[GCFL-discuss] Let there be Satan...

[Discussion of the Good, Clean Funnies List]

Satan exists because of free will.  God didn't want a
bunch of robots.  He wants people that WANT to love him,
not have to.
 
- JP
 
The second two sentences are irrefutable from any Christian perspective I
know, except possibly for strict Calvinist predestination, and probably
irrefutable from any Jewish perspective too. C.S. Lewis made this point
over and over in The Screwtape Letters, somewhat to the disgust of
Screwtape himself. I think some branches of Islam might say that God
wants to discipline people to be good, rather than be loved by people,
but I have only read a small portion of the Qu'ran, and haven't had
lengthy discussions on that point with people who are Muslim.

The first sentence is a stretch. Of course sin by definition exists
because of misuse of free will, or more accurately, it IS the misuse of
free will. If Satan exists BECAUSE OF free will, then Satan was called
into existence by acts of human beings. That is an interesting
possibility to consider.

Classical Christian teaching is more like, free will was misused because
of temptation, although there is no good reason to assume that "the
serpent" listed as the first tempter is the same as "Satan" introduced in
the Book of Job as a kind of odd-ball servant of God, who pointed out
weaknesses in the faithful service on which God relied, and tested humans
to see how deep their faith really was.

Satan, if there is such a being, almost had to be created originally by
God. That remains one of the great conundrums of Christian theology. As
far as I know, it is not such a big deal for Jews, because Jewish
teaching doesn't place nearly as much emphasis on any role of Satan in
the first place.

Siarlys
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