history. It is a great mystery that providence should permit diabolical activity , but ‘we know that in everything God works for good with those who love him.’”
Even HH JP2 was to call the mystery of evil the “mysterium iniquitatis”. I believe we musn’t succumb to the Manichean temptation to grant evil, the Devil, Satan greater power than he has been allowed. Evil and Good are by no means coequal in power. The devil’s number one weapon may be to convince people he does not exist but, I fear, sometimes his second strongest weapon appears to be convincing people that he has more power over us than he has been allotted so that people become obsessed with finding Satan behind every unwanted thought or mistake, forgetting that Christ is more powerful and here with us now.
But the devil remains a mystery. I believe though that our decisions and deeds and beliefs in this life have a direct bearing on that cosmic battle between St. Mike and the fallen angels; that is that somehow, unbeknown to us, we are intertwined in precisely how that cosmic battle unfolds and that we have some bearing on the fallen angels. I do not know. It is just intuition on this point, but it makes more sense to me than believing we are simply pawns lined up by God to be dealt with as if in a gamble between God and the Devil (i.e. God grants Devil so many years of free reign on earth on some sort of cosmic bet). Our choices matter not just here on earth but on the metaphysical level.
How did Satan tempt Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. What was the first temptation: “you shall be as Gods”. This was the same temptation that damned Satan, the desire to be God. And this first temptation can be found on this earth to this day. The first step a Christian sometimes has to argue with the unbeliever is that there is such a thing as “evil”. Having accepted this, the Christian then has to argue that there is no such thing as “Absolute Evil” here as there is “Absolute Goodness” in God. Evil is the lack of or the contortion of Good. Nazism had to take the good let’s say of patriotism and twist it here and there until it became the twisted, sordid ideology it became. Communism had to take the good of equality and break it, twist it into the mutation of Communism. Yet both arose out of the same original temptation: “to be as Gods”. Hitler would often announce of his achievements and his followers: “We are creating gods!”. After the Bolshevik revolution, one of its chief ideologues Lunacharsky simply labeled Communism “God-Building”. Hence, their similar god-like architecture, statues, etc.
This is my small step into this thread. Charlemagne, I’m sorry, my next step is to figure out how to quote selectively and respond and quote and respond in one post. I am off to the back fence to figure out how to do it. Me needs some more education.
