What happens if Satan repents?

Great Debates
41

But, aside from Lucifer, there were other angels with Free Will who did not fall. If I take my dog off his leash, I don’t have in mind that he’ll run away. I know he might, but the point of Free Will is that God doesn’t know what a Free being is going to do.

Noted? :confused: Sure, it is noted. In the FIDEI DEPOSITUM I’ve linked to previously. You know – from the guys who brought you the Bible? 1900 years on the best sellers list?

It is just the nature of Satan’s sin and subsequent fall that there is nothing he can do to get out of it.

Divine justice is superior to human justice, of course, but I haven’t noticed any yahoos with uzis killing a bunch of pre-schoolers at a McDonalds exactly being forgiven after they repent. They really don’t have the freedom to truly repent anymore – they are going down the hole for the rest of their lives. God and his angels and his saints must forgive this man if he repents, but I don’t see why the justice of God shouldn’t reflect the typical justice of man.

People give him power over them by their own free choice. He isn’t everywhere nor does he know everything, nor is the yahoo with the uzi going to get very far by saying “Satan made me do it.”

Well, that is Lucifer a.k.a. the Morning Star’s most persuasive argument – that it is always darkest before the dawn. That if we just go with him a little further, we’ll eventually see that he’s the true god, not that other guy.

“Say, Satan – um… I’m up to my neck in rat shit and I think there are leaches down here…”
“Just a little further, you’ll see.”

Of course, why we are still walking down that path is a mystery. Herd instinct?

Well, at least he offers us repentance, unlike typical human justice. It is silly to serve Satan and think that you are free – God does seem to offer the better deal. But as an ardent Satan-worshipper myself, I made a bad spokesperson. YMMV.

42

Obligatory quote:
“There ain’t no Satan, there’s just God when He’s drunk.”
-Damn, I can’t think of who said it.

Anyway, with the mixed and muddled religious teaching I got (before I turned atheist), I was taught that angels were simply facets of the deity. Kind of like pieces of the infinite mind, given a kind of form for a limited time to communicate with us humans. In that theology, it is rather meaningless to say they have ‘free will’ or even their own existence. The Adversary (Satan) and his kin are just the pieces of the mind full of self-doubt and fear, the subconscious of the deity, if you will. Upon Judgement, the deity’s mind will be unified and the Universe will disappear like a dream, along with all of the doubt and fear now relegated to the nether-regions. Those free of fear will be unified, those not will simply cease to be. I think ‘God withdraws his breath.’ is the relevant concept here. With the duality gone, it will be Paradise.

Of course, I’m an atheist and don’t believe in any of this anyway. But it’s still interesting to follow and think about.

43

Well, if you think God is omniscient, then we really don’t have any free-will, at least from His standpoint, since he knows exactly what we are going to do.

44

I think Satan could repent, and could turn his heart to the Lord, and be saved.

Repentance on that scale might require some serious acts of contrition, by the way. And there is that whole pride thing, as well. Gonna keep dat ol’ debbil busy by and by.

But the barrier is, and always has been put there by the sinner, not by the Lord. Satan, you, and me, we all have the same end of the deal. And the choice is free.

45

We might allow that there are multiple definitions of the word omniscient: one meaning knowing what is and was, the other meaning knowing what is, was, and will be. As omniscient means knowing all that can be known, depending on your belief about what can be known its meaning changes.

46

Freedom wrote:

Aha! So you can sin in Heaven!

D’OH!

47

In Islam, “satan” rebelled not against God, but against man. “Um, God, you know those people you made- biiiiig mistake!–And I’ll prove it to you.” Hence the sin and temptation, etc.

Note: I’m actually a Catholic, I just like playing “devil’s advocate.”

48

Just as God is NOT this old kinda feeble guy sitting up there on the porch occasionally looking down and letting the world go on until something really important happens that requires his minimal attention but mostly ignoring everybody for which alot of people are going to give him a piece of their mind when they finally see him because when they did need Him He of course didn’t show up, Satan here, in my belief, is being misunderstood. He is being minimilized.

When Moses asked God, if he could look at Him, God told Moses that noone can look at Him and live. Not that God would kill him for doing it, but that His magnificense, His power, brightness, glory, His awesomeness is not something that a human being would be able to survive seeing. I mean for cryin’ out loud, He CREATED the Heaven and Earth. He commands the Sun to rise. He holds the waters back at the edge of the ocean. He is GOD.

Imagine THAT, in Evil Form. Of course not as much, because Satan is a created being, but he still, is an immensely powerful being, Satan IS Evil. He makes anything Wes Craven can come up with look like an innocent, lovely baby. He hates you. He not only wants to ultimately kill you, if he was allowed, he would do it slowly and torturously. He is a destroyer. He is behind every evil and wicked act ever committed throughout History, and I still haven’t been able to accurately paint the picture that I want you to see of this Powerfully Evil Being.

The point is this. Repentence is not a concept that is pondered or understood by Satan. It’s not a possibility to him.

49

Randy, have you actually read the Bible, or did you just believe everything your church taught you without question? you didn’t desribe Satan as he is in the Bible(certainly not the Old Testament), you described the Boogyman.
If the Satan you describe is totally evil and incapable of repentance, guess who made him that way-the “god” you worship blindly.
If either entity actually existed, I would consider Satan to be a natural force that canot be changed, not someone to hate, because he cannot be anything other than what he is.
I would save my hatred for a supposedly all-powerful being that would destroy the entire population of a planet in the cruelest way possible(except for one family), in a childish fit of anger.

50

I think it’s worth mentioning what the Bible says about Lucifer:

His rebellion isn’t the same as the sins we commit. Whereas a mortal rebels against faith, Lucifer’s action was open rejection of God, and an attempt to place himself as God, with full knowledge. It’s pretty hard to use our understanding of repentance in this case.

51

Except this verse does not refer to Satan! Read the whole chapter in context! It is refering to the King of Babylon, not a fallen angel! And if you start throwing around the word archetype, this verse can just as easily be applied to Jesus. After all, Jesus is called the Morning Star in Revelations (22:16). Lucifer means Morning Star.
Lets take a look:
Isaiah 14:13-15
You said in your heart, “I will ascend to heaven, above the stars of God, and will set my throne on High… I will ascend above the heights of the Clouds, I will be as the Most High.” Yet you will be brought down to the grave, to the sides of the pit!

Matt 26:64
Jesus said to him, “…I say to you, Hereafter you all shall see the Son of Man seated on the right hand of Power
and arriving on the Clouds of Heaven!”
Or how about this:
Isaiah 14:16
They who see you shall narrowly look at you, saying, “Is this the man who made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms?..”

Matt 27:50-54
Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, gave up the ghost. And, the veil of the temple was rent in two from the top to the bottom, and the earth did quake, and the rocks fell! … The centurion and those with him, sensing the quake, were terrified…

I can post more if anyone likes. The point is, if you take things out of context and put a spin on it, you can prove just about anything.

52

OH MY GOD JESUS WAS SATAN!!!

Heh heh, that Lucifer=Satan misunderstanding is a common one, it seems, as is Serpent=Satan.

53

To answer your question Czarcasm, yes I have read the Bible, and I don’t believe ANTHING ANYONE tells me until I can check it out myself.
I don’t understand what you meant by, “You didn’t describe Satan as he is in the Bible”.

I know that a Bible lesson probably won’t “go over” very well here on the SDMB, but since this is a Bible related OP, and since I’ve been accused of “not describing Satan as he is in the Bible”, I have to point out specific verses in the Bible to prove otherwise. Not an apology, just an explanation.

**Luke 4:5 **” Satan, taking Him (Jesus) up into a high mountain, shewed unto Him all the kingdoms of the world, in a moment of time. 6. The Devil said unto Him, all their power will I give unto Thee and the glory of them, for that is delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will, I give it.”
Satan here is tempting Jesus to bow down to him, with the promise that the world is his, and he can give it to whoever he wants. Jesus answers that He will only bow down to His Father. He doesn’t disagree with Satan about who has authority over the world.

At another place in the New Testament, Jesus calls Satan the “Prince of the World”. Satan is also referred to in the Bible as the “God of this World”, “Ruler of Darkness”, “Prince of the Power of the Air”. This is how he is “described” in the Bible. In Revelations, Satan is called the “King of the Abyss”, “Angel of the Bottomless Pit” and a “star falling from heaven”, who is given the key to the pit. Those titles show a being of GREAT authority.

In Revelation 12, he is called “The Great Dragon”, a creature of great fierceness and power. He is also named “Belial”, which is a Greek word meaning hopeless ruin, extreme wickedness and destruction.
Revelation 20 “He (Satan) shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, to gather them together for battle, their number is as the sand of the sea". Again, these descriptions seem to be of one with extreme power and authority.

In the Book of Isaiah, an Old Testament book, a prophecy is given that somewhere at the end of time as we know it, after Satan is cast down, men will look upon him and ask if this is he who “made the Earth to tremble, that did shake Kingdoms, that made the world as a wilderness, that destroyed the cities.” Literally or symbolically, however we interpret this, Satan is a powerful being.
Jesus described Satan as a “a murderer from the beginning, (who) abode not in truth, there is no truth in him. He is the father of lies.” John 8:44 Jesus also said that Satan’s ambitions were to “steal, kill and destroy”.
Satan has these capabilities:
To inflict disease, as he did to Job.
To totally possess or control the bodies and minds of some.
To “blind the minds of them which believe not, prohibiting the truth from being known.” 2 Corinthians 4:4
The “destruction of the flesh” 1 Corinthians 5:5
The Apostle Peter warns us that, “Your adversary, the devil, is a roaring lion, walking about seeking whom he may devour”. 1 Peter 5:8

I put alot of references here because I know that some will interpret some scriptures I have used as meaning someone or something else.

**

I’ve never read anywhere in the Bible, where any being or person was created to be evil. As someone in a previous posting pointed out, Satans fall came from saying in himself, “I will be as the Most High”. I wish that we would attribute all GOOD THINGS to God as much as we like to blame Him for everything bad.

54

The nice thing about the Bible is that, no matter what you believe, you can find at least a dozen verses that support your position once they are “properly” interpreted. Someone comes up with verses that support their position and, instead of responding to what they come up with(i.e. what the verses about “Lucifer” really refer to), you find other verses that you think support your conclusion.
Or perhaps you have a verse that tells us that all of these verses that describe what seems to me to be different beings(they have different names and do different things for different reasons), are all refering to the same entity. The name “Lucifer” is mentioned once, and is understood by most who have read the whole chapter as to be refering to a human king that thought to highly of himself.
The devil that tortured Job was directed to do so by your god, and didn’t initiate anything on his own.

On the other hand, it was your god that killed off millions of people and billions of innocent animals in one of the most horrible ways that can be imagined.
Nothing Satan did, even using the loosest interpretations of his character and supposed deeds, comes close to that dispicable act. Nothing Satan does in the Bible is as cruel as what your god did to Lot’s wife, who took a desparate glance at the destruction of the only friends and home she ever had, and was rewarded with the cruellest of punishments and eternal damnation.

One of the many reasons I am an Atheist is that I refuse to believe that anything as totally evil and heartless as the god you worship can exist in this universe.

55

What are you talking about??? I fail to understand your reasoning. You believe God is evil because he did this, thus therefore you believe he doesn’t exist, thus he didn’t do this, thus he isn’t evil, thus???

What do you expect in a God? Do you expect God to be a pussy?

You hypocrite. You pay to have people you don’t like imprisoned and bombed. You pay to maintain an arsenal of weapons capable of destroying the whole world. You don’t care about that, or your moral culpability for it. But when God has his own system of justice superior to your own you say he must be evil and can not exist. Why not fix the evil in yourself first? Or are you so evil you don’t exist either?

56

Wow.

Czarcasm, are you really the One in charge of everything on earth?

Get a grip, jmullaney. A lot of people have rejected the idea of God as Supreme Judge as envisioned by fundamentalist religions.

As scholar Marcus Borg puts it, “Tell me your image of God,and I’ll tell you your theology.” Or something to that effect.

I prefer an image of God in a more spirtual way than the Ultimate Scorekeeper. God is Love.

Back to the OP, though.

I believe that most of the Bible is allegory. In fact, most of the teachings of Jesus recorded in the Gospels were parables. If Jesus used parables, then it stands to reason that earlier Jewish writers, meaning the Old Testament authors, also used parables.

If, as I believe, Satan is an allegory, then there is no Being that needs to repent.

57

That is a big problem with Christian theology. Satan is an angel. Angels have no free will, so they can neither sin nor repent. Heaven is this perfect place devoid of sin. yet here we have an angel that sinned and was cast out. But yet he’s in heaven talking with God about Job. But God can’t be in the presence of sin. It’s flawed from the very beginning.

The origin of evil is told in the bible. It’s from God. He presents both possiblities, you have the choice which one to take.
Deuteronomy 30:15
See, I [God] have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil.

Isaiah 45:7
I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I the Lord do all these things.
As for God being petty and vindictive, I guess it depends on your outlook. I see the flood as a story that illustrates the point that the choices that you make in life can not only affect you but the others around you, and bad deeds can cause catastrophes that you might not have control over. But even the worst catastrophes still have some kind of hope in them, you can always start over. And Lot’s wife? Well, if you are turning away from a place in your life that wasn’t good for you, it might do more harm than good to look back and think about it.

58

It’s not exactly that clear. The reference in verse 4 might be interpreted that way, or it might be to compare the King of Babylon to Lucifer. You interpret it one way, I another.

59

jmullaney, I’ll try to put this as simply as possible.
IF the god you worship existed, I would consider him to be the evilest being in the universe.
Because I don’t believe something that evil and petty could exist without completely destroying the universe, I am an Atheist.

By the way, the next time you find evidence that I completely screwed up and innocent man’s life(Job), tried to convince a man to sacrifice his own son(Abraham), killing a woman because she jumped when I said “Boo!”(Lot’s wife), or destroyed most of a population of the world except for one family that I deem to be innocent(Noah) we can talk about the evil in my heart, o.k.?
Y’know, other religions have gods that are mass murderers, but it takes cojones to claim that your god did it out of love.

60

It is that clear. I didn’t “interpret” it. There is no need to “interpret” it. I read it as it was written. The whole chapter is a “proverb against the King of Babylon”. (The previous chapter is about Babylon and the king too.) It does compare the King of Babylon to Lucifer. Lucifer is the Latin term. But Lucifer is NOT an angel. And neither in Latin nor in Hebrew is the word for “angel” used. It translates “day star”, which is what they called the planet Venus. The author is comparing the planet Venus to the king. Venus’ light is bright enough to be seen in the morning (hence the name lucifer=day star), but disappears with the sun completely rises. This is a slam against the king (Nebuchadnezzar), telling him he will have a great but short reign and then would lose any chance of attaining the glory in history he wants. Basically calling him a one hit wonder. There are lots of comparisons in this chapter, all against old Nebbie. That is why verses 18 & 19 mentions other kings and their glory. For goodness sake, the chapter tells him he’s going to lose his land to porcupines (now there is a God with a sense of humor)! The whole thing is a taunt.

No fall, no devil, no evil force opposed to God, no repentance of Satan needed. Angels can’t repent because angels can’t sin.