No, that's wrong. His greatest trick was getting God to not destroy him utterly, after his insurrection, like God destroyed lots of other things and people in the Bible (he clearly isn't squeamish or slow to rage), and getting God to give him his own kingdom to rule, and getting God to let him interfere at will in the lives of God's second recorded creation (mankind), and getting God to let him hang out in Paradise on Earth to tempt Adam and Eve (I mean, really, would you let someone who basically tried to kill you in your newborn's nursery?), and getting God to let him hang out with God himself (the bet regarding Job).
There are fairy tales that have fewer plot holes than the stories of God and Lucifer turned Satan. This is crazier than a fairy tale about Bush having Osama bin Laden be his Secretary of Defense.
They only look like plot holes to you now, since you don't know the whole story. Nobody does, yet; it's still being written.
And as for fairy tales, you can find them in just about every area of life, from the state lotteries to St. Gore's Book of Warmin', from J F'n Kerry's "Reporting for Duty" to Rosie O'Donut's rantings about fire not melting steel.
The problem is that people are fallible, and are often led by the nose by their desires. Empricism is often an effective check on this, until prestige, grant funding, and intellectual pride come in; and in the meantime empiricism is unable to validate completely (notice the lack of split infinitive) the humanities, history, or the supernatural.
In the meantime, Christopher is an officious prick, and too obviously impressed with his own intellect--like William F. Buckley, but always trying to catch his readers' eye as if to say, "Boy! Wasn't that clever of me!"
If I want insightful, funny sociopolitical commentary I will read Mark Steyn.
Cheers!
God created everything, including, of course, Satan. God messed up on that one. But then we shouldn’t expect God to be infallible.
Having created Satan, God cannot destroy him. But then we shouldn’t expect God to be omnipotent.
I suspect God cannot find Satan to destroy him, because Satan is cleverer than God. But then we shouldn’t expect God to be omniscient, or omnipresent.
Frankly, as I read posts on this board about God, I’ve come to the conclusion that we simply expect too much from him. Nobody’s perfect, after all.