According to the Bible, Satan’s fate is pretty much sealed. He’s gonna be destroyed for his wickedness. Certainly he’s privy to this information, right? So why would he rebel? Does he think God’s just full of bluster and that he can win in the end? Is he not so enamored with the thought of eternal life (which is pretty terrifying if you really think about it), so he’s sacrificing it for a few eons of twisted pleasure? Or is he just an agent of God’s plan, meaning he’ll be destroyed by God for following God’s orders?
Which denomination’s doctrine are you asking about?
Bear in mind, the idea of Satan having ever rebelled against God is extrabiblical mythology, never clearly presented in either testament.
Pick one.
Sure, but it’s a belief held by a whole mess of folks, so I’m curious how it’s all reconciled.
No, you pick one. You are the one with the question.
I think the very concept of Satan is nothing but God’s “plausible deniability” to account for everything that doesn’t mesh with scintillating goodness and fuzzy-wuzzy virtue. “Oh, I didn’t mean for all those children to burn to death, it must have been Satan.” This explanation works, regardless of whether God is real, or simply the creation of men.
Why would he? Does Satan read the bible?
Yes, and my question made no mention of being denomination-specific. Clearly the purpose of the debate is to explore the differing views on the subject, which can vary based on denomination or individual contemplation. I’m asking for individual points-of-view, whether they’re informed by a specific denomination or not. If I was asking about a specific denomination’s canonical view on the subject, I would’ve posted in general questions.
God’s sock! :eek:
Revelation 12:7-9
New International Version (NIV)
7 Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. 8 But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. 9 The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.
Yeah, but that’s all set in the future, isn’t it?
I think the belief is that Satan is on earth, doing his dirty work. Therefore, he’s been booted from heaven. This isn’t a banner I want to carry because I put Satan in the same camp as the Easter bunny.
He’s mentioned as early as his deception of Eve in the bible.
To answer the OP’s question and assuming Satan exists, he has no choice but to fight the good fight and hope he can win in the long run. He probably adopted that mindset after his “Oh shit” moment when he was booted from heaven.
The OP references beliefs that mainline Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox do not espouse. So the question “any denomination” is relevant.
Well, I always thought that was an interesting question for believers, If one insists that Satan can not or would not read the bible, I would think that many followers of evil already told Satan about what is coming.
At the very least you’d think he would have run across some Chick Tracts in a rest stop bathroom.
It would seem a little odd for God’s nearly omnipotent chief nemesis to be unaware of the prophecy. It’s not like he’d need a visit from the Gideons to catch wind of what was going down. He has, after all, spent thousands of years tempting men away from God.
I’ve talked to a lot of Christians that believe that Satan, per se, is not real but a manifestation of evil that is in the heart of man. The destruction of Satan is the destruction of this evil.
Of course, to denominations that take the Bible literally and believe the earth is only 6,000 years old this is blasphemous heresy. But I tend to agree that the whole concept of good, evil, eternal life, etc. exist on a plane above our mortal comprehension.
For example, how can eternal life be life as we know it on earth? (Without sickness and dying of course). Take golf. Let’s say you love golf. You could golf every day for 100,000 years to the point where the very idea of golf makes you vomit. Move on to politics. Rinse and repeat. Eventually, you will have done every activity imaginable, be sick of it, and still have an eternity left. It must, therefore, be somewhat different than that.
(Re: Revelation )
Not necessarily, Revelation is mostly about letting us know what is going on in the heavens which parallels our earthly existence.
The best answer I can give is given in the greatest commandment which is shortened form is “Love God, Love others”. To me all other commandments are stemmed from and satisfied by this one (if you do this you can violate any others and be found guiltless by God).
It is the learning of this law that is so critical and sets a person/demon/devil free of the consequences of ‘karma’. Most of us here will learn this law as a person, perhaps not in this life, but in a reincarnated sense we will repeat it till we learn it. There are also higher beings that need to learn this, demons and the devil (Satan).
So as I see it Satan is just learning, like a child learning, that is is not nice to pull wings off of butterflies, but until he learns us (the butterflies) suffer if we get caught by Satan.