Posted on 05/07/2014 2:27:46 AM PDT by markomalley
The deadly sin of pride is what happened to Satan. He thought he knew better than God.
What did God do? Throw him out of heaven with a third of the angels.
Dire warning that we obey God always.
Satan doesn’t love you; he wants you to be his slave.
For an interesting interpretation, see “The Screwtape Letters” by C. S. Lewis.
Good point. I should have put “love” in parentheses.
I think you are bothered over nothing.
Yep, Satan hates us. It is what he has chosen for himself: Jealousy, envy, covetous, bitterness, hatred. Free will, remember that? Satan was not created as Hate. He CHOSE that for himself. Because of that, he was thrown from Heaven and ultimately, will be disposed of.
I do not believe that God ‘belly-laughs’ over our struggles. I do believe that He sees beauty in the struggle to follow, trust and become more like Him. Sees the preciousness of someone choosing Freely to follow His word.
Whether or not you or I like them, these ‘struggles’ are necessary. Just as silver is refined or a gem is created with heat and pressure, struggles will, if one stays trusting and faithful to the Lord, produce something more precious.
Ha, that was pretty much the plot behind that Christopher Walken movie “The Prophesy”. There was a 2nd war in Heaven which was basically a war against mankind being elevated by God above the angels. But Lucifer by that time had already fallen from God’s grace in the 1st war.
From what I understand it was a spiritual war in which some angels wanted to be like God themselves instead of serving God. They wanted to be worshipped like gods, having autonomous power. Something like that. And that is considered the first sin, committed by the now-fallen angels. Pride in one’s self.
That is the only sin. Everything else is but a symptom.
You might say pride is the root of all sins. Remember when Satan tempted Eve to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge? He didn’t say you can know what God knows, he said you can be a god yourself.
JHVH made him that way knowing full well what he’d become...
JHVH made the pain and suffering.
If you are saying that because he gave us a Will He cannot control, we suffer... Then you are either admitting that He’s less than Omnipotent, or has a sadistic streak...
I think it has more to do with the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, true man and true God. Thus a man, Jesus Christ, second person of the Holy Trinity would be ruling over the angels.
Interesting perspective! Never thought about it that way....
1) God is GOOD, all the time.
2) All the time, God is GOOD.
And God made Charles Manson and Hitler, yet it was their choices to live and behave as they did, not Gods.
You are responsible for what appears to be ‘bitterness’ in your heart, not God.
God makes NO evil, but gives us the choice to behave that way or not. We were made in His image, and given freewill. He did not create us as robots, lockstepping in ‘love’ for Him. Rather, when/if we CHOOSE to love Him, He welcomes us.
He gave us FREEwill. Free. It is up to US to bend it to Him. Can He, could He bend us? Yep. But He won’t. We must bend to Him.
Sadistic streak? NOW you are beginning to sound somewhat more liberal yet.
God either made everything, or he didn’t.
This includes all the Evil in the world.
To think otherwise is to suggest God didn’t know what he was doing.
Job 1:6-22, 2:1-13
This is from the Tanakh. I’m not sure if it is the same in the KJV or other versions of the N.T.
Refer back to 1 and 2 in my past post. Then, feel free to refer me to ANY scripture, at all, that shows God to be the author of evil.
Could God make a rock so heavy He couldn’t lift it? Yep, but will He? Your arguments are analogous strawmen.
Go look in the mirror and you will see a creature, created in the image of God, a human, and humanity is the source of all evil here on earth. You. Me. Mother Theresa, Stalin. Humanity.
Blaming God for YOUR failing is only a dodge to avoid responsibility.
Good created you and no one had to teach you to lie. That’s sin. God never Made You Lie. But He did make you capable of CHOOSING it if you wanted.
So, God made me to be as flawed as he is...
Got it. Thanks for the clarification.
Ping!
Excuse the interruption, but you sound like you’re saying that self-determination is somehow flawed. That the gift of free will is not a gift but a curse, because then a person of free will can choose to do evil if they want. Would you really wish that everyone was only capable of doing as they were programmed, like machines? Of intellectual and spiritual slavery instead of freedom? That sounds more like a curse to me than a gift.
Thank-you for your response!
Evil and sin are consequences of Christ granting us Free Will, not creations in and of themselves. If you don't see the difference then you can't possibly understand the difference between Redemption and Salvation.
Well, that’s a stretch.
Have you ever read scripture, beginning with the creation of man? You should try that.
God created Adam and he was perfect. He was in the image of God. Notice. He was not identical to God.
Adam, through Eve, sinned. And so here we are today.
Tell me, why the apparent bitterness towards your creator? He loves you.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.