*TIME ELAPSED SINCE I QUIT SMOKING:
Ten months, one day, 9 hours, 53 minutes and 31 seconds.
12296 cigarettes not smoked, saving $1,537.27.
Extra life saved: 6 weeks, 16 hours, 40 minutes.
Fool! Satan can’t repent. Because according to the prophecys he doesen’t. (the whole part where god will surely triumph I think means that he fights. Or maybe hes already repented)
Bottom line, we only know what god does about humans. God tells his angels what he does to them when they start rebelling.
Excellent question, seriously, and it demonstrates that it’s all a staged play, where one of the keys, repentence, is excluded by law from one of the players. Of course, this also assumes that Jesus is not Satan, which we can never assume in a rigged game, because if there really was a Satan, he would easily disguise himself as a soter of destruction.
Soter is a savior, a theological term. And it’s very easy to disguise as one, because people expect one before the fact. Even now, aliens could extort the fact that many people in the world expect Christ to return. By the way, I don’t believe in the actuality of Satan or Jesus, just in their imagined existence, which is more powerful (because they aren’t around to limit anyone’s imagination, so they are infinitely powerful as motivating ideas).
Also, it is more probable that if monotheism had any actual validity whatsoever, that Jesus would therefore be Satan, because it is impossible for God to fully employ Satan, and still be God, and it makes more sense that God fully allows anything to happen, even demon imposters as soter to see who the worthy intelligent humans worth saving are. Are they the cautious ones who trust their god-given instincts and develop their minds? Or are they toad-eating selfish types that believe in any “God” who promises them something? A hidden God would not be offended by atheists, but would obviously embrace them as standing up for their acquired knowledge (integrity) and never following the wrong idiot. It is safest to never take sides out of ignorance.
In tragedy, we don’t always know who the real antagonist is. Two world destroyers in one play? I think not. Besides, isn’t it just like a devil to kill all the other gods first?
According to the religious tripe that was drilled into my head during a summer bible camp* when I was a teenager, you must repent before you step into the afterlife. You can’t wait until you get there to see that there actually is a god, and then repent. If the same rule applies to Satan then he’s toast.
[sub]*Interesting anecdote: I never saw any religious enlightenement at that camp. I did, however, have my first sexual encounter there! Ah, the fond memories of bible camp…[/sub]
As per “rigged game,” consider that the outcome is foretold. This presents a problem, the least of which is the logical spawning of omniscience and predestination.
As per “staged play,” consider that the main players are polarized in a life and death struggle, a drama if there ever was one. Nature and real life is more mundane.
Now ask yourself: Why would a just and loving God need blind allegiance? Only a jealous one would. Jealous of what? BING! Jealous of the real God.
Also, life can only be a real test if and only if the answers are unknown. If they are “known” in any sense then it is part of the test, obviously an easy to spot deception, or simple test. A complex test involves right versus right (Greek tragedy).
Also, a hidden god does not validate faith in any way, in the sense that it is logical or even obvious to have faith due to God’s hidden nature. However, faith VALIDATES an invisible god. See the tricky part yet? Bad news for the faithful. If God ever shows himself, he won’t have any use for them, and they wouldn’t know him anyway, because faith inspires solid or simple expectations for simple reasons and the odds of a Supreme Being “being” what simple faith-obsessed people want him to be are slim indeed.
Conclusion from over a thousand years ago: A single supreme being is a major dilemma–either the diety is impotent for allowing evil, or unjust for punishing those for the wickedness he allows.
The more learned among us have concluded there IS no devil. Evil is misuse of universal law, which, naturally, God created. God created all there is. It would be foolish to think God would be ‘evil’ enough to even WANT to create Satan. Why would he do that? Think about it people. If you think God is anything but perfection, truth and goodnesss, you’re out of touch with reality. Satan, as a concept, was merely created by the team of ghostwriters, (you thought GOD came down and wrote a BOOK?..HAHAHA) who wrote the Bible to control people, to put enough FEAR in folks to encourage them to follow the religious ‘leaders’. They have always gotten a lot of mileage out of speaking about ‘SATAN’ who is supposedly lurking around every corner. The OP’s question is therefore moot. Sorry to disappoint all you ‘devil’ worshippers.
I still don’t see it. Since you’ve called it a “game”, let’s make an analogy with baseball. Suppose I am at the plate and one, two, three strikes – I’m out. The rules of the game do not allow me to “repent” and ask the umpire for another swing. But that doesn’t mean that I had no free will in the first place, or that my strikeout was pre-ordained.
I’m no expert in the field, but I’d always supposed Satan was reckoned (by traditional theology) to be in the same situation. He was an angel. He had free will. He rebelled. He was cast into Hell. And now he couldn’t get out if he tried, or wouldn’t even think to try in the first place, or something like that. (Though I know that some folks – Giordano Bruno for one – did indeed suppose that Satan might be saved). I just don’t see that it denies angelic free will.
There’s an unbelievably bad** book by Roger Elwood (don’t remember the title: Fallen Angel, maybe?) that attempts to deal with this (sort of…). A demon decides to repent, and spends the next however many pages wandering around bashing Christians who aren’t of Roger Elwood’s variety. Eventually, the demon blows it and ends up back in hell. The moral of the story seems to be: Demons are allowed to repent, but they won’t.
Convienent, that.
Did I mention that it’s a really, really, really bad book?
If we are talking about angels, then we have multiple problems to deal with. What are the limits of an archangel? How can one of them fall? A palace revolt against the creator of the universe? I hold that these personified forces are evidence that they don’t really exist (the forces or personalities, which are easy to imagine as motive), because the explanation is complicated for being too simple. Problem: If an archangel finds it convenient to rebel against God, maybe they know something about God that we don’t. Either way, if we assume suffering exists, we can also assume that either God wills it or cannot avert it, and therefore the idea of Satan becomes way too convenient, and problematic. By Occam’s razor, it makes more sense that there is no God, OR that there is a God or process testing us to see if we will prostitute ourselves to his imitation. It makes little sense to imagine a test with known answers and cast out sincere doubters who see this test as a trick (since that will yield only slaves, and slaves don’t require a test that uses or implies freedom).
Also, Jesus didn’t die for my sins, which I never had, but his death brought instant sin upon my head, and I am supposedly still going to be punished by his death. This sounds suspiciously based on pure evil to me. The blatant lie here is that if one doesn’t sell their soul to this demigod, then they are condemned by his grace. You can’t condemn someone for nothing by justice, not now, not ever.
From what I learned, it’s kinda like this: The angels in heaven are Gods servants and we are Gods children.
If my earthly father had sevants like a maid, butler, or a nanny they would have some authority over me because they know better and they are older and wiser. Being that I am my fathers daughter, I am heir to everything that he has (as long as I have obeyed him throughout the years).
When we get to, we will be over the angel, cause we are the children of God.
As for satan, he still has access to the throne. He can go in front of God just like the other angel, but he is no longer part of the staff.
Even though the devil is in rebellion, God still has ultimate power and can stop him from doing anything he wants. He has to ask God for permission to test us. Satan was kicked out of heaven. Read Isaiah and Job if you want to learn more.
Satan, first of all, welcome back, dude. Missed ya.
Second, I think your OP posits an impossibility. According to the theology in which I was raised (and later abandoned), a prime distinction between angels and humanity is that humans are the only ones with free will. Thus, Satan’s (the other one) revolt was preordained, and he does not have the capacity to repent, unless god chooses to allow him to do so.
My former religion never explained to us young’ns how god could preordain the entrance of an evil power into the universe, with all the attendant suffering, and still be a good god, but that’s not strictly germane to this discussion.
Here’s the Catholic “party line” – angels with freewill made irrevocable choice, does not imply lack of mercy to God. What Attrayant said, basically.
Oh, and BTW, Brian Bunnyhurt – I would suggest you might simplify your points about God being evil and Satan being good, by simply deciding to just go ahead and call Satan the bad one and God the good one just most like every other English speaker. You make some interesting point though.
I can’t see how this is consistent with other aspects of the Catholic party line:
How can a choice to act in a certain way be “irrevocable” if free will exists? Couldn’t Satan just decide to stop acting evil?
If Satan’s choice is irrevocable because he has committed too much evil by now, doesn’t that blow a big hole in the concept of Divine forgiveness and/or the ability to redeem oneself?
I would suggest that they sinned against the Holy Spirit. Being angels, they probably even know what that means. WAG coming up. Since angels are pure spirit, they are more able to screw up on such a plane than we are – and in fact, this would be the only sin they could possibly commit.
Though sin is a free choice of free will, sin by its nature reduces freedom. All sinners are slaves, as Paul said. So theoretically, you could sin so bad that you lose your freedom not to sin. Perhaps humans can’t, but celestial beings can. Perhaps they are SuperJunkies.
Satan can’t repent. Because according to the prophecys he doesen’t. (the whole part where god will surely triumph I think means that he fights. Or maybe hes already repented)
