Why Does God Allow Satan To Live?
- Thread starter Bowser
- Start date
That question makes an awful lot of assumptions there.
- Catholic Encyclopedia: [...] As may be gathered from the language of the Lateran definition, the Devil and the other demons are but a part of the angelic creation, and their natural powers do not differ from those of the angels who remained faithful. Like the other angels, they are pure spiritual beings without any body, and in their original state they are endowed with supernatural grace and placed in a condition of probation. It was only by their fall that they became devils. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04764a.htm
So if the Devil lacked a body, then how could such an immaterial or generative principle be killed? Assorted human tyrants throughout history have tried to eradicate concepts and ideas, but literally "killing" something is applicable to biological creatures that are deemed alive to begin with.
- Catholic Encyclopedia: Matter has generally been conceived as in one sense or another the limitation of spirit. Hence, finite spirits were thought to require a body as a principle of individuation and limitation; only God, the Infinite Spirit, was free from all admixture of matter. Thus, when we find the angels described as asomatoi or auloi, in the writings of the Fathers, this properly means only that the angels do not possess a gross, fleshly body; it does not at all imply a nature absolutely immaterial. Such Scripture expressions as "bread of angels", "they shall shine as the angels", as well as the apparitions of these heavenly beings, were adduced as proofs of their corporeality. So speak Sts. Ambrose, Chrysostom, Jerome, Hilary, Origen and many other Fathers. Even in Scholastic times, the degree of immateriality that belongs to finite spirits was disputed. St. Thomas teaches the complete simplicity of all spiritual natures, but the Scotists, by means of their famous materia primo prima, introduced a real composition, which they conceived to be necessary to a created nature. As regards the functions of spirits in the world, and their active relations to the visible order of things, see [...] http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14220b.htm
So there was apparently disagreement among theologians as to whether angels and ex-angels (demons) were totally immaterial like God or possessed some mitigated corporeality. That confusion perhaps stemmed from not taking into account what existence as a generative principle is or the very point of what such a "spirit" manner of existence would serve in the tribal literature. Such an abstract entity is the provenance for all the potential, particular (physical) states of itself and effects that it could manifest in a world of becoming and contingent things.
Story-wise, that Old Scratch or Gabriel or whatever generalized being could intermittently appear on Earth as a specific spatial form didn't mean the latter was also part of its sublime nature -- that the angel or demon was literally one-half principle (location-less) and one-half material object (with a location). The latter temporary, concrete appearance slash manner of existing was simply what the "ultimate" version of itself outputted. Vaguely akin to a computer game character disappearing from the screen when the playing terminates, but the instructions for that character still residing in the program on the hard or solid-state drive. (But a flawed analogy since it repeats another corporeal domain at a higher level that is supposed to be radically different or immaterial, so as to stop endless repeats of yet more physical / mechanistic levels nested inside each other.)
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Anything conscious is alive. Anything alive is thought to be able to be killed. According to Christian & some other beliefs tho, humans have only their bodies killed & they remain conscious for eternity. If humans live for eternity, why would anything which was never physical not do so. Perhaps anything spiritual cannot die tho none of the abrahamic religions completely answer that.
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^^^
Many believe the Eden serpent was Satan but Genesis does not say so. The fable has Eve being tempted by the serpent & Adam being tempted by Eve so it is natural to wonder what might have happened without the serpent & later perhaps without satan.
Humans being human however would have had them disobeying god eventually, with or without a tempter. God being god created humans with a will to act on their own so that god would have an excuse to be perpetually pissed off at them.
The serpent was probably put in the story to help take the blame off god & because most stories have a good guy & a bad guy.
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The immaterial version of the Devil would just amount to the global principle of an Adversary at work in a created realm. Few authors would want a dull story, especially if it's meant to be entertaining rather than a technical manual. So a type of trouble-making has to be introduced (whether the latter involves sin specifically or not). Since the product addressed here is a world which continually begs for causes, reasons, or explanations for any trend, object, circumstance, or event... Then accordingly that would also require a source of responsibility for triggering the trouble-making. It doesn't necessarily have to be an adversary or a single agency behind it all from beginning to end; but if the saga or the folklore features a protagonist, then an adversary is likely to complement such.
In a novel, the protagonist may defeat or kill its adversary at the end of the story. But all the incidents featured in that author's account still co-exist with each other. The adversary still remains in the the earlier sections of the book. Despite having a point where it is disposed of, the adversary is still a general principle or regulating idea pervading most of the story; and is locally realized as a particular (body) in those events involving it (or so the printed text conjures such in the imagination of the reader).
If the tribal belief is that God is the top idea that all the others are subsumed under, then to be internally consistent God couldn't be subservient to concepts like causality and change. (That's "change" it terms of one state of _X_ taking its temporary turn to exist rather than co-existing permanently with the other states). So eternalism is more the bed that God would be residing in rather than presentism, though technically God would also have to be dominant over even that view of time (i.e., God would be prior in rank to any environmental condition or relational context). So more along the line of the angels and demons (including Satan) being indestructible denizens of an eternalism level.
Even if an individual manifestation of the Devil as a body was slain, he or his influences would still be realized as something concrete in other locations of time / space. The principle of the Devil would pervade and contaminate the framework (or to put another way, specific regions of the framework conform to the dictates of the adversary principle).
Of course, the same might apply to humans as well (that they're embedded in some kind of block-universe, or multiverse version of that if subjectively contingent "free will" is argued by the tribal canon). But people would be generative principles with lesser range than those of the celestial beings. Like Wilma Smith only instantiated as a body living from 1920 to 1962, rather than sporadically popping-up all over the place throughout history as either a blatant corporeal-like phenomenon or just cryptically concealed effects.
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There is no devil .
Are you certain?
Yes
Why don't we discuss Goldilocks?
Much better looking than the supposed Satan without the religion baggage
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldilocks_and_the_Three_Bears
I'm not really into hijacking the thread so I will have no complaints if this is moved or deleted
I only posted here to highlight fairy tales of the religious flavour have been done to comatose life support level and need perhaps to be taken off life support
Much better looking than the supposed Satan without the religion baggage
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldilocks_and_the_Three_Bears
I'm not really into hijacking the thread so I will have no complaints if this is moved or deleted
I only posted here to highlight fairy tales of the religious flavour have been done to comatose life support level and need perhaps to be taken off life support
The Devil doesn't exist. He's the personification of our fallibility.
Is there a deeper question you wanted to submit?
Up to a certain time
What is sin ?
If we obey there is no sin
If we know the objective the we will wait.
If we don't have the knowledge of the objective than we act impatiently and kibitz the master chase player .
Unlike characters in children's tales, evil does exist.
And the link between evil and the thread question
Why Does God Allow Satan To Live?
and post #1
Also, would we be without sin if the Devil didn't exist?
seems to have been solved
Congratulations on solving your own thread
god does not exist therefore he is not able to do any allowing towards satans existence
Plus satan does not exist and you have stated in post #17 evil does exist answering your own post #1 question
ie we are still with sin dispite satans absence
A nice speedy resolution within the first page
Why does satan allow god to live?
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