The Devil and demons

[simpleusername]

Hello I have some thoughts about the devil and just want to run them by some people to help me figure these thoughts out.

I’m kinda writing this as I am thinking it out. forgive me for my lack of organization.

So Satan is a fallen high angel. He tempted Adam and Eve in the garden which translated to he tempted man to original sin. people often say that one has fallen to the devil when he or she sins or that the devil has caused them to sin. So this kind of talk leads to a belief that we sin because of the devils temptation and he is the source of all temptation. well if that being the case then who tempted the devil? It seems on a more day to day life we have our sins that we each struggle with, but these temptations seem to not be a fault of a devil but of our selves we are the ones who fall to our own temptations. To have it otherwise makes it seem like the devil is to blame, he is the one tempting us after all. So to me it feels like a small shift in the blame. a friend thought that maybe because Satan’s power he had the ability to choose what he wanted where we would not but still then the devil would have to be tempted to do the wrong.

just thinking now, how is it that the devil has power over us at all? If hell is understood to be the total absence of God, an abyss of nothingness as it could be understood how could the devil even exist, to be able to tempt us? The argument that comes to mind is that existence= goodness even on a minuscule level. having the devil be the total sum of evil still seems to have some goodness though from even existing. and if the “source” of evil exists why would us humans think that hell would be ceasing to exist for that would make us less “good” than the devil himself.

Thank You!
May the peace and love of God be with you
-Simple

 

[Bob_Crowley]

… well if that being the case then who tempted the devil?

I"m no expert, but according to Christ, the devil was a liar from the beginning. This would precede human history. If he was a liar from the beginning, and “Lying is his native language”, then he would not have needed anyone to tempt him. For whatever reason, his rebellion began very early.

It seems on a more day to day life we have our sins that we each struggle with, but these temptations seem to not be a fault of a devil but of our selves we are the ones who fall to our own temptations.

The devil tempts, but he’s not responsible for our actions. We are. However without his constant tempting, things would be a lot easier. In addition, he puts his people in positions of power eg. Hitler, Stalin, and they in turn foster the growth of evil.

The temptation to abort an unborn child for example is very much the devil’s work for several reasons -

1. He can kill a lot of unborn children with it, and he hates human beings.
2. He can then lay claim to the souls of all those who took part in an abortion, from the mother to the father if he agreed, supporting relatives and friends, medical staff, politicians and judiciary who formulated and enforced the law which encouraged it, and made it legal. Make no mistake about this.
3. By using the latter in particular, he can make opposing abortion illegal, which then means Christians will be persecuted, and a rift is driven between church and state.

The tempation to abort a child as an inconvenience comes straight from the devil. Make no mistake about that. But we are still responsible for our decision.

To have it otherwise makes it seem like the devil is to blame, he is the one tempting us after all. So to me it feels like a small shift in the blame. a friend thought that maybe because Satan’s power he had the ability to choose what he wanted where we would not but still then the devil would have to be tempted to do the wrong.

The tempation for the devil was his own pride, if anything. This comes from within, and is not an external temptation.

just thinking now, how is it that the devil has power over us at all?

Through the Fall, he has some sort of legal claim on all of us, if we do not adhere to Christ. I don’t profess to understand this, but if it weren’t so, then Christ would not have had to die for our sins. Even Christ called the devil the King of this world. If God were the king of this world, would we have wars, rapes, injustice, cruelty to people and animals, child abuse etc. etc. all through human history? I can’t remember a time when there wasn’t news of war somewhere in the media, either close by or far away.

If hell is understood to be the total absence of God, an abyss of nothingness as it could be understood how could the devil even exist, to be able to tempt us?

I suppose I use the concentration camps as allegories of hell. In concentration camps there is a complete absence of human rights. This absence of rights does not mean that there is an absence of active evil. To me the definition of hell as the absence of God is a bit of a cop-out. I have said many times that the night my own father died, he appeared in my room. He started with an apology, we argued and conversed, and at the end he gave this terrifying scream and disappeared. I still remember the scream thirty four years later this month, and it was quite obvious that he was terrified of something coming for him. It wasn’t just an “absence of God”.

The argument that comes to mind is that existence= goodness even on a minuscule level. having the devil be the total sum of evil still seems to have some goodness though from even existing. and if the “source” of evil exists why would us humans think that hell would be ceasing to exist for that would make us less “good” than the devil himself.

That the devil was created by a good God is not in question. But it seems that if any creature wilfully cuts itself off from God, it loses the ability to remain good in its own strength. LIkewise if we cut ourselves off from Christ, we lose that ability over time. It may not be obvious immediately, but each succeeding generation that denies him moves further and further away from the truth. The difference between us and the devil is that we live in time, hence it takes time for evil to grow. The devil does not live in time, and his decision is immedaite and irrevocable.

That’s how I see it more or less.

For whatever reason, only God can remain good and holy in His own strength, and all his creatures, whether angelic or human, remain good only as long as they remain united with Him. There is something in God which is intrinsically holy, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever will be. None of HIs creatures have this intrinsic strength or character, but depend on Him for His holiness to continue in them.

Rebellion cuts them off. As I said my own father went to Hell as far as I’m concerned, going by the terrifying scream. But his walk in that direction started years before when he rejected God. From that time on the die was cast, and he just got worse.

Same with the devil.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

1. He can kill a lot of unborn children with it, and he hates human beings.
2. He can then lay claim to the souls of all those who took part in an abortion, from the mother to the father if he agreed, supporting relatives and friends, medical staff, politicians and judiciary who formulated and enforced the law which encouraged it, and made it legal. Make no mistake about this.
3. By using the latter in particular, he can make opposing abortion illegal, which then means Christians will be persecuted, and a rift is driven between church and state

To add to this bit of my post above, there is a fourth paragraph.

1. He can then persecute the church using the state.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Hello I have some thoughts about the devil and just want to run them by some people to help me figure these thoughts out.

I’m kinda writing this as I am thinking it out. forgive me for my lack of organization.

So Satan is a fallen high angel. He tempted Adam and Eve in the garden which translated to he tempted man to original sin. people often say that one has fallen to the devil when he or she sins or that the devil has caused them to sin. So this kind of talk leads to a belief that we sin because of the devils temptation and he is the source of all temptation. well if that being the case then who tempted the devil? It seems on a more day to day life we have our sins that we each struggle with, but these temptations seem to not be a fault of a devil but of our selves we are the ones who fall to our own temptations. To have it otherwise makes it seem like the devil is to blame, he is the one tempting us after all. So to me it feels like a small shift in the blame. a friend thought that maybe because Satan’s power he had the ability to choose what he wanted where we would not but still then the devil would have to be tempted to do the wrong.

just thinking now, how is it that the devil has power over us at all? If hell is understood to be the total absence of God, an abyss of nothingness as it could be understood how could the devil even exist, to be able to tempt us? The argument that comes to mind is that existence= goodness even on a minuscule level. having the devil be the total sum of evil still seems to have some goodness though from even existing. and if the “source” of evil exists why would us humans think that hell would be ceasing to exist for that would make us less “good” than the devil himself.

Thank You!
May the peace and love of God be with you
-Simple

Good philosophic thinking when you say total evil has no existence. Where your logic went off the rails is your deinition of hell. Hell is not a total abyss of nothingness, nor the total absence of God.

God is present in the Cosmas in at least two distinct manners. The order of Nature and the order of grace.

In the order of nature we and the angels have been given a gift of life to possess for eternity that God will never reneg on. In that order the Angels are the highest type of creation. Amongst the angels Lucifer was, allegedly, the most perfect, the closest in created nature to God.

However in the order of Grace (esp sanctifying grace) we are talking of Participation of creatures in God’s own Nature/Life. You could also call this the Supernatural order.

Hell is missing out on that participation in God’s Life. Angels and human were created with the (absent) potential to share in that Life. But it is not ours by right.

The fallen angels did so by a pure, untempted decision of their wills. One can of course still sin (turn away from one’s proper good) without external temptation. That is why Aquinas opines that a minority of angels fell - for all things being equal it is natural to seek one’s proper end.

Not so with humanity. Because we inherited a wounded nature, and also because the fallen angels somehow externally pull us away from our intrinsic natural tug to seek what we were made for, it is entirely possible that the majority of humanity will have fallen by the end of time. Given the existence of Purgatory we might expect a better percentage final count than the above grim picture suggests.

But in the end - who knows .

BTW temptation does not intrinsically destroy freedom - though it will limit freedom in varying degrees. Mortal sins can still be committed when tempted, especially when committed repeatedly over time

 

[Bob_Crowley]

I think God’s present even in hell. If not, there would be no degree of punishment, and the devil could do as he wished.

I’m of the opinion that my own father is in hell for the reason I put in my first post, but I don’t think he’s undergoing the same level of punishment that Adolf Hitler is.

It would hardly be the devil who showed restraint in relevant punishment, therefore God must have some restraining influence even in hell.

I’m reminded of a cartoon in a local newspaper at the time Rudolph Hess died. He was one time Hitler’s deputy, but spent the last half of his life in Spandau Prison (I think) until he died.

To the best of my knowledge he never repented of his acts during his Nazi career, or his beliefs.

The cartoonist showed a picture of a recognisable Hitler standing in jackboots and nazi paraphenalia in the flames of hell, and greeting Hess with “Well, Hess?” and Hess replies, “Well, Fuhrer?!” It was only a cartoon, but it seemed to be saying something to me that this was more or less what happened.

I think there are levels in hell, and if so, then God must even be present in hell to some extent.

 

[Fomalhaut]

So, was the Devil created good and freely chosed to turn away from God, or was he created bad in nature ? If the first one is true, God knew it would happen and created Satan anyway, and if the second one is true, well, it’s even more direct. Either way, the way I see it in the christian philosophy, God intentionally introduced Bad and Evil in the world.

Thoughts ?

 

[Polycarp1]

There is an excellent book on this called Angels and Demons - What Do We Really Know about Them? by Peter Kreeft.

ignatius.com/Products/AAD-P/angels-and-demons.aspx

 

[Glomung]

Satan was created good, but through his own pride rebelled against God.
Since that time, Satan and his angels (other demons who fell) have spent their time and spite by tempting God’s other children to sin and by being a general nuisance.

Ever heard of free will?

God does not create evil. Satan fell through his own pride. Knowing that something will happen does not imply responsibility for it happening. Do you blame God for the stupid things that humans do? Why blame Him for what devils do?

 

[Usagi]

So, was the Devil created good and freely chosed to turn away from God, or was he created bad in nature ? If the first one is true, God knew it would happen and created Satan anyway, and if the second one is true, well, it’s even more direct. Either way, the way I see it in the christian philosophy, God intentionally introduced Bad and Evil in the world.

Thoughts ?

“Created good and freely chose evil” is the Catholic teaching (and the common Christian belief).

Whether God can see the definite future of a creature and then choose not to create it is an interesting question. Yes, God is both omniscient and omnipotent, but the way in which those qualities are understood may preclude certain outcomes.

God’s omniscience includes two different abilities. By “the knowledge of vision,” He knows everything that actually occurs. That is, because He is not part of spacetime, He perceives the entire universe and everything happening in it, without needing to move around or wait to experience things in different places or times. In terms of the very basic Einsteinian physics I leaned in school, God sees the entire “world line” of a person or thing, not individual moments in succession as we do. That is how He can know the future without determining the future; He sees what I actually, freely do from a perspective outside time, rather than knowing my choices “before” and thereby in some sense locking them in.

Second, by “the knowledge of intellect,” he knows all possible outcomes of every action and decision. Like some kind of ultra-advanced computer from a SF story (only more so), He has the knowledge and reasoning ability to predict the complete outcome of even the smallest decision.

The question is, at what point does the second kind of knowledge become the first? It’s not very meaningful to talk about “before” and “after” when it comes to God, but if we can imagine God “before” creating the being traditionally called Lucifer, it seems to me He would at that point have only the knowledge of intellect, being able to see all the possible lives the new creature might live. It’s not meaningful to say that God would have the knowledge of vision of the actual decisions made by a being that remains uncreated. Only in the act of creation would God have certain knowledge of the actual choices made by the actual creature He has made, and at that point “choosing not to create” is no longer a meaningful option. (Again, as far as we know, God doesn’t actually experience “before” and “after” like this, but the upshot is that knowing a creature’s actual free decisions and actually creating that creature are inextricably tied together. We can’t speak of knowing the actual decisions made by a creature that is never going to exist.)

Of course, God still chooses at every moment to permit Satan (and all of us) to continue in existence and even to harm ourselves and each other without directly intervening to stop us. So it is true that God permits evil to occur, presumably to preserve a higher good like free will, but I would not agree that He wants or intends a universe that actually has evil in it. He allows for the possibility (which has turned out to be a sad reality), but from what has been revealed to us He would have preferred another outcome.

Usagi

 

[findingmyself08]

There is an excellent book on this called Angels and Demons - What Do We Really Know about Them? by Peter Kreeft.

ignatius.com/Products/AAD-P/angels-and-demons.aspx

This. It is an excellent book if you have questions about angels and demons. Kreeft writes in a question and answer format, so it’s very easy to read through in a day or so.

I would also suggest the book The Invisible World: Understanding Angels, Demons, and the Spiritual Realities that Surround Us by Anthony Destefano. He goes into quite a bit of detail about angels, demons, grace, suffering, sin, etc.

shop.catholic.com/books-1/faith-fundamentals/the-invisible-world-understanding-angels-demons-and-the-spiritual-realities-that-surround-us.html

 

[findingmyself08]

Hello simpleusername, I’m going to attempt to answer some of your questions, using some information I picked up from Anthony DeStefano’s book “The Invisible World: Understanding Angels, Demons, and the Invisible Realities that Surround Us.” Hopefully, it’ll help you with your question.

So this kind of talk leads to a belief that we sin because of the devils temptation and he is the source of all temptation. well if that being the case then who tempted the devil?

The simple answer to your question is that no one tempted the devil to sin. He did so of his own accord, out of his pride.

The long answer to your question must get at what is Satan and how is he different from humans. Lucifer before he became the fallen angel known as Satan and the devil, he has one of the higher angels. What is an angel? An angel is a pure spirit. They have no material body. Angels are like humans in the sense that they have intellect and have free will. But they are unlike humans in the sense that they are not tied to material bodies as humans are tied to their bodies. That means angels as pure spirits are not limited by time or space in the same way humans as part spirits (through our soul) and part material bodies are. Let me turn to Anthony Destefano to explain this better:

"In fact, every function performed by material creatures depends on their design and construction. The way they get their energy, the way they dispose of waste, the way way they come to know things - it’s all tied, in some way or other, to their bodies. Even the way they think and feel is ‘wired’ through their nervous systems…

Being a pure spirit means that you have none of these restrictions. It means that you’re not bound by the constraints of physical space. You don’t have to ‘move’ in order to go somewhere else. You can just ‘be’ wherever you want, whenever you want. It means that you don’t have to think with the help of the brain; you don’t have to depend on your senses to learn things, see things, smell things, or know things."

Furthermore, angels have free will like humans. They are free to choose which way to go, which way to turn, either good or evil.

Now, how does that relate to your question? The answer lies in that as a pure spirit, Lucifer did not need to analyze or dissect his decision to choose good or evil in the same way humans would. He was able to see the consequences of his decision to reject God from the beginning and yet he still choose to reject him. Why? The answer most theologians and Scripture will give you is because of his pride. He did it to assert his independence from God, out of arrogance, and plain old self-love.

I hope this was able to clear up some of your questions about Satan and the other fallen angels.

 

[simpleusername]

Thank you everyone who has responded. I now do understand better the fall of Satan and his role in evil.

I now pose the question, hypothetically would we be able to sin on our own with out the temptation of the devil and without original sin? it would seem so. where of course the devil does exist he did tempt us and we did choose sin.

And what is the most appropriate way to view hell? because if you ask me the worst punishment possible would be a ceasing to exist, not some place where I am tormented. but I see how this may be wrong due to my own misjudging of the evils of hell and the degree of torment.

some one posted in here that it seems some would be treated more harshly from others but that doesn’t really make much sense. we are all dead in our transgressions regardless of the sin we are all fallen, it seems like it would be fallen to a similar state. Opinions?

-Simple

 

[billcu1]

I think God’s present even in hell. If not, there would be no degree of punishment, and the devil could do as he wished.

I’m of the opinion that my own father is in hell for the reason I put in my first post, but I don’t think he’s undergoing the same level of punishment that Adolf Hitler is.

It would hardly be the devil who showed restraint in relevant punishment, therefore God must have some restraining influence even in hell.

I’m reminded of a cartoon in a local newspaper at the time Rudolph Hess died. He was one time Hitler’s deputy, but spent the last half of his life in Spandau Prison (I think) until he died.

To the best of my knowledge he never repented of his acts during his Nazi career, or his beliefs.

The cartoonist showed a picture of a recognisable Hitler standing in jackboots and nazi paraphenalia in the flames of hell, and greeting Hess with “Well, Hess?” and Hess replies, “Well, Fuhrer?!” It was only a cartoon, but it seemed to be saying something to me that this was more or less what happened.

I think there are levels in hell, and if so, then God must even be present in hell to some extent.

Are you talking about Gahenna or Sheoul? Sheoul is just the realm of the dead. Gahenna in Jesus’s day was a trash dump. In the valley of Hinnon. Personally I don’t believe in “a/the devil” there maybe something to “Satan”. Like “Shaitan” become angelicized. “Satan”. But the shadows or reparim of sheoul were nothing to fear.
I believe the church teaches of “hell” not so much as a place but state of without god. More like Sheoul. There was Moloch too. The children of Israel wandered and picked up many false gods. God is present in “hell” and a way for the fallen will be made. Too be revealed.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

So, was the Devil created good and freely chosed to turn away from God, or was he created bad in nature ? If the first one is true, God knew it would happen and created Satan anyway, and if the second one is true, well, it’s even more direct. Either way, the way I see it in the christian philosophy, God intentionally introduced Bad and Evil in the world.

Thoughts ?

The goodness/evil of a faculty is quite different from that of its operations/use.

So yes you are right - God created Lucifer (not Satan) good (all his faculties were perfect). Lucifer freely chose to do things inconsistent with what was best for himself (evil acts, an evil use of his good faculties). He damaged himself. Yes, God knew it was a possibility.
He allowed it to happen, to do otherwise would be to reneg on the gift of nature given irrevocably into the sole possession of creatures for their own purposes.

“God knew it would happen” … yes, in the sense that time for God is not a straight line. All time for God is more like a circle facing in to the same central point where he resides.

Its dangerous for us to try and use “logic” re God’s being present to All time as we cannot really get our heads around it and the logic may actually be faulty.

There is no secret that there are some things God cannot/will-not do. He cannot make 1=3 for example.

 

[billcu1]

Thank you everyone who has responded. I now do understand better the fall of Satan and his role in evil.

I now pose the question, hypothetically would we be able to sin on our own with out the temptation of the devil and without original sin? it would seem so. where of course the devil does exist he did tempt us and we did choose sin.

And what is the most appropriate way to view hell? because if you ask me the worst punishment possible would be a ceasing to exist, not some place where I am tormented. but I see how this may be wrong due to my own misjudging of the evils of hell and the degree of torment.

some one posted in here that it seems some would be treated more harshly from others but that doesn’t really make much sense. we are all dead in our transgressions regardless of the sin we are all fallen, it seems like it would be fallen to a similar state. Opinions?

-Simple

This was taught to Adam and passed down through the generations concerning evil.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qliphoth

 

[Blue_Horizon]

I now pose the question, hypothetically would we be able to sin on our own with out the temptation of the devil and without original sin? it would seem so.

And what is the most appropriate way to view hell? because if you ask me the worst punishment possible would be a ceasing to exist, not some place where I am tormented. but I see how this may be wrong due to my own misjudging of the evils of hell and the degree of torment.

some one posted in here that it seems some would be treated more harshly from others but that doesn’t really make much sense. we are all dead in our transgressions regardless of the sin we are all fallen, it seems like it would be fallen to a similar state. Opinions?
-Simple

would we be able to sin on our own with out the temptation of the devil and without original sin?

Of course! That possibility is intrinsic to the definition of free will. This was the point I tried to make above. However it would take very great pride to sin mortally without external temptation and without the wounded nature we all inherit from Adam. In this pure state the wind is behind our backs re choosing good. What sort of person would want to fight a head wind to go their own way . Very, very few. Only a very bad/proud one methinks.

the worst punishment possible would be a ceasing to exist

I don’t think so. People usually commit suicide for this very reason - even in this life the hope of oblivion
looks sweet to those suffering at rock bottom.

some one posted in here that it seems some would be treated more harshly from others

This also is not aligned with clear Catholic teaching…which I presume is what you are seeking on this Forum. Why is it so?

I can only give you my view on it - Karma. While hell is often looked upon as a place where God personally wants to see us punished…this is probably an athropromorphism. Clearly the torments we suffer are linked almost mechanically to the (unseen) damage we do to our souls by free acts of the will in our earthly lives. In the after-life we simply see/feel for the first time what we have really been doing. We carry the lot internally to hell or to heaven. The deeper we stab ousrselves of course the more its going to hurt! The more we accept and clothe ourselves in the good things God gives us … the richer we will be in heaven.

I don’t think its rocket science.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Nicely put above FM08. Just some fine-tuning…

Being a pure spirit means … that you’re not bound by the constraints of physical space. You don’t have to ‘move’ in order to go somewhere else. You can just ‘be’ wherever you want, whenever you want.

This is not you, you quoted it, but its poorly put and tends to suggest that Angels are composed of little more than “invisible matter”.

The point is that angels, being pure spirits, do not actually exist in the space-time continuum at all. Its like saying that flowers smell blue. Only in this way could it be said they are not “constrained by space”. Fact is, they are neither constrained nor not constrained…because only material substances exist in space. Location has no meaning for angels.

Lucifer did not need to analyze or dissect his decision to choose good or evil in the same way humans would. He was able to see the consequences of his decision to reject God from the beginning

This also needs to be qualified a little. Beings with intelligence can only make free, evil choices because they somehow choose not to recognise/see that those choices are limiting when compared to other possible choices.

Now you are perfectly right when you say that angels instantly and clearly see all the logical consequences of their decisions given their clear knowledge of present reality.

But their nature’s are limited. This means their sight of present reality while very clear (unlike us) is not incompatible with gaps and limitations. On a clear night I can see all the way to the moon. I cannot see objects on the far side of the moon.

There are things angels cannot see at all, only infer. In some way every creature is limited re understanding its own deepest self. Nor can they know the interior life/choices of other intelligent beings (other angels and even humans). However angels/demons can, from circumstantial evidence alone, infer very deeply (and usually correctly) the interior hidden motives/acts of humans and thus have “prophetic” insight into the course of world events.

For these reasons I would maintain that “Lucifer was able to see the consequences of his decision to reject God” is not fully correct. He may have had a general idea, an inferred appreciation of the consequences of living apart from God - but prob not a detailed, clear view of the total future for himself consequent upon his decisions.

He may have personally thought he knew all the consequences with certainty, yet was objectively mistaken because he didn’t accept that due to his limited nature there are things still hidden even from his clear gaze.

I am not completely certain re this area…maybe someone can provide references to answer this.

And what of Satan after suffering the consequences of his decision?

This is of course getting very theologically speculative but maybe it helps clarify things all the same. I see this going either of two ways:
(1) If you are right and Lucifer did truly see all consequences for Himself in his original decision then nothing new. His pride and strength is so great he would rather suffer and maintain his independence from God and foresaw all this.

(2) If Satan’s original decision was based on excessive pride in his power to fully see consequences of his decision…well now his angelic Intellect will “force” him to see he got it horribly wrong. But seeing is not automatically accepting or repenting. His iron Will of pride maintains autonomy from God because this was what caused him to see wrongly (i.e. not have faith in God) in the first place.
Perhaps Satan now reacts in either of the following two ways
(a) Sees clearly he was mistaken - and suffers in an even greater interior “hell” due to the now “observable” dissonance between the force of his Intellect seeking Truth and his Will seeking independence.
(b) Wilfully blinkers his intellect to the unforeseen, catastrophic consequences of his original decision he now experiences and maintains an illusion of successful independence from God. I do not think this is really a possibility. Aquinas seems to observe that the intellect of angels is so clear and strong that they cannot wilfully blind themselves to present reality and its logical consequences no matter how painful to see.

Who knows.
The only thing I am suggesting is that even angels may not see all the consequences of
their decisions because they do not see all things even though what they do see they see all the way.

 

[findingmyself08]

Hello again, Simple.

I now pose the question, hypothetically would we be able to sin on our own with out the temptation of the devil and without original sin? it would seem so. where of course the devil does exist he did tempt us and we did choose sin.

Hypothetically speaking, it would be possible to sin without the devil’s temptation and without original sin because of free will.

Free will means that we are given the ability to choose our own way in any given set of circumstances. A favorite book of mine by Victor Frankl explores free will (in a way) in the light of the Holocaust (Frankl is a survivor from the death camps). His book is called “Man’s Search for Meaning.” He describes free will as a human freedom - something that cannot be taken away even in the light of one of the most oppressing and devastating periods in human history.

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” - Victor Frankl in “Man’s Search for Meaning”

God created both humans and angels with free will. As I stated in my previous post, Lucifer was allowed to sin because he had free will. In a similar way, humans can sin because they have free will. In this sense, even if Satan is not trying to tempt us and even if we did not have the nature of original sin, we could still sin if we were so inclined. We are created with this capacity.

And what is the most appropriate way to view hell? because if you ask me the worst punishment possible would be a ceasing to exist, not some place where I am tormented. but I see how this may be wrong due to my own misjudging of the evils of hell and the degree of torment.

I don’t think ceasing to exist could be the worst possible punishment because if you cease to exist, you cease to have any feeling whatsoever. This is kind of the idea that atheism seems to promote - nothing will matter because when you die, there will be nothing.

The worst possible punishment in my eyes would be able to see what you have lost out of your own sin - oneness with God, joy, happiness - and never be able to attain it. That is specifically what hell has been described as - an absence of God. Once again, I’ll turn to DeStefano’s explanation in his book:

What is hell like? We don’t know very much, expect that there’s a great deal of suffering there. According to theologians, the greatest kind of pain in hell is simply being separated from God. Remember, God is Light and Joy and Peace. To turn away from him is to turn away from those things - permanently. It means plunging yourself into darkness, unhappiness, and chaos. And to have seen God - even just a glimpse of him at the moment of judgment - and then to withdraw from his presence forever, knowing the kind of happiness you might have had, has got to be the most horrible kind of torment imaginable. After all, what is worse that the pain of loss?

Now, in the above excerpt from DeStefano’s book, we get the idea that the absence of God may not be the only kind of pain in hell, but that it is most likely the worst pain one will be able to feel.

some one posted in here that it seems some would be treated more harshly from others but that doesn’t really make much sense. we are all dead in our transgressions regardless of the sin we are all fallen, it seems like it would be fallen to a similar state.

I would have to agree with that - no matter what sin causes one to end up in hell, nowhere does it appear (from my memory at least) in Catholic tradition that some will be treated more harshly than others. It seems that those who end up in hell are there because they chose to go against God in one way or another. Even Dante’s Inferno doesn’t explicitly say that each subsequent circle of hell is worse than the next, just that the punishments for each circle are different.

 

[findingmyself08]

Thanks for your comments, Blue Horizon. I’ll try to explain or add more information to your thoughts.

This is not you, you quoted it, but its poorly put and tends to suggest that Angels are composed of little more than “invisible matter”.

The point is that angels, being pure spirits, do not actually exist in the space-time continuum at all. Its like saying that flowers smell blue. Only in this way could it be said they are not “constrained by space”. Fact is, they are neither constrained nor not constrained…because only material substances exist in space. Location has no meaning for angels.

I agree with you that angels do not exist in the space-time continuum. It may have been the way I “chopped” out the sections of his work to prove the point that angels do not need to process things in the same ways humans do. It might also have to do with our inability to come up with a completely adequate analogy to the reality of angels. The point that was trying to be made is that while angels have some similar qualities to humans, there are still many more that separate the two beings.

Now you are perfectly right when you say that angels instantly and clearly see all the logical consequences of their decisions given their clear knowledge of present reality.

But their nature’s are limited. This means their sight of present reality while very clear (unlike us) is not incompatible with gaps and limitations. On a clear night I can see all the way to the moon. I cannot see objects on the far side of the moon.

There are things angels cannot see at all, only infer. In some way every creature is limited re understanding its own deepest self. Nor can they know the interior life/choices of other intelligent beings (other angels and even humans). However angels/demons can, from circumstantial evidence alone, infer very deeply (and usually correctly) the interior hidden motives/acts of humans and thus have “prophetic” insight into the course of world events.

For these reasons I would maintain that “Lucifer was able to see the consequences of his decision to reject God” is not fully correct. He may have had a general idea, an inferred appreciation of the consequences of living apart from God - but prob not a detailed, clear view of the total future for himself consequent upon his decisions.

Blue Horizon, that is an excellent insight and one that I definitely did not fully consider. I would agree that Lucifer probably had a more general idea of the consequences of his actions to reject God.

I also agree that angels are limited in their abilities. I didn’t mean to imply that angels could “know the interior life/choices of other intelligent beings (other angels and even humans).” But rather that they are able to infer those (this is a point that DeStefano covers in his book).

And what of Satan after suffering the consequences of his decision?

This is of course getting very theologically speculative but maybe it helps clarify things all the same. I see this going either of two ways:
(1) If you are right and Lucifer did truly see all consequences for Himself in his original decision then nothing new. His pride and strength is so great he would rather suffer and maintain his independence from God and foresaw all this.

(2) If Satan’s original decision was based on excessive pride in his power to fully see consequences of his decision…well now his angelic Intellect will “force” him to see he got it horribly wrong. But seeing is not automatically accepting or repenting. His iron Will of pride maintains autonomy from God because this was what caused him to see wrongly (i.e. not have faith in God) in the first place.
Perhaps Satan now reacts in either of the following two ways
(a) Sees clearly he was mistaken - and suffers in an even greater interior “hell” due to the now “observable” dissonance between the force of his Intellect seeking Truth and his Will seeking independence.
(b) Wilfully blinkers his intellect to the unforeseen, catastrophic consequences of his original decision he now experiences and maintains an illusion of successful independence from God. I do not think this is really a possibility. Aquinas seems to observe that the intellect of angels is so clear and strong that they cannot wilfully blind themselves to present reality and its logical consequences no matter how painful to see.

Once again, those are interesting propositions. The only problem I can see with your second way is that it assumes that having an angelic intellect always points toward truth, which would almost seem to impede their free will. Let me try to explain. If having intellect means that we will always discover truth, how can we be allowed to freely choose? Wouldn’t we eventually discover that we were wrong in one way or another? Having free will means we are free to choose good or evil despite truth. Angels may have a clearer concept of good and evil than human beings, but I don’t think that means they will always discover or know truth. An atheist may have a great intellect, but still not believe there is a God.

This does lean more toward your idea that Satan possibly did not see the entire extent of the consequences of his actions (of which I will concede) as he is not God. Only God can know all consequences of every action. I think that’s why it is such a theological conundrum because we are speaking of realities that we do not fully understand.

Who knows.
The only thing I am suggesting is that even angels may not see all the consequences of
their decisions because they do not see all things even though what they do see they see all the way.

Agreed.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

So, was the Devil created good and freely chosed to turn away from God, or was he created bad in nature ? If the first one is true, God knew it would happen and created Satan anyway, and if the second one is true, well, it’s even more direct. Either way, the way I see it in the christian philosophy, God intentionally introduced Bad and Evil in the world.

Thoughts ?

It’s probably impossible for God to given any creature free will without the risk of rebellion. It’s like families - the same risk applies. No parent can say in advance whether their kids will turn out good or bad.

The difference is that God knew, but He went ahead anyway as He deemed it worthwhile.

In that respect, God knowingly took the risk.

But our choices are ours - not His.