The fall of Satan/Lucifer/ the Devil

[somoreno]

I copied the following quote from This Rock magazine. It is what I have always understood, but when I mentioned it to my JW friends they blithely dismissed it as “non-biblical.”

I fully understand that there are truths revealed by God (through the magisterium) which are non-biblical, but I got to wondering, where exactly does this idea come from, is it doctrine?

*“As for the particular sin the bad angels committed, many theologians believe that in their pre-fallen state the angels were given a foreknowledge of humans (who would be inferior to them), as well as a foreknowledge that God himself (the second Person of the Trinity) would be incarnated as a man and redeem the universe through his death on the cross.

*This revelation angered Lucifer because it meant he and the other angels would have to worship God incarnate. Lucifer and the other angels who fell were so proud of being superior to men that their overweening arrogance wouldn’t allow them to worship Jesus Christ the God-Man. This refusal–this non serviam–stemmed from pride. That, anyway, is the theologian’s theory.”

 

[Verbum_Caro]

Hmmm.
I too have heard this. . .but I am at a loss to say which “theologians” speculated on this. Does anyone know if Aquinas did?

Venerable Mary of Agreda (1602-1665), a mystic (not a theologian per se) writes about it in Mystical City of God.geocities.com/Athens/Ithaca/7194/ Part I, Book 1, Chapter 3:

In the second place, the angels were informed that God was to create a human nature and reasoning creatures lower than themselves, in order that they too should love, fear and reverence God, as their Author and eternal Good. They were informed that these were to stand in high favor, and that the second Person of the blessed Trinity was to become incarnate and assume their nature, raising it to the hypostatic union and to divine Personality; that therefore they were to acknowledge Him as their Head, not only as God, but as God and man, adoring Him and reverencing Him as God-man. Moreover, these same angels were to be his inferiors in dignity and grace and were to be his servants. God gave them an intelligence of the propriety and equity, of the justice and reasonableness of such a position. For the acceptation of the merits foreseen of this Mangod was exhibited to them as the source of the grace which they now possessed and of the glory which they were to obtain. They understood also that they themselves had been, and all the rest of the creatures should be created for his glory, and that He was to be their Head. All those that were capable of knowing and enjoying God, were to be the people of the Son of God, to know and reverence Him as their Chief. These commands were at once given to the angels.

To this command all the obedient and holy angels submitted themselves and they gave their full assent and acknowledgment with an humble and loving subjection of the will. But Lucifer, full of envy and pride, resisted and induced his followers to resist likewise, as they in reality did, preferring to follow him and disobey the divine command. This wicked prince persuaded them, that he would be their chief and that he would set up a government independent and separate from Christ. So great was the blindness which envy and pride could cause in an angel, and so pernicious was the infection that the contagion of sin spread among innumerable other angels.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church has this to say:
**
****II. THE FALL OF THE ANGELS ****

**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.”

392 Scripture speaks of a sin of these angels.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.” The devil “has sinned from the beginning”; he is “a liar and the father of lies”.

393 It is the *irrevocable *character of their choice, and not a defect in the infinite divine mercy, that makes the angels’ sin unforgivable. “There is no repentance for the angels after their fall, just as there is no repentance for men after death.”

394 Scripture witnesses to the disastrous influence of the one Jesus calls “a murderer from the beginning”, who would even try to divert Jesus from the mission received from his Father. “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.” In its consequences the gravest of these works was the mendacious seduction that led man to disobey God.

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.”

We know the fallen angels rejected God, but not exactly why. I don’t think the speculation you mentioned could be considered doctrine, but rather a very good explanation.

Hope that helps a bit?**

 

[PhilNeri]

I have heard a theory that the thing revealed to them was that Mary would be higher than them in Heaven. Their pride then set them off. I dunno, just something I’ve heard. The Incarnation makes a little more sense.

 

[Verbum_Caro]

Guess what? Venerable Mary Agreda goes on to say:

But also another mystery was concealed in all this: When it was revealed to the angels that they would have to obey the incarnate Word, another, a third precept was given them, namely, that they were to admit as a superior conjointly with Him, a Woman, in whose womb the Onlybegotten of the Father was to assume flesh and that this Woman was to be the Queen and Mistress of all the creatures. The good angels by obeying this command of the Lord, with still increasing and more alert humility, freely subjected themselves, praising the power and the mysteries of the Most High. Lucifer, however, and his confederates, rose to a higher pitch of pride and boastful insolence. In disorderly fury he aspired to be himself the head of all the human race and of the angelic orders, and if there was to be a hypostatic union, he demanded that it be consummated in him.

The decree constituting him inferior to the Mother of the Incarnate Word, our Mistress, he opposed with horrible blasphemies. Turning against the Author of these great wonders in unbridled indignation and calling upon the other angels, he exhorted them, saying: “Unjust are these commands and injury is done to my greatness; this human nature which Thou, Lord, lookest upon with so much love and which thou favorest so highly, I will persecute and destroy. To this end I will direct all my power and all my aspirations. And this Woman, Mother of the Word, I will hurl from the position in which Thou hast proposed to place Her, and at my hands, the plan, which Thou settest up, shall come to naught.”

 

[Fidelis]

The Catholic Encyclopedia in it’s article about the Devil examines this question at length. Here is an excerpt:

Although nothing definite can be known as to the precise nature of the probation of the angels and the manner in which many of them fell, many theologians have conjectured, with some show of probability, that the mystery of the Divine Incarnation was revealed to them, that they saw that a nature lower than their own was to be hypostatically united to the Person of God the Son, and that all the hierarchy of heaven must bow in adoration before the majesty of the Incarnate Word; and this, it is supposed, was the occasion of the pride of Lucifer (cf. Suarez, De Angelis, lib. VII, xiii). As might be expected, the advocates of this view seek support in certain passages of Scripture, notably in the words of the Psalmist as they are cited in the Epistle to the Hebrews: “And again, when he bringeth in the first-begotten into the world, he saith: And let all the angels of God adore Him” (Hebrews 1:6; Psalm 96:7). And if the twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse may be taken to refer, at least in a secondary sense, to the original fall of the angels, it may seem somewhat significant that it opens with the vision of the Woman and her Child. But this interpretation is by no means certain, for the text in Hebrews, i, may be referred to the second coming of Christ, and much the same may be said of the passage in the Apocalypse.

To see the entire article go to:
newadvent.org/cathen/04764a.htm

 

[somoreno]

Thank you all for your help. It looks like it is not any sort of doctrine, but a likely surmise of theological minds much more advanced than mine…

 

[Jayson]

I’ve heard that a partial meaning for Revelation 12 is the showing of God’s plan, including Mary, to the angels in heaven. We then see the war in heaven occurring as a result of this vision and the reaction of lucifer and 1/3 of the other angels to it. While the vision is being shown to them, I don’t think the angels realize that the Dragon is one of them. After the vision, Lucifer and the other angels react and then the identity of the dragon is revealed. So the vision actually includes the reaction of the angels to the vision in a symbolic manner.

The Vision Shown to the Angels in Heaven
1: And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; 2: she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery.

3: And another portent appeared in heaven; behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems upon his heads.

4: His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, that he might devour her child when she brought it forth; 5: she brought forth a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, 6: and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which to be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days.

The Reaction to the Vision
7: Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, 8: but they were defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. 9: And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world, was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.