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[Bad Boy]

God created Lucifer even though he knew what he would eventually do because He knows everything. So Lucifer throws a rebellion, takes a bunch of angels to the world only to tempt God's precious creation that is the mankind to make us do things that will condemn us to hell. So what happened there? Any explanation other than that of God's grand plan that mere mortals cannot even imagine would be appreciated.

[jimwalton]

"Lucifer" was derived from the Latin version of Isaiah 14.12 as the term for "morning star" (Heb. helel, Latin "luciferus"). Most scholars now feel this is not a passage about Satan, but about the king of Babylon. In the Old Testament, Satan is a functionary of God. He is not seen as inherently evil, but he is an antagonist, an adversary. In the NT, Satan is a deceiver (also antagonist, adversary) of the church, but still not portrayed as an enemy of God. He is distinctly portrayed as an enemy of God's people (and in that sense indirectly an enemy), but still under God's sovereign authority (He can only do what God has allowed him to do). He's not strong enough and doesn't rank high enough to qualify as an enemy of God. When God deals with him, it's of no more consequence than shooting fish in a bucket. Satan's power is over life here on earth, but against God he's less than a mosquito on the arm.

Satan is not one of God's minions, doing his dirty work. In the NT he's not one of God's functionaries (he opposes the work of God), but everything he does is still folded into God's plans.

So your premises sort of fall apart.

"God created Lucifer even though he knew what he would eventually do because He knows everything." Uh, yes, but you are implying that God created evil or an evil being, but that may not wash. Satan was not an evil being in the OT, and in our NT understanding, well, I already explained.

"So Lucifer throws a rebellion." Uh, no proof of this. As I said, Isaiah 14 probably doesn't refer to Satan. The Bible doesn't tell us how Satan got started in what he does, what kind of spiritual being he is, or how he got to be that kind of spiritual being.

"takes a bunch of angels to the world..." Again, the origin of demons is also unknown. Again, there is speculation (from study) that the demons are amoral. They are chaotic spiritual beings. In the same sense that we would regard wolves and bears as destructive but not evil, so possibly are the demons. They have negative and destructive effects, but so do earthquakes (and yet earthquakes are amoral). Biblically speaking, demons are in a "non-order" category. They are forces (beings) of non-order (like the sea, in mythology).

"...only to tempt God's precious creation that is the mankind to make us do things that will condemn us to hell." I don't think the Bible says anything about the demons tempting people. Satan deceives people. But temptation comes from our own hearts and our own desires (James 1.14).

I hope this is an explanation that will motivate more discussion. But it seems you are already leaning towards God's cruelty and unfairness, and your leaning, unfortunately, may be the consequence of a bucketload of misunderstandings and distortions.

[Bad Boy]

Lucifer is the king of Babylon, but how does he have supernatural powers? Satan is the deceiver of God's church and enemy of God's people, so why would his weakness matter in determining if he's an enemy or not? And how is he not evil when he tempts us to do evil deeds? And I would think since God created all things, he should be credited for the existence of evil as well, or did God not create everything and some things coexisted with him or was created without his consent? And you say Satan doesn't tempt but only deceives people but to me, that's pretty much the same thing: If you lie to someone to make them want to do something they wouldn't have otherwise, that's pretty much the definition of tempting.

[jimwalton]

> Lucifer is the king of Babylon, but how does he have supernatural powers?

He doesn't. Isaiah 14.12-14 says nothing about supernatural powers, but only about excessive pride and hubris.

> Satan is the deceiver of God's church and enemy of God's people, so why would his weakness matter in determining if he's an enemy or not?

He's an enemy of God's people and exercises great danger to them. To God, it's no contest, as I said, like shooting fish in a bucket. The Bible lets us know that the Yin-Yang philosophy of the universe is wrong. God is sovereign, and Satan is not. There is no balance of good and evil, but a preponderance of good.

> And how is he not evil when he tempts us to do evil deeds?

He is. Most temptation comes from inside of us. We know that Satan tempted Christ, and he also tempts us at times (1 Cor. 7.5). But Satan is not omnipresent, and can't get to all of us. Most of our temptations come from our sin nature.

> And I would think since God created all things, he should be credited for the existence of evil as well, or did God not create everything and some things coexisted with him or was created without his consent?

We are mistaken to think of evil as a substance that has to have had a divine creator. True evil is an absence or a lack of its antithesis. By way of analogy, we know that light is both a wave and a particle. Light has a velocity and properties that can be studied. Darkness, on the other hand, is none of the above. Darkness is instead the absence of light, or the shadow where light is blocked. It has no form or essence. We can see a ray of light, but we never see a ray of darkness. In the same way that darkness is not an entity unto itself but the state of being when light is deficient, so also evil is not a thing in its own right but the state of being where other essences are absent.

God is good, by definition and biblical assessment, and therefore everything he created was also good. Where his light was blocked, darkness resulted (John 3.19-21), and where His goodness was rejected, evil was the outcome. Therefore evil was "created" by those who devised the rejection of light and the good.

In other words, evil exists because free and moral agents chose to oppose what was good and right.

[Bad Boy]

> In other words, evil exists because free and moral agents chose to oppose what was good and right.

That seems to contrast what you wrote above it. On one hand, you're saying the mere lack of light or goodness is darkness or "evil", but that statement says evil is a choice to oppose the good which I happen to agree with. If I see a stray dog limping around, I could take care of it which is good; I could do nothing which is neutral; I could throw stones at it which is evil. So in this case, it's not the mere lack of goodness that results in evil, but the choice to preform evil action that results in evil.

[jimwalton]

My point is that evil was not an entity created by God, as you either assumed or proposed, but that it is the result of a lack of goodness in people, and the consequence of the wrong choice someone makes.

[Noffy]

What about the passages in Revelation? They seem to indicate that a rebellion in heaven occurred.

[jimwalton]

To discuss it I would need to know which passages in Revelation.

I'm going to guess Rev. 12.7-9. The birth of the "child" and snatching up of the child (vv. 4-5), whether Jesus or the church or the 144K of Revelation, results in a war that invades heaven. The reference can't be to the original rebellion of Satan. Just as Jesus' first advent brought an onrush of spiritual opposition, so also whatever is referred to here. This battle is a prelude to Satan's final judgment.

Then there's Rev. 17.14. This is the battle at the end of days, not at the beginning of things.

[FIW]

But, the book of Job certainly shows that Satan has supernatural powers. We also can review the facts about life inherent and angels. Also, we should consider what the angels (Satan) do. They surely are not relaxing on a cloud.

[jimwalton]

> Satan has supernatural powers

Not in Isaiah, he doesn't. In Job, possibly. Two factors we must consider here, the most important being that "the satan" (definite article) in the book of Job is a function rather than a proper name. He is more properly referred to as "The Accuser," and is probably not the character of Satan (proper name) that we know from the NT. We shouldn't get the two characters confused. This "Adversary" in Job is a functionary of God's—an instrument of his work. Secondly, Job is probably not a historical account, but a fictional wisdom story to make a point about how God runs the world (not by the retribution principle) and how he works (wisdom).

But even IF one take's Isaiah 14.12-14 as about Satan, it still says nothing of supernatural powers, which was my point.

> we should consider what the angels (Satan) do. They surely are not relaxing on a cloud.

That's true. The books of Genesis (Gn. 19; 28.12; 32.22-32), Daniel (chapter 10 [esp. v. 13]; 12.1), Luke (1.11ff.; 1.26-38), Matthew (2.20-21) and the book of Revelation (in many places), among others, show us that angels are active and take care of important matters.

Satan is also active (1 Peter 5.8). I never said nor implied that spiritual beings were basically inactive.