Expert: Eric Christy - 6/30/2006

Question
I understand your argument and appreciate the reponse, however, I think you should evaluate your concept of the devil himself. First and foremost he BELIEVES he is GOD or greater than God. He is convinced of his own superiority. How? Well, God created man who by the message Paul gave us in the book of Hebrews (1:14 KJV) Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. This is a statement the Satan will know. Jewish/Chirstian customs believe that Satan would not bow to man's dominion over this earth. Given this, he believes that if he can manipulate and control us by lies,he is over-powering God's creature and therefore circumventing God's will already. He believes he already had defeated God's plan by simply getting Adam and Eve to give up Eden.

In other words, he believes that he is in control of his own destiny and therefore prohecy does not mean a thing to him. Look at most people today who don't accept Jesus Christ as Lord and savior, they don't care about prohecy either.  For it was the will of God that man would be in perfect communion with him but the will of man to fall and the will of man to continue to sin. Remember that Adam and Eve had NO SIN nature in them. Therefore they made a concience choice, just like Satan, to chose NOT to have God in control of their lives but to run their own life.

Therefore, none of your four arguments listed really is the only four. You will have to consider a fifth. That Satan believes that no matter what God has stated, that he will indeed defeat God. Satan's sin was the sin of pride much like ours usually is. He is arrogant and deceptive.

I pray that you aren't lured into the temptation that Satan is a god. For Jesus saw Satan fall like lightning from the sky when he made his choice. Also, one of Satans' greatest accomplishment to this day is making the world believe he does not exist.

Thank you for your time and may the love of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you.



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Followup To

Question -
I am slightly confused about your answer. First the devil is very very intelligent. He is sited scripturally as deceptive and cunning. Just look at Genesis as the serpant and you can see his intellect. My question is this, how can a God of love be a God of evil or hate in the same breath? Remember the statement Jesus made about the house divided against itself? Though you have thought through your answer, you may have not thought far enough. The absence of God is evil.  

Answer
Hi Jim,

You are correct that the Devil thinks pretty highly of himself. But I'm convinced he does not think he is God or greater than God. One reason is that he has already tried to defeat God (and Jesus Christ) and has failed. For instance, he led a rebellion of one-third of the angels against God in heaven, but lost. And in the book of Job, we see God placing limits on the Devil's plans, and the Devil obeying those limits. And when he offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world if only Jesus would bow down and worship him, but coundn't get Jesus to succomb to temptation here and elsewhere, he lost again. I'm sure the Devil knows he is not God, nor in God's league.

Why he continues to fight against God and Jesus Christ is somewhat of a mystery to me. I mean, the best he can do is gain more human souls to torture for all eternity, as he himself will be tortured. But as for defeating God and Christ Jesus, he hasn't a prayer...unless...he chooses to do what I have told him to do. That is, to choose NOT TO OBEY Bible prophecy. If he obeys me, instead of Bible prophecy, he defeats God and Jesus Christ. If he continues to bumble along, falling for the next Bible prophecy regarding his future (bringing the beast and false prophet into the world?) then the idiot is dumber than you and I and isn't too scarey a Devil, afterall. We could do a better job it.

So, if the Devil is intelligent, at least as intelligent as you are, then he obviously would choose not to obey Bible prophecy, Jim, just as you if you were in the Devil's predicament. But if we see that he DOES OBEY Bible prophecy, then he is either a puppet on the Puppet Master's strings, and by extension making God the true Devil, or a complete moron and not anyone to fear or to take seriously.

What this seems to all boil down to is this: Either the Bible is only partly God's Word...the rest being the word of foolish men incapable of realizing the logical trap they were creating for God by giving prophecies the Devil would use as ammunition to shoot down God's credibility, or, it is entirely man's word. It certainly can't be all God's Word, not with the errors of various kinds and the logical dilemmas I have pointed out to you.

It's my view that the Bible is enough God's Word to show us the way to salvation through faith in what Jesus Christ accomplished on, and off the cross, minus all the errors (copyist, doctrinal, logical) which are clearly the imprint of man's hand on divine script. But God knew in advance that leaving the holy text to men would invariably allow errors to creep into the text. And, we didn't disappoint Him. We came through!

But you and I and all the rest of Christianity can take some comfort in the knowledge that as prone to error as we are, there are others God created even more prone to error. I cite the Devil, and one third of the angels.

Eric