christians please help! i need an answer!?

Question

my friend asked me once this question and i cannot answer it since i have been asking this question too. the question is "If God was perfect then why did he created satan?" "If in heaven there is no more pride, jealousy, envy (in short everything there is perfect) then why did satan envied God when he was an angel in heaven?
And if God knows everything from the beginning to end then he must have known that satan would do all those bad things, why did he continued to create him?

Answer 1

You might want to ask your friend whether, if knowing that he would do evil, it would not have been better had God not created him. Or another question might help him to understand the how things are. Perhaps you can suggest to him that he'll be qualified to question God when he attains moral perfection and a full understanding of the universe. You might want to direct him to the Book of Job.

Regardless, the question is a sub-set of the question of "the problem of evil." And neither the question nor its answer are simple. See the following: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05649a.htm

"...If God is all-benevolent, why did He cause or permit suffering? If He is all-Powerful, He can be under no necessity of creating or permitting it; and on the other hand, if He is under any such necessity, He cannot be all-powerful. Again, if God is absolutely good, and also omnipotent, how can He permit the existence of moral evil? We have to inquire, that is to say, how evil has come to exist, and what is its special relation to the Creator of the universe...."

"...The evil from which man suffers is, however, the condition of good, for the sake of which it is permitted. Thus, "God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist" (St. Aug., Enchirid., xxvii). Evil contributes to the perfection of the universe, as shadows to the perfection of a picture, or harmony to that of music (De Civ. Dei,xi). Again, the excellence of God's works in nature is insisted on as evidence of the Divine wisdom, power, and goodness, by which no evil can be directly caused. (Greg. Nyss., De. opif. hom.) Thus Boethius asks (De Consol. Phil., I, iv) Who can be the author of good, if God is the author of evil? As darkness is nothing but the absence of light, and is not produced by creation, so evil is merely the defect of goodness. (St. Aug., In Gen. as lit.) St. Basil (Hexaem., Hom. ii) points out the educative purposes served by evil; and St. Augustine, holding evil to be permitted for the punishment of the wicked and the trial of the good, shows that it has, under this aspect, the nature of good, and is pleasing to God, not because of what it is, but because of where it is; i.e. as the penal and just consequence of sin (De Civ. Dei, XI, xii, De Vera Relig. xliv)...."

"...First, it is asked why God, foreseeing that his creatures would use the gift of free will for their own injury, did not either abstain from creating them, or in some way safeguard their free will from misuse, or else deny them the gift altogether? St. Thomas replies (C. G., II, xxviii) that God cannot change His mind, since the Divine will is free from the defect of weakness or mutability. Such mutability would, it should be remarked, be a defect in the Divine nature (and therefore impossible), because if God's purpose were made dependent on the foreseen free act of any creature, God would thereby sacrifice His own freedom, and would submit Himself to His creatures, thus abdicating His essential supremacy--a thing which is, of course, utterly inconceivable...."

..."It is obviously impossible to suggest a reason why this universe in particular should have been created rather than another; since we are necessarily incapable of forming an idea of any other universe than this...."

Answer 2

God gave the angel who became Satan free will. And though God has the power to look into the future and see all outcomes, he also has the power to choose to access the knowledge or not, just like a person can read the end of a novel to see how it ends...or read it through and see how it turns out. This guarantees free will, no one is obliged to follow a course that is pre planned, not even by God.
Free will is a gift, no one, not even the perfect spirit creatures are forced to serve God. He wants us all to do it out of love.
And though the rebellion of this angel Satan has caused many years of suffering, and great pain to God and his creations, he has put into place an arrangement for undoing all the damage. Just like a loving parent would let a child go through a painful operation if it was necessary for their long term health, God allows this relative short term suffering in full knowledge that the outcome will be for the best and all the questions the rebellion raised will be justly answered, and creation will spend the rest of eternity in the manner that was intended in the beginning.

Answer 3

God did not create Satan. Satan created Satan. God created free will. Yes, He could have known what Satan was going to do, but if He decided not to create people or angels because some would turn wicked, then you wouldn't be here...now would you? What about all the wonderful angels who love God. What about all the wonderful people who love God? Jesus is coming back and He will do away with all the wicked angels and people. Satan will be no more, neither will his followers.

Answer 4

God didn't create Satan. Satan, devils, hell, etc. are all symbols that are projected from our minds. They are symbols for the ego/human thought system that thinks it is separate and alone -- that it is separate from God. Unfortunately, we think that God allowed the separation and, therefore, we think these negative things are real. Unconditional Love could never create these things. It's all a matter of an incorrect belief system in our minds. We project a great deal onto God that is not true; Jesus tried to get this projection dynamic across in the prodigal son parable -- the 'good son' thinks god behaves a certain way and is annoyed to find out how unconditional love really is (and, actually, still doesn't get it). Forget the negative projections; concentrate only on Love and let the rest fall away.

Answer 5

God gave the angels the same free will that He gave men. Satan, the most beautiful of all angels, envied God and wanted to sit on His throne and was kicked out of heaven for it.

Yes, God is all seeing and all knowing, but He says in the Bible that His ways are different from ours and His thoughts above ours, so it would be impossible for a human to guess why God chose to create a being that He knew would betray Him.

Answer 6

Satan was an angel that fell from heaven. Yes, God did know that he would fall and everything he would do. God did it that way on purpose. It is not like his plan failed and now this is plan B. By the way this is not a very good place to ask these types of question. Contact your local church or another wise christian.

Answer 7

Good question. I'll try my best to answer it. The angels, like we humans, have free will. God knew Satan would fall and he also knew Adam and Eve would sin. But I guess he *hoped* that they would change their minds.
Also I believe that when Satan falls, it will bring glory to God. And we will appreciate being in Heaven a lot more when we know where we could be going!
Hope this helped at least a little.

Answer 8

God didnt create satan. God created the angel who later became satan. Back before there was man it was just God and the angels and the angels had free will, like we do today. "Satan" just got tired of following Gods rules and tried to lead people against God. So God "cast him down into hell" That's the sunday school version. Now, because of satan, God gave us free will also, to test us.

Answer 9

God created all the angels, including Lucifer. Lucifer chose to rebel against God and sealed his fate. Why Satan rebelled is unknown, but suffice it to say, he did, he chose out of pride, to seek to be God. He was created as an angel and chose to do evil. Why this happened is not known and has not been revealed to us.

Isa 14:12 Oh shining star, son of the morning, how you have fallen from the heavens! You weakening the nations, you are cut down to the ground.
Isa 14:13 For you have said In your heart, I will go up to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, and I will sit in the mount of meeting, in the sides of the north.
Isa 14:14 I will rise over the heights of the clouds; I will be compared to the Most High.
Isa 14:15 Yet you shall go down to Sheol, to the sides of the Pit.
Isa 14:16 They that see you shall stare and closely watch you, saying, Is this the man who made the earth tremble, shaking kingdoms,
Isa 14:17 making the world like a wilderness, and who tore down its cities; he did not open a house for his prisoners?

Answer 10

Plan and simple answer is God gave us all Free Will and thus set in motion the crazy world we live in. Even those close to him were given free will, Satan in an easy way of explaining it was just jealous of all the Love God received from everyone and wanted to take this away from him. So once again Free Will comes into play, God gaves us the foundation of how we should live and treat others but it is our choice to do so.
God wants Spiritual Fruits not Religous Nuts!!!

Answer 11

The post modernist view allows that God knows how things will go if the right elements are present. But since we have free will He must have left room for us to change the plan. Satan was created perfect according to alot of theologians but he changed which means that even the angels have free will.