Origin of Satan & Evil

God did not create Satan, He created Lucifer.  Lucifer was a mighty archangel who had charge over many other angels.  He dwelt in the glory of God in the realm of the heavenlies. 

Lucifer began to get proud and think He could be better than God. He rebelled against God and caused an uprising of angels to join forces with Him in efforts to go against God.  Due to this, Lucifer and one-third of the heavenly hosts were cast out of heaven.

To continue reading this article please click here to be taken to Helium.com where the original article is posted. 

The World: Reconcilling What Is And What Ought To Be

I think it is safe to say that just about anyone can look at the world and know it ought to be different. It ought to be in harmony. It ought not to have suffering. We look at the impoverished and say this shouldn’t be this way. We look at a starving child with flies buzzing around him and our hearts cry for justice. We look at an abused animal and we have disgust against the one responsible. Our minds cannot even comprehend the massive numbers of casualties of war over the centuries.

Recently China published the overwhelming numbers of deaths incurred by earthquake last year. We all remember the massive devastation and loss of life of the tsunami. The world over mourned the loss of life that occurred on September 11th.

We see an unjust world and yet even though we are in this world we seem to know there is a justice from which it falls short. We struggle between what we experience and what we can imagine. Why can we imagine a world with no crime, war, famine, pestilence, hate, discrimination, and poverty? Why can we imagine a utopia when we obviously don’t have one?

Whether it be expeditions for a fountain of youth, or political revolution to create a classless society, or attempts to purge evil and embrace good, or find harmony in the balance of the two, many have sought to find paradise. Many have sought the ideal life, but none have succeeded to create a utopian community.

It seems we can apprehend a reality we have not experienced that tells us that things ought to be good. That people ought to get along and love one another. That war ought not to be waged. That poverty, hunger, and thirst, ought not to exist. That crime should not prevail in this world. I will be so bold as to say we know this as true while at the same time we are very much aware that we see a world that is not in align with our ideal.

Now I do have a reason to suggest of why we can imagine a better world and yet see historically that the world is full of pain, suffering, crime, war, and overall injustice. Of course, we also see a world that does have joy, peace, love, kindness, goodness. We see generosity, we see people who exhibit the good in many ways. We see great achievements. There is good in this world and we know that too.

Every great movie or novel pits good against evil depicting the very real battle between the two in a struggle for the good to win. Some stories bring about the triumph of good over evil whereas some leave off with the continual struggle between the two. Still others conclude with a sobering evil being played out without being averted. I recently watched such a film where the main character died in the end, an accidental victim of the concentration camps. I was dismayed for we do really think movies, as well as life should end well, but it doesn’t always. We live in the real world no matter how much we want it to be different.

Just the same, to get back to the reason for the cosmic tension between good and evil with the ideal of the perfect actualization of the good in the world harkens back to the Judeo-Christian story of creation. God created a good world that became corrupted by the experiential actualization of evil by man and is now topsy-turvy yet on a course to have paradise regained. This gives explanation for the good we idolize in the world with the corruption still mixed in while having the knowledge that it ought to be otherwise. We were created good for a good world and yet we live in a corrupted world with knowledge of the incorruptible.

Our knowledge even of what would be the best good is also corrupted, but we know enough to know it ought to be better. We may disagree on what that better is, but we all agree it ought to be better. That idea of there being a better gives credence to the proposition that there is an objective good by which to judge something as not measuring up or as accurately reflecting the good. Just because our mental apprehending of that objective good is often subjective does not mean that the objective isn’t there behind the veil and that we see glimpses of what could be made manifest in this world.

Personally, I think that the Christian worldview does a good job of explaining why there is a struggle between the evil we see and the good we know is possible. I know not everyone will agree with me and that’s okay. I’m just offering an explanation to consider, not an exhaustive one, but a partial one for we only know in part as we see those glimmers of truth and realize their reality. We are all learning how to take those glimmers and bring them into fruition in this world. I think the more we work together, knowing that no one sees fully, but that we all see in part and together can see in a greater part we can make manifest that which we behold.

The Christian explanation also provides the substance of hope that all of creation will enter into paradise regained. We are not doomed to always struggle with the existence of evil for it will one day be purged and that which walks in the good which is God, Himself will remain and be reborn incorruptible.

The Existence of Evil

If God did not create then there would be no evil. But He is a Creator by nature and His plan for all creation is greater than the existence of evil that comes from His creation rejecting Him and being separated from Him. He did not create evil. He said all He created was good. Sin entered into all creation by Adam’s sin. But even before that happened in our time, God had already purposed Jesus’ redemption in time for all mankind. He already saw the beginning from the end. It wasn’t a huge “oh, no, what have I done.” He knew all that would happen before He spoke a single thing into existence. And He sees the glory of all creation that comes through Christ and is being revealed in time. The glory of creation and of the Church being made ready as heir with Christ for all eternity far exceeds anything evil that can be brought about in this earth before evil is banished from creation.

Now is it evil for God who created a life to take a life? Life belongs to Him. He’s the author and giver of life. Life does not belong to us. It is wrong for us to take a life. It is not the same thing for God to do it. God sees the beginning from the end. He is God. Do we have cause to judge God as doing something wrong in bringing the Flood to wipe out a perverse generation and saving Noah and His family who serve Him? God’s justice was brought forth with the Flood. God’s justice was also brought forth by saving Noah.

If God does not exist, the whole discussion about good and evil and if God is good is a moot point. But if He does then the only way we know what good and evil are is because He revealed that knowledge to us and the self-sustaining self-evident God is the only standard of all holiness and righteousness.

Good and evil exist and we know the difference between them because there exists a Good God.

Also regarding suffering: see Peter Kreeft's essay.

The Triune God

“In the beginning, God . . .” The first four words of the Bible commence thusly. When Moses asked God who he should say sent him to Pharaoh, God said, “I AM”. Unquestionably contained in those two words is the transcendence of the living God. In all times God is I AM. He has always been and always will be. He is complete in and of Himself. The infinite cannot gain identity in reference to the finite, but only within the infinite. Therefore, the triune God (The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) finds identity self referentially. To put it another way, The Father can only be the Father because of His Son and the Son can only be the Son because of His relationship with the Father. For instance, I cannot be a Wife without my Husband. I cannot be a Daughter without a Mother. In contrast, Islam never refers to God as a Father and cannot do so because Jesus is seen as simply another prophet in a long list of prophets, and not God. The only way God can be our Father is because He first gains that identity with reference to God the Son (Jesus). Therefore it is essential theology for the Son (Jesus) to be God.

Other religions often speak of a god that has no such ability to exist because they merge their idea of the gods (pantheism) with nature instead of God being a complete being apart from nature. If God needs finite nature to find identity, He is not God.

To proceed to add the fifth word of the Bible to our discussion “In the beginning, God created. . .” For God to be God He must be uncreated. Jesus said, “before Moses was, I am.” The Jews picked up stones to stone Him for such blasphemy because they knew that statement contained His claim to be uncreated while at the same time referring to Himself as I AM.

If God is uncreated then “the beginning” is the beginning of creation—this is our beginning. God lovingly created mankind in His image. He impressed His likeness into mankind. It would follow that we would need to know God to know ourselves and our purpose in this world. Humans have so many great questions regarding our existence and we try so many different ways to find the answers when the only answer for created beings is found by knowing the Creator. The Creator is the Answer. Only He can give meaning to the question and at the same time be its Answer.

Knowing the Author of Life

My last blog was entitled “Being Proceeds Knowing” and was philosophical and rather abstract in nature. Now I will expound with greater specificity.

The first verse of the Bible declares, “In the beginning God. . .” God has always existed. He refers to himself as the I AM for He is existing eternally never having a past or a future for He is not measurable by time. He is the eternal I AM. Genesis 1:1 goes on to declare that God created the heavens and the earth. All of life is created from Him who was uncreated.

How can we know this? We know it because; He has revealed it to us. “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they [men] are without excuse.” (Romans 1:20).

Therefore the only way finite man can know anything is because “an understanding God made it understood” (James Sire).

Proverbs 1:7 proclaims, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Again in Proverbs 9:10 we read, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”

Knowing comes from the fear of the Lord, meaning that through awe of Him we can gain knowledge: the greatest knowledge being knowledge of Him, the Holy One. For it is by Him we gain wisdom, knowledge, and understanding.

“Isaiah 33:5-7 “ The LORD is exalted, for he dwells on high;
he will fill Zion with justice and righteousness.

He will be the sure foundation for your times,
a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge;
the fear of the LORD is the key to this treasure.”

God is the sure foundation of our wisdom and knowledge. It is from Him that all knowledge flows.

God has not only revealed His existence to us, He has made it possible to know not only about Him, but to experientially know Him. The Spanish language actually has two words for “know” one is used when referring to knowing about someone or knowing who someone is without any relationship knowledge of that person. The other is used when someone claims to know a person personally like a friend, brother, or father. God allows us to know Him both ways, but knowing Him personally allows for much greater knowledge about Him.

Paul wrote in Galatians 1:11 “I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.”

The message of Christ has been revealed to man. It is not something that is man made. It is not a religion developed by man to find spirituality. This revelation has been continuous from before the beginning of time. It’s one big story that is never ending. And we are invited to partake of that story and live life within it.

Proverbs 8:22-35 reads “I was appointed from eternity, from the beginning, before the world began. When there were no oceans, I was given birth, when there were no springs abounding with water; before the mountains were settled in place . . . I was there when he set the heavens in place. . . Then I was the craftsman at his side. I was filled with delight day after to day, rejoicing in his presence, rejoicing in his whole world and delighting in mankind. . . . Blessed is the man who listens to me, watching daily at my doors, waiting at my doorway. For whoever finds me finds life and receives favor from the Lord.”

What a spectacular passage of Scripture! This is Jesus talking for in John 1:1-3 it reads “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men.”

Jesus is God and has been eternally with God creating with God the Father all that has been created. He delighted in His creation just as God says in Genesis 1 that “it was good.” In fact, it says specifically that Jesus delighted in mankind. He also says that life is found in Himself. He says if you find me, you find life and you receive God’s favor. The passage in Proverbs was written hundreds of years before the passage in John which is after the incarnation of Christ. Jesus says of Himself, “I am the way, the truth and the life . . .” (John 14:6).

Knowledge is not the way. Christ is the way. He is the Truth and He is the giver of life. From Him we gain knowledge, wisdom, and understanding in greater measure than we could ever possess without knowing Him experientially. God is the author of this story and He is the only One who makes it understandable. We need to get to know the Author in order to understand the story of life.