Understanding Satan and the advent of evil

[Thales]

I was wondering if anyone could help me out with the following theory written below. First of all I would like to know if it makes sense, and secondly, if it is theologically sound and does not conflict with the Bible or any Catholic teaching.

It seems as though understanding evil as a void of good is very plausible and provides solutions to some of the problems concerning Satan, the advent of evil, and the dilemma of a good God creating evil. Evil as the void of God and not a thing in itself, as darkness is not a thing but a void of light, the theory of evil being necessary for a mutable physical universe could be plausible without contradicting orthodox theology. With this premise, and knowing God is perfect and immutable and before anything else was He is and before any creation, God is all that is, we have to assume that any created thing that is not God Himself or a part of Himself must be to some degree outside of God which must necessarily be to some degree evil (evil is “not God”). God’s creation could have been created “very good”, as is stated in Genesis, but creation is not God and therefore is ultimately subject to being corrupted. God could have created things in a sense close to Himself and therefore good to a high degree, but being that creation is apart from God it has to fall on a sort of scale between the ultimate good (God) on one side and evil (not God) on the other. Being on this scale it is also ultimately subject to being corrupted and moving away from the good towards evil. Nature, and all created things for that matter, would only be corrupted from their original “good” state by either a will of their own or that of another entity other than God. With all this being said, when we consider the being of Satan or the Devil, we should not conflate this being with evil itself. Unlike God, who is the good, and we can say good is, evil is not, and thus cannot be synonymous with any entity. Entities and created things, like Satan, cannot be evil itself but move towards evil or away from God. Jesus says, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone. “(Mark 10:18), possibly meaning that created things can move towards God and goodness, but cannot be (the) good because they are not God. The same could be said of evil in a slightly different way—none can be evil, not even Satan, because evil is no thing. Whereas a created thing cannot be good because God is good; a thing cannot be evil because evil is no thing. Satan therefore, is an entity created good by God; a creature in the created universe (universe here referring to all of creation, physical and non-physical) having a will which chooses to move away from God and towards evil. He, being antithetical to God in all ways, desires to be one with evil as God is one with good, but Satan cannot do this, and resolves instead to draw all things away from God and thus towards evil.

This theory claims (a) evil is the void of God/good, as darkness is the void of light; (b) evil is necessary for creation because creation is outside of God and anything outside of God is not God and therefore to some degree evil/not-God; (c) Satan or the Devil is not the same as evil, but rather an entity fully dedicated to evil; (d) creation was made good by God, but subject to corruption or turning towards evil, for the fact that creation depends on the existence of evil.

Please, feel free to comment or critique and most of all ask for any clarification on aspect that may seem obscure.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

… creation was made good by God, but subject to corruption or turning towards evil, for the fact that creation depends on the existence of evil.

Creation does not depend on the existence of evil, but it allows the possibility of evil.

Evil does exist. Evil fundamentally is disobedience to the will of God.

This lesson was first given to us in the story of Adam and Eve.

The second time it was given is in the story of Cain and Abel.

In both stories God had urged his creatures to do the right thing. In both stories they defied God.

All moral evil is disobedience to God. Even Satan knows this, and exults in it.

 

[Thales]

Creation does not depend on the existence of evil, but it allows the possibility of evil.

Creation indeed allows for the possibility of evil, but many will ask why this is so? Why would God allow for this possibility if evil wasn’t somehow a necessary component of creation? The theory I posted would answer this problem by saying, not that God created evil, but that creation, a mutable existence, is contingent on there being something outside of God, and the existence of something outside of God would be not-God, and what is not God is not good.

Evil does exist. Evil fundamentally is disobedience to the will of God.

I agree, evil does exist, in as much as one would say that darkness exists. Darkness is not substantive though. One can conceive of themselves as being in darkness just as one can be in evil, but both things are not defined by what they are so much as what they lack–for darkness is a lack of light and evil is a lack of God or “the good”.

 

[Thales]

…

Evil does exist. Evil fundamentally is disobedience to the will of God.

This lesson was first given to us in the story of Adam and Eve.

The second time it was given is in the story of Cain and Abel.

In both stories God had urged his creatures to do the right thing. In both stories they defied God.

Evil certainly is displayed in disobedience to God’s will very early on in the story of creation, but the examples of Adam and Eve and so forth only go to show that evil was already in existence at that time. I don’t think anyone would claim that Adam and Eve created evil through their disobedience, though they certainly partook in it. Most people I think would identify evil with the serpent since clearly as the tempter, evil was with him, but I also don’t think the serpent was created evil, since God does not create evil. So, we are still in the quandary of where did evil begin.

 

[GaryTaylor]

“God could have created things in a sense close to Himself and therefore good to a high degree, but being that creation is apart from God it has to fall on a sort of scale between the ultimate good (God) on one side and evil (not God) on the other. Being on this scale it is also ultimately subject to being corrupted and moving away from the good towards evil.”

Its thought Adam and Eve had complete mastery over their nature. They sinned not because of the fallen nature and inclination to sin which incurred after the fall, but because of pride and envy. Thus subject to being corrupted immediately and moving away from the good towards evil is in relation the post fall.

or here…

Chapter 13

As soon as our first parents had transgressed the commandment, divine grace forsook them, and they were confronted with their own wickedness, thus they took fig leaves which was possibly the first that came to hand in their troubled state of mind, and they covered their shame, for though their members remained the same they had shame now and they had none before. They experienced a new motion of the flesh, which had become disobedient to them, in strict retribution of their own disobedience to God. For the soul reveling in its own liberty, and scorning to serve God, was self deprived of the command it had formally maintained over the body. And because it willfully had deserted its superior Lord, it no longer held its own inferior servant, neither could it hold the flesh subject as it would always had been able to do had it remained subject to God. Then the flesh began to lust against the spirit in which strife we are born, deriving from the first transgression a seed of death and bearing in our members, and in our vitiated nature, the contest, or the victory over death. City of God-Augustine

 

[Sam_777]

Interesting theory…

I have also read another theory, that GOD Spirit is like a core, and that core is surrounded by layers of heavens, the Angels in the first heaven cannot get corrupted because they are exactly near the core of GOD, then the second heaven with different Angels are surrounding the first heaven, and so on.

The first three heavens which surround the core of GOD, the Angels there cannot get corrupted by any means because they are protected by the essence of GOD.

Then comes another 4 additional layers of heavens in which the Angels there have the possibility of getting corrupted because they are further away from the core of GOD, in which Satan was in one of those remaining heavens with the last one (the 7th) is where the earth is located.

 

[EasterBeagle]

When God gives a position, he doesn’t take it back. At the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, we read how He fasted for 40 days in the desert and was tempted by the devil. “The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, ‘I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to’” (Luke 04:05). The earth was given to the devil when he was Lucifer. When Judas decided to betray Jesus, Jesus didn’t kick him out. In Rochester NY Bishop Clark was having gay Masses and pushing to have an out-of-the-closet lesbian nun (Sr. Joan) to be the first woman Priest. The Vatican just waited till he hit retirement age and forced him to retire. They didn’t excommunicate him.

 

[GaryTaylor]

Evil certainly is displayed in disobedience to God’s will very early on in the story of creation, but the examples of Adam and Eve and so forth only go to show that evil was already in existence at that time. I don’t think anyone would claim that Adam and Eve created evil through their disobedience, though they certainly partook in it. Most people I think would identify evil with the serpent since clearly as the tempter, evil was with him, but I also don’t think the serpent was created evil, since God does not create evil. So, we are still in the quandary of where did evil begin.

I think whats missed is the point that the battle of Good and evil in heaven occurred outside of time. By “time” itself evil existed with creation. Follow what I’m saying?

Evil didn’t exist until Lucifer refused to serve man- Christ. Thus again the pride.

 

[Thales]

Its thought Adam and Eve had complete mastery over their nature. They sinned not because of the fallen nature and inclination to sin which incurred after the fall, but because of pride and envy. Thus subject to being corrupted immediately and moving away from the good towards evil is in relation the post fall.

or here…

Chapter 13

As soon as our first parents had transgressed the commandment, divine grace forsook them…

Thanks for sharing the Augustine quote; I agree with all that is said here. You are right in saying that Adam and Eve, even of Satan, that it was not their fallen nature or some natural inclination which made them disobey God in the beginning. Saying this would imply God had created them evil, but God says that creation was good, even very good. So, unless we are to assume Adam and Eve, through their transgression, somehow created evil in the universe, we have to believe evil was already in existence and there as an option for Adam and Eve, even Satan, to go towards. It’s as if man, and all of creation for that matter, was created outside of God, but with our faces firmly facing towards God in close proximity. However, with free will and curiosity we desired to look behind us and what we saw there was not-God/nothingness/the nether gloom/darkness/evil. It was not that there was some other entity there which is evil (even though Satan was certainly lurking in that void), but simply the fact that it was not God is what makes the void evil. Since that moment, as Augustine points out, we lost the way and could no longer turn back and see God. It wasn’t until Jesus was glorified that we had a guiding light in the darkness for which to follow back towards the God we turned away from.

 

[Thales]

I think whats missed is the point that the battle of Good and evil in heaven occurred outside of time. By “time” itself evil existed with creation. Follow what I’m saying?

Certainly evil exists outside of space and time, and much of creation exists outside of time as well. Heaven and Hell, angels and demons, and maybe a bunch of other unseen and unknown things God created outside of our perceived time and space.

I’m not sure what you are getting at by saying, “By ‘time’ itself evil existed with creation.”
Are you saying that you think with the creation of time evil is a natural consequence? That evil has to be possible in order for time to exist?

Evil didn’t exist until Lucifer refused to serve man- Christ. Thus again the pride.

Pride is a deprivation of humility which acknowledges one’s role as a creature and not equal to or on par with God. Thus, in the sin of pride, as with all sin, it is a distancing from the truth, from God Himself. Distance from God is what evil is. When you say, “evil didn’t exist until Lucifer refused to serve…”, I think people get the idea that Lucifer in a way created evil or that they are the same thing, which could be a working theory to explain the advent of evil, but my theory says that, Lucifer may have been the first created thing to turn towards evil, but he is not its origin or the definition of evil.

Maybe the prudent thing to do at this point before things get confused is to define our terms. What is the definition of evil? I am going to begin by saying that evil is the void of God, or not-God.

 

[Thales]

Interesting theory…

I have also read another theory, that GOD Spirit is like a core, and that core is surrounded by layers of heavens, the Angels in the first heaven cannot get corrupted because they are exactly near the core of GOD, then the second heaven with different Angels are surrounding the first heaven, and so on.

The first three heavens which surround the core of GOD, the Angels there cannot get corrupted by any means because they are protected by the essence of GOD.

Then comes another 4 additional layers of heavens in which the Angels there have the possibility of getting corrupted because they are further away from the core of GOD, in which Satan was in one of those remaining heavens with the last one (the 7th) is where the earth is located.

I’ve also heard of this various choirs of angels idea and of their proximity to God. It sort of illustrates a little of what I am talking about mainly in that distance from God is what defines a thing, be it angel, man, or an entire heavenly realm as good or evil.

 

[GaryTaylor]

What I’m saying before time itself existed, evil existed. Which as you rightly know is evidenced by the Garden-Serpent. But I also believe your right by saying I am going to begin by saying that evil is the void of God, or not-God to further investigate in relation between Lucifer and his minions, temptation, and mans inclination to sin. Which results in the loss of sanctifying grace.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

So, we are still in the quandary of where did evil begin.

There is no quandary. Evil began with the disobedience of Satan.

 

[Thales]

There is no quandary. Evil began with the disobedience of Satan.

Is this the same as saying that Satan created evil? Would you go so far to say that Satan and evil are synonymous and thus there would be no evil if there existed no Satan?

In an attempt to all be on the same page with this discussion I would like to ask you for your definition of evil and Satan. I defined evil as that which is not God, and in relation to created things, they are in the state of evilness the further away from God’s will they are. Satan, I would tentatively define as the free willed being which was first to turn away from the will of God.

Another integral question to this whole matter is the way in which an all good God created a creation with the possibility of things turning towards evil.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Is this the same as saying that Satan created evil? Would you go so far to say that Satan and evil are synonymous and thus there would be no evil if there existed no Satan?

Satan and evil are not synonomous. God created Satan, but Satan was not evil at his creation.

He produced evil acts by disobeying God.

Evil is disobedience to God, so only created beings can perform evil acts. But evil is not a being. It is a free will act or condition of disobedience to God, and nothing more.

There is a tendency for us to confuse being with acts.

Hitler was not evil. But he performed evil acts. When we say Hitler was evil, what we really mean is that Hitler performed evil acts. But acts are not beings. Right?

 

[GaryTaylor]

conclusion?

Christian philosophy has, like the Hebrew, uniformly attributed moral and physical evil to the action of created free will. Man has himself brought about the evil from which he suffers by transgressing the law of God, on obedience to which his happiness depended. Evil is in created things under the aspect of mutability, and possibility of defect, not as existing per se : and the errors of mankind, mistaking the true conditions of its own well-being, have been the cause of moral and physical evil (Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite, De Div. Nom., iv, 31; St. Augustine, City of God XII). The evil from which man suffers is, however, the condition of good, for the sake of which it is permitted. Thus, “God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist” (St. Aug., Enchirid., xxvii). Evil contributes to the perfection of the universe, as shadows to the perfection of a picture, or harmony to that of music (City of God 11).

newadvent.org/cathen/05649a.htm

 

[Robert_Sock]

I know that people will try to shoot this down, and it’s worded differently in different versions of the bibles, but the following passage of scripture makes sense to me because God created Satan, and God is omniscient and all powerful; God knew all along that Satan would rebel and He could have created all His angels to always be obedient.

Isaiah 45:7 - “I form the light, and create darkness, I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord that do all these things.” (Douay-Rheims)

I also have to wonder if evil is the absence of good. For example, Satan tempts, and temptations are not in themselves the absence of good. Only the consequences of sin can be classified as being the absence of good.

LOVE!

 

[Thales]

…Man has himself brought about the evil from which he suffers by transgressing the law of God, on obedience to which his happiness depended. Evil is in created things under the aspect of mutability, and possibility of defect, not as existing per se : and the errors of mankind, mistaking the true conditions of its own well-being, have been the cause of moral and physical evil (Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite, De Div. Nom., iv, 31; St. Augustine, City of God XII). The evil from which man suffers is, however, the condition of good, for the sake of which it is permitted. Thus, “God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist” (St. Aug., Enchirid., xxvii). Evil contributes to the perfection of the universe, as shadows to the perfection of a picture, or harmony to that of music (City of God 11).

Yes, man has brought about the evil from which he suffers, but there is something deeper to the advent of evil which makes the possibility for evil something prior to man, something bound up with creation itself.

Evil is in created things under the aspect of mutability, and possibility of defect, not as existing per se

This passage seems to get very close to what I was thinking about in my original premise. In saying, evil is under the aspect of mutability, I think we can imply that somehow creation is by its nature mutable. God is not mutable, He is perfect and unchanging, but we know that creation, physical and non-physical, does change and is subject to defect. I propose that God, in order to have the creation that is, a creation that changes and includes free willed creatures, needed to make this creation outside of Himself. If creation was just a part of God it could not be anything but perfect and unchangeable like God is. So, we have to conclude that creation is contingent on the possibility of evil.

This passage also confirms the aspect of the original posted premise, when it says that, “Evil is…not as existing per se”. It is as if evil is not an existent thing, but rather a possibility, due to the nature of creation being mutable and outside of God.

 

[GaryTaylor]

Yes, man has brought about the evil from which he suffers, but there is something deeper to the advent of evil which makes the possibility for evil something prior to man, something bound up with creation itself.

Evil is in created things under the aspect of mutability, and possibility of defect, not as existing per se

This passage seems to get very close to what I was thinking about in my original premise. In saying, evil is under the aspect of mutability, I think we can imply that somehow creation is by its nature mutable. God is not mutable, He is perfect and unchanging, but we know that creation, physical and non-physical, does change and is subject to defect. I propose that God, in order to have the creation that is, a creation that changes and includes free willed creatures, needed to make this creation outside of Himself. If creation was just a part of God it could not be anything but perfect and unchangeable like God is. So, we have to conclude that creation is contingent on the possibility of evil.

This passage also confirms the aspect of the original posted premise, when it says that, “Evil is…not as existing per se”. It is as if evil is not an existent thing, but rather a possibility, due to the nature of creation being mutable and outside of God.

I’m with you. I think you can spend a great deal of time here; “I propose that God, in order to have the creation that is, a creation that changes and includes free willed creatures, needed to make this creation outside of Himself”

Its apostolic teaching also in that God doesn’t change, nothing is constant but change due to time itself. In this sense the understanding becomes a learning experience, its the struggle of life in the free will acceptance of grace often confused by the trials of world. In other words being of the world in time, its very easy to confuse blessing with curse.

Still leaves you with Lucifer, outside of time with free-will within the intellect of his own creation. We don’t hear much of Lucifer outside of time, whatever occurred, was immediate as was his creation. The order was immediately established. God’s relation to each event in a temporal sequence is the same as his relation to any other event, thus the verse “I AM” there is no yesterday or tomorrow for God to experience. So God is acting in yesterday and tomorrow, right now. So this event with Lucifer which occurred outside of time is also yesterday-tomorrow and now, just as is the Second Coming.

 

[Thales]

Its apostolic teaching also in that God doesn’t change, nothing is constant but change due to time itself. In this sense the understanding becomes a learning experience, its the struggle of life in the free will acceptance of grace often confused by the trials of world. In other words being of the world in time, its very easy to confuse blessing with curse.

Still leaves you with Lucifer, outside of time with free-will within the intellect of his own creation. We don’t hear much of Lucifer outside of time, whatever occurred, was immediate as was his creation. The order was immediately established. God’s relation to each event in a temporal sequence is the same as his relation to any other event, thus the verse “I AM” there is no yesterday or tomorrow for God to experience. So God is acting in yesterday and tomorrow, right now. So this event with Lucifer which occurred outside of time is also yesterday-tomorrow and now, just as is the Second Coming.

I’m glad you brought up the notion of time into all of this, because time is directly related to mutability which in turn is associated with evil.

Time, for Aristotle, is fundamentally linked to change and movement. Where there is alteration or movement, there is time, for everything that comes to be and ceases to be are in time. Another way of putting it is that there is change because there is time. Of things that come to be and pass away are things that belong to the world of nature (phusis). For this reason we say about the concept of God that it is a being that cannot be said to be “in” time because it is a being without temporal finitude: an unchanging absolute being, summum ens, as when Augustine writes in Book I of Confessions, “For you, God, are infinite and never change…you yourself are eternally the same.” By contrast, natural beings are finite in virtue of their being in time. This is why Aristotle’s analysis of time belongs not to his Metaphysics but to Physics, to his natural philosophy, for “every alteration and all that changes is in time” (222b31). Thus, in Book IV Chapters 10-14, Aristotle lays out his treatise on time to establish an account of time as essentially part of nature. The question, “What is time?”, will be expounded in terms of what it is for time to exist; by virtue of what can we say that time “is”; and whether time can be said to be among things that are or things that are not, that is to say, whether time is in the order of being or in the order of nonbeing.
— Paul Nadal
belate.wordpress.com/2011/02/17/aristotle-definition-of-time-in-physics/

I like Aristotle’s definition of time and it seems to lend itself well to this whole concept of creation, as it was created, having the possibility of evil as a byproduct. At this point I am pretty confident to say that both evil and time (I’m in no way conflating or relating the two) are epiphenomena of creation. They are not created things, like angels, planets, particles, or people, but byproducts of the existence of created things.