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Hello, how’s everyone doing?
Question about God and Satan. Why did God make Satan if He knew Satan was going to rebel?
To explain a bit, I know there’s answers, I’m just not sure what. I know that God gives all His creatures a choice, and Satan chose to rebel, but I don’t understand why God would make Satan in the first place if He knew what was going to happen.
Some rages:
@keilah-h, @theducktator,thearcaneaxiom, @rae,
@linus-smallprint, @ellette-giselle, @anyone else"No! Monkeys should have pets, all monkeys should have pets!"
I…have no idea, so I don’t think I’ll be much help. Have you asked your pastor?
Tempus adest gratiae
Hoc quod optabamus,
Carmina laetitiae
Devote reddamus!@theshadow well…..
I’m nowhere near even a novice theologian or pastor or whatnot, so I’m really not qualified to answer. But honestly, the same logic kinda applies to “why did God make humans if he knew they’d sin?”
believe me, I’ve had some “Why—just why—did you make that, God?” moments myself. But I’m just a lowly human being, who am I to question the ultimate storycrafter who made billions upon billions of parsecs’ worth of space and matter solely by saying it was so?
Some things we just don’t know. We kinda just have to trust Him on that.
"When in doubt, eat cheese crackers."-me to my charries who don't even know about cheese crackers
Why did God make Satan if He knew Satan was going to rebel?
*The future pastor in me jumping up and down with joy with a wonderful question* Ehm, I see, I shall try my best to give an answer, though it might not be the most accurate.
But honestly, the same logic kinda applies to “why did God make humans if he knew they’d sin?”
This is probably the best explanation for this question that I know of (there’s probably better more thorough answers, but this is still really good, kudos to you @keilah-h ), though I think I can elaborate on it.
The point of God making anything in this universe was to bring glory to himself and to himself alone. So, when he first made the angles, they were made like us to have free will. Most of them were smart and stayed with God’s will, except for Satan and his crew of bad angles. Like any good fiction story, so began the fight between good and evil, evil, in this case, playing the role of sin. Satan was originally an angel who severed God and to show him glory, but apparently, he didn’t like it. God knew that Satan was going to go against him, but he knew of another way to bring more glory to himself. Satan showed that he was against God when he tempted Adam and Eve. And since God knew this was going to happen, he planned the redemption of Man through his son, Jesus Christ. And well Christ rose from the dead on the third day, all of heaven rejoiced and God got all the glory. All of this happened to give God glory. Think of bible as a big story book of the redemption of man, it’s quite fun when you think about it that way.
I hope this helps, if you have any other questions, have at it, I love answering question. Though if I can’t answer a question, I am sorry in advance for not helping you understand.
"Do you want me to keep the sideburns?"
#AnduthForever (Lord Willing)Also, thanks @rae
"Do you want me to keep the sideburns?"
#AnduthForever (Lord Willing)I agree with what @raxforge said and would like to add to it.
Not only does God glorify himself through all that he does, he works all things to the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28). So Satan also exists for our good.
Put it this way. Another question people ask is ‘Why does God allow sin to exist?’ or ‘Why did God create us if he knew we were going to rebel?’ In Luke 7: 41-43, Jesus asks a pharisee named Simon a question:
41 “A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?” 43 Simon answered, “The one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled the larger debt.” And he said to him, “You have judged rightly.” (ESV)
Because we are sinners and God has cancelled our debt, we know his grace and mercy, something we would not have known if no one had sinned. We would not have seen that Jesus was willing to die in our place. As storytellers, we know that showing is greater than telling, and God has shown his love to us. Since we know this to be true, we can love him more and delight in him further than if we never needed to be forgiven.
So what about the devil? Satan may be a powerful force of evil, but he is nothing compared to God. Through the evil he does to us, we may grow to be more dependent on God to help us and trust in Him more. The stuffing he causes will lead to hope in God (Romans 5:3-5). Now I don’t know God’s exact purpose in creating Satan. But know that God will glorify himself in all He does and that it works for the good of His children, including the evil done to us.
On a side not, I think people tend to give satan too much credit. He seems to be view as the opposite of God, satan the ultimate evil, God the ultimate good. . . but this view is very flawed. I think a more accurate comparison would be a flea opposed against the universe (the observable universe is about 500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles in diameter), and yet the contrast is even more extreme since we are talking about the Creator of that universe.
In the end all devils and boogies, along with all other spiritual and physicals being are here to show how great, awesome, and good God is! He is Love! He is Holy! He is THE ALMIGHTY!
You will love what you spend time with.
Not yet, I should though.
That’s a good response, I feel like that’s hard to do sometimes though when human minds constantly want answers.
This definitely did help, thanks.
Thanks, those are interesting points.
You’re right, the devil is kind of overrated when compared to God’s power. A more accurate opposite of the devil would be Michael the Archangel, but even then Michael is 1000000 times superior to Satan.
Thanks everyone for the help.
"No! Monkeys should have pets, all monkeys should have pets!"
@theshadow yeah….it is lol
"When in doubt, eat cheese crackers."-me to my charries who don't even know about cheese crackers
Everyone else had some fantastic points and I agree. God does everything with a purpose, and one of those purpose is to bring glory to His name. The angels were made to do God’s will and serve Him, right? Satan didn’t want to, yet time and time again we see Satan’s plans thwarted and God glorified. I like how Andrew put it:
God knew that Satan was going to go against him, but he knew of another way to bring more glory to himself. Satan showed that he was against God when he tempted Adam and Eve. And since God knew this was going to happen, he planned the redemption of Man through his son, Jesus Christ. And well Christ rose from the dead on the third day, all of heaven rejoiced and God got all the glory. All of this happened to give God glory. Think of bible as a big story book of the redemption of man, it’s quite fun when you think about it that way.
You also have to remember that there are some things that we are never going to fully wrap our mind around. God is so great and so much higher than us that we will never be able to fully comprehend His fullness. And that’s what draws us to worship Him more and trust Him deeper. That’s one way He is glorified. We are little finite beings compared to a great, sovereign, omnipotent God. I could go on and on about this, but I have to go get ready for church and I”m probably straying off topic. 🤪
I’m glad everyone could help you understand that question more though! 🙂 It’s a tough one.Write what should not be forgotten. — Isabel Allende
Thanks for the answer. Reflecting on this now, I suppose you never really can answer this question completely simply because God is so much more beyond us.
"No! Monkeys should have pets, all monkeys should have pets!"
Yeah, that’s a really good way to put it!
Write what should not be forgotten. — Isabel Allende
Hi Shadow (and everyone else, I haven’t been on for like a year at this point).
So when it comes to my personal faith, the answer I give would be similar to what other’s have already said here, that it was essentially that God gave Satan free will. If God only gave the capacity to do good, then what is the value of that? In my eyes, the ability to choose evil, yet choosing good anyways makes that choice more meaningful, it makes the triumph more meaningful.
This equates to the problem of evil in general, where we ask the question of if there’s an all good God, then why does there exist any evil in the universe? Evil exists so that those that understand evil can understand the good. If you look at a pure white page, and that’s all you’ve ever known, you don’t really gain much, if you look at an all black page, you don’t learn anything, but if you look at a picture of contrast, making use of both the light and dark, you gain an understanding of contrast and therefore meaning. This is what happened in the Garden when Adam and Eve partook of the fruit, gaining knowledge of good and evil, before that, they knew no good for they knew no sin. They knew no pleasure for they knew no pain.
Perhaps a controversial belief, but I see the Fall as a good thing, because it was for our ultimate good. It was God’s plan to give Adam and Eve a way to transgress and bring sin into the world so that they could know the good from the evil. This meant a Savior must be provided, and Adam and Eve would be able to progress to an even higher state of joy than they ever could have in the Garden. To put this into perspective, Christ was plan A, not plan B. To say the Fall wasn’t what God wanted would mean that the Savior was a plan B.
Going back to Satan, he was given that ability to choose, and he chose wrong, but without that choice, what’s the point?
Happy Thanksgiving btw!
He is perfect in Justice, yet He is perfect in Mercy, even when we fail Him. For this, He is good.
Hey, thanks for the reply, it’s nice to talk with you again!
I like your point a lot about appreciating the good because there is evil, it’s very true.
Also Happy Thanksgiving to you too!!"No! Monkeys should have pets, all monkeys should have pets!"
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