# Why did God create Lucifer Morningstar? (Satan) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 21, 2012, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-god-create-lucifer-morningstar-satan/641751 "2012-11-21T19:01:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Dr.Colossus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.colossus/32/9423_2.png) [@Dr.Colossus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Colossus)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2012, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-god-create-lucifer-morningstar-satan/641751/81 "2012-11-27T22:11:20Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > When you do ask your Jewish friends, be sure to ask them for their definition of “perfect”. …what is the point you are trying to make? i think i’m missing it… ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2012, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-god-create-lucifer-morningstar-satan/641751/82 "2012-11-27T22:15:59Z")
> [@Dr.Colossus](#): > > …what is the point you are trying to make? i think i’m missing it… Not trying to make a point-just trying to find out if the Jewish idea of a Perfect God lines up with the Christian idea of a Perfect God. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Colossus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.colossus/32/9423_2.png) [@Dr.Colossus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Colossus)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2012, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-god-create-lucifer-morningstar-satan/641751/83 "2012-11-27T22:18:23Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Not trying to make a point-just trying to find out if the Jewish idea of a Perfect God lines up with the Christian idea of a Perfect God. ah got it. as do i. will do. eta: my problem w NT God is this insistence of perfection, which creates a lot of conflict, which dissolves into “just gotta have faith!” while i’m not Jewish, i really like how methodical and more knowledge-based it is. it isn’t really a matter of salvation nor is it a matter of faith. it’s more willful and for a lot of other reasons seems more…i dunno. high-minded? i dont know the term. i’m not _that_, but i respect _that_. ---
**Author:** ![panaccione](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/94ad74/32.png) [@panaccione](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panaccione)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2012, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-god-create-lucifer-morningstar-satan/641751/84 "2012-11-27T22:35:18Z")
> [@simster](#): > > ‘God’ didn’t create any of them - the writers of the pieces in question did as they needed both a protaganist and an antagonist in order to sell the story/lesson at hand. > > when you realize that its all ‘people trying to explain crap they can’t yet explain’ - its so much easier to fathom how this stuff managed to survive. Yet, millions of people take it as the literal truth and there is no convincing them otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-god-create-lucifer-morningstar-satan/641751/85 "2012-11-28T02:10:07Z")
> [@Dr.Colossus](#): > > do you not believe G-d is all-knowing? By all means, count me as a vote against “all-knowing”. > [@](#): > > He is considered the Almighty, tho–so i would think that would imply omnipotence. I think creating stuff in six days, and then resting on the seventh, implies the opposite. (It implies someone ludicrously mightier than you or me, but still leaves plenty of room for a hypothetical six-hour wonder, or even a six-minute one.) Now, you can of course postulate that He wasn’t really resting – and could have accomplished the whole thing in well under six seconds – and, as CJJ beat me to suggesting, you likewise don’t need to take the rest of the narrative at face value: instead of simply going with the implication of least resistance, you can figure that He’s always only ever just pretending to be decidedly limited. I’ve certainly heard Christians explain the OT that way; problem is, I have no need of that hypothesis. ---
**Author:** ![CoastalMaineiac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e8c25b/32.png) [@CoastalMaineiac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CoastalMaineiac)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-god-create-lucifer-morningstar-satan/641751/86 "2012-11-28T03:07:29Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Let’s grant that the Satan in Job (obviously God’s agent) and the Satan who tempted Jesus during his 40-day fast (clearly evil) are separate entities, and further that neither is identical with the serpent in the Garden of Eden. I’ve got no problem with that; it’s the simplest interpretation of the text. The question would still remain “Why did God create an evil, powerful being who would act in opposition to his designs?” just as if the Serpent/Job’s Satan/Matthew’s Satan were all the same person. Opposing forces are pretty much a law of nature. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, right? It’s basic physics. Gravity pulls us downward with a force equal to that of our weight (f = mg, if I remember my physics lessons right). The ground (or floor) on which we stand is exerting on us an upward force equal in magnitude to the force of gravity, else we’d be falling continuously. If God created and defined the rules for all things physical, why would He not reuse the concepts elsewhere? If the good didn’t exist at all, how would we know to shun the evil? If the evil didn’t exist, how would we know to love the good? Without death looming in our futures, would we know to appreciate life? Clear as mud, ain’t it? Oft so, in the case of spiritual matters. Does God exist at all? I’m inclined to believe so, although I imagine Him to be very different than the picture we’ve painted of Him over the years. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-god-create-lucifer-morningstar-satan/641751/87 "2012-11-28T13:08:49Z")
> [@James52637](#): > > It NEVER says that! It says only that they defied him. There is also a quote in the Bible that implies God knows the future, If Iremember the quote right it says," before you were in the womb, I knew you.But there are a lot of contradictions to that saying. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-god-create-lucifer-morningstar-satan/641751/88 "2012-11-28T13:16:32Z")
> [@CJJ](#): > > The short answer is that God did not create a spirit of evil; rather, he created an angel who then chose to sin by rebelling against God. This of course ignores the bigger “problem of evil”–a problem which applies not only to Satan’s choice but to human ones as well–but as for what happened with Satan, this is the answer offered by Christian theology. > > Christian theologians would also quibble with assigning much responsibility for man’s fall to Satan. While doctrines on original sin vary between denominations, nearly all agree that serpent Satan only provided temptation–he never commands Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, but instead says they will become “like God, knowing good and evil” if they do. And Satan isn’t completely deceptive; they do learn the difference between good and evil, and they don’t die in the way they thought God meant by the phrase “you shall surely die” (this is patched by theologians to mean a “spiritual death” in order to keep God from looking like an outright liar). > > And that’s how the myth of the Christian devil is understood today: He isn’t an unopposable malevolent force, he’s someone who gets you to do his dirty work for him. The legend of [Faust](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faust) and the countless stories of a “deal with the devil” all hinge on the idea that it’s the temptee him/herself who causes evil regardless of their supposedly good intentions; the devil is little more than a means to that end. If God allowed evil then he must have made a creature with a flaw and when he created humans he also let them have flaws. If a human makes a product and it is faulty we blame the human not the product. Since we just have human understand we judge as humans. Do we not expect a perfect supreme being to be better than us? If heaven were perfect as people are taught to believe, then why would a creature be unhappy and try to over throw the creator? ---
**Author:** ![CJJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecc23a/32.png) [@CJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CJJ)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-god-create-lucifer-morningstar-satan/641751/89 "2012-11-28T15:16:49Z")
> [@monavis](#): > > If God allowed evil then he must have made a creature with a flaw and when he created humans he also let them have flaws. If a human makes a product and it is faulty we blame the human not the product. Since we just have human understand we judge as humans. Do we not expect a perfect supreme being to be better than us? If heaven were perfect as people are taught to believe, then why would a creature be unhappy and try to over throw the creator? Christian theology (in particular St. Augustine) gets around this problem by defining “evil” as “the privation of goodness”. This technicality means that “evil” is not a thing, so God didn’t create it. Goodness is reduced in cases where our free will (yes, a thing created by God) leads us to making the “wrong” choice. Your analogy regarding a product hinges on what you mean by “faulty”. Automobiles, for example, are inextricably tied to traffic accidents, and we can surely say that if there were no cars, there would be no traffic accidents. Yet (manufacturer recalls aside) no one would argue that car manufacturers cause traffic accidents, and as a society we’ve pretty much agreed that the benefits of automobiles outweigh their liabilities. In the same way, theologians argue that the benefits of free will–even if it allows us to reduce the amount of goodness in our individual choices–outweighs the liabilities, mainly because freely choosing the good produces a far greater good than if we were forced to always choose goodness. This is the “best of all worlds” argument; the idea that without choice greater virtues like courage, mercy, etc. wouldn’t exist. The flipside, of course, is that those who are unlucky enough to experience excessive evil don’t get much comfort from the fact that “everything happens for a reason” or “it’s all part of God’s plan”, which IMO are two of the coldest platitudes in the Christian arsenal. And this argument applies to moral goodness only (which I believe is what Satan is primarily fighting against), not the evil of, say, a tragic natural disaster. Understanding why God allows hurricanes, earthquakes, or hideous diseases hinges on a similar “best of all worlds” argument, but IMO it’s less convincing since it’s harder to argue that God isn’t really the author of (or at least couldn’t prevent) these evils. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-god-create-lucifer-morningstar-satan/641751/90 "2012-11-29T13:07:01Z")
> [@CJJ](#): > > Christian theology (in particular St. Augustine) gets around this problem by defining “evil” as “the privation of goodness”. This technicality means that “evil” is not a thing, so God didn’t create it. Goodness is reduced in cases where our free will (yes, a thing created by God) leads us to making the “wrong” choice. > > Your analogy regarding a product hinges on what you mean by “faulty”. Automobiles, for example, are inextricably tied to traffic accidents, and we can surely say that if there were no cars, there would be no traffic accidents. Yet (manufacturer recalls aside) no one would argue that car manufacturers cause traffic accidents, and as a society we’ve pretty much agreed that the benefits of automobiles outweigh their liabilities. In the same way, theologians argue that the benefits of free will–even if it allows us to reduce the amount of goodness in our individual choices–outweighs the liabilities, mainly because freely choosing the good produces a far greater good than if we were forced to always choose goodness. > > This is the “best of all worlds” argument; the idea that without choice greater virtues like courage, mercy, etc. wouldn’t exist. The flipside, of course, is that those who are unlucky enough to experience excessive evil don’t get much comfort from the fact that “everything happens for a reason” or “it’s all part of God’s plan”, which IMO are two of the coldest platitudes in the Christian arsenal. And this argument applies to moral goodness only (which I believe is what Satan is primarily fighting against), not the evil of, say, a tragic natural disaster. Understanding why God allows hurricanes, earthquakes, or hideous diseases hinges on a similar “best of all worlds” argument, but IMO it’s less convincing since it’s harder to argue that God isn’t really the author of (or at least couldn’t prevent) these evils. The difference is…God is said to know all things ahead of time, if true he knew ahead of time that Satan would turn evil,so in a sense God knew, it and also knew he would try to make humans evil. Of course I don’t believe as Augustian did, and I would say that was his belief, since no one can say anything about God in truth, they can believe anything but not really know anything…hence the many ways of looking at things pertaining to God. All automobiles that were in accidents were not the fault of the manufactor, but faulty automobles like some who break down, have faulty parts etc. we do hold the manufactor responsible,one reason for a guarentee. Augustine in The City Of God also said, it was impossible for the earth to be round! ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-god-create-lucifer-morningstar-satan/641751/91 "2012-11-29T13:43:18Z")
Ya gotta have Satan, otherwise everything is righteously boring (or boringly righteous). Imagine Superman comics without villains. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-god-create-lucifer-morningstar-satan/641751/92 "2012-11-29T13:52:04Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Ya gotta have Satan, otherwise everything is righteously boring (or boringly righteous). > > Imagine Superman comics without villains. A world where wars stop, people are fed and happy, and we advance as a species towards a grand future? ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-god-create-lucifer-morningstar-satan/641751/93 "2012-11-29T13:59:20Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > A world where wars stop, people are fed and happy, and we advance as a species towards a grand future? The Roddenberry initiative? ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-god-create-lucifer-morningstar-satan/641751/94 "2012-11-29T15:34:27Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > A world where wars stop, people are fed and happy, and we advance as a species towards a grand future? Anyone else hearing this in [Don LaFontaine](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QPMvj_xejg)’s voice? ---
**Author:** ![James52637](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/439d5e/32.png) [@James52637](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/James52637)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-god-create-lucifer-morningstar-satan/641751/95 "2012-11-29T16:23:36Z")
I should’ve been more thoughtful and included that I’m looking at Christian belief, because I couldn’t care less about what the Jews have to say about it. They leave out a half of the bible without any reasoning from what I’ve been informed. So that argument \*\*The Other Waldo Pepper \*\* had has no meaning to my question. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-god-create-lucifer-morningstar-satan/641751/96 "2012-11-29T16:27:16Z")
> [@James52637](#): > > I should’ve been more thoughtful and included that I’m looking at Christian belief, because I couldn’t care less about what the Jews have to say about it. They leave out a half of the bible without any reasoning from what I’ve been informed. Holy shitstorm, Batman! ---
**Author:** ![James52637](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/439d5e/32.png) [@James52637](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/James52637)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-god-create-lucifer-morningstar-satan/641751/97 "2012-11-29T16:29:12Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Holy shitstorm, Batman! _Gasps_ HOW DO YOU KNOW MY TRUE IDENTITY?! ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-god-create-lucifer-morningstar-satan/641751/98 "2012-11-29T16:50:19Z")
> [@James52637](#): > > I should’ve been more thoughtful and included that I’m looking at Christian belief, because I couldn’t care less about what the Jews have to say about it. They leave out a half of the bible without any reasoning from what I’ve been informed. So that argument \*\*The Other Waldo Pepper \*\* had has no meaning to my question. I was hoping the argument would suggest the reasoning: to the extent the NT conflicts with the OT, it can be jettisoned, thereby resolving the conflict. Christians can’t readily leave out the OT and keep the NT – not so long as the NT is predicated on the OT being true – but Jews can (and, as per Deuteronomy 13, should) drop the NT, since they don’t so predicate. (An atheist can of course jettison both Testaments, as can someone who believes in Ra and Osiris, or Zeus and Apollo, or whatever – but a Christian’s inability to leave out the OT while keeping the NT is unique; there’s no parallel reason for Jews, or anyone else, to embrace the NT.) ---
**Author:** ![James52637](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/439d5e/32.png) [@James52637](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/James52637)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-god-create-lucifer-morningstar-satan/641751/99 "2012-11-29T16:57:17Z")
I see, I see. I did some good old fashioned googling and saw the general reason Jews leave out the NT is due to their belief that Jesus was not the Messiah and he disagrees with so much that the OT says. I agree with you that Jesus was a buffoon and I have no real proof that the OT is false, therefore making it so I am not an Atheist, which I never said. I have a… hope that the OT is truth, but I doubt it. In my rush to type the post you quoted, I probably seemed derogatory, so forgive me. It wasn’t meant to be. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Colossus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.colossus/32/9423_2.png) [@Dr.Colossus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Colossus)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-god-create-lucifer-morningstar-satan/641751/100 "2012-11-30T05:45:56Z")
Jesus, James. ok, look– the OT was the OLD way. more or less, that is the way of Judaism (God’s chosen people. who christians still believe are God’s chosen people). the NT comes along and basically says "eeeeeh God changed his mind. now this OTHER THING, also this OTHER GOD, but also He is the same God–but if you don’t also acknowledge him as the ONLY God, then HELL. the problem w the NT (after the problem of it being…religion) is that there were hundreds of years before the redactors compiled what they decided to put into the NT. there are other gospels they just left out. there are other accounts of Jesus’ life they decided not to include. there were HUNDREDS of years of disagreement about the deity of jesus “he was a great guy–a moral teacher.” “NO! HE _WAS_ GOD.” etc. there’s a ton of ambiguity surrounding the NT. the OT is simply the old way–which christians believe is emphatically important to the whole of God’s Truth. the NT steps on a lot of that and kind of just concedes God up and decided something else. …then the muslims came and said God changed him mind yet again, so now Qu’ran. …then John Smith came along and said God change his mind YET AGAIN, so Book of Mormon. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-god-create-lucifer-morningstar-satan/641751.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-god-create-lucifer-morningstar-satan/641751.md?page=6)