If God is good and loving, why is Satan part of His plan?

Question

Simple question. Bible quotes get a thumbs down. "To offer us a choice" is not an acceptible answer.

Answer 1

Light exists. Darkness is non-existence, it is the non-existence of light.
There is no planet sending us darkness. There is a planet sending us light. Light has a physical source. Darkness has none. A room "full of darkness" can be transformed in an instant by just flicking a switch and all the darkness in the universe can do nothing about it.
This analogy can be used to show that what we call bad or evil is just the absence of good. For example to be cruel is considered bad. But cruelty is the absence of a moral quality which is kindness.
Cruelty is not caused by an unknown or malefic force it is only the absence of a moral virtue which is kindness.
Satan or the Devil were pedagogical notions used to educate humanity when it was in it's infancy.
In many countries small children are warned not to walk into the darkness because there is a malefic force or person hidden in the darkness. An adult knows that this is not true however this is used to warn the child that he could get hurt if he walks in the darkness without seeing where he goes. A child can not understand a more elaborate or abstract reason. But if we tell the same story to the same child when he is grown up he will certainly laugh at the notion.

Answer 2

Satan does not exist.
Our disobedience is satan itself. For the obedient man, everywhere and every time is heaven; for the disobedient man is hell. In order to get a clear idea about obedience and disobedience, reward and punishment, we better read the Holy Books. The Golden Age is the time when most people obediently return to do the Will of God.
You can never get any good answers for your question with the threat to thumb down quotations from the Holy Scriptures, and irresponsibly denying freewill by which man chooses to be obedient or disobedient. The cow can make no choice: she eats grass; but man wisely or stupidly chooses to eat all sorts of healthy or deadly things.

Answer 3

In every religion you come across there is always a balance between good and evil atleast I havent found one without one yet. I am taking a class on religions of the world and right now we are studying Hinduism. Now Hinduism doesnt have any specific guidelines or rules or even a specific god you have to follow but even it has the balance. You do bad things, bad things happen to you, Karma. I hate to go all nerdy and use a reference to a very overrated movie but it seems best considering you don't want bible quotes to learn about something in the bible but here it goes: man can't live in a perfect world because there is no balance we have to have a choice or atleast it has to seem like we have a choice as to how our life pans out, the movie references is... the last matrix.... I know but it seemed to fit any way hope this helped

Answer 4

How am I to qualify what I say without bible quotes when you are asking a Bible type question? *shrug*
um...Ok I will try to answer as best I can with one Bible tied behind my back.
Satan's fall wasn't God's plan. It was a possibility God planned for but you cannot offer free will to the beings you create and then violate it when they don't do something you like. You can give THEM consequences to their choices, but to stay true to your own rules, you have to make the bad side of free will run along side the good side of free will or it isn't considered free will. Satan chose the bad side of free will as did mankind. So consequences were built into that plan to affect His creation and keep it on a basic course of what He wanted. Namely to interact with His creation without having the "sin = death" issue looming overhead. Sin = death and some day Satan will fill the consequences of this action he's taken. Why God doesn't or didn't fulfill the consequences of Satan's sin immediately? I don't know...I imagine it has something to do with the plan for humanity. Only God knows how it will play out so I think Satan has some purpose in this timeline that serves God's greater purpose. Perhaps as a testimony in the end to the nature of God Himself in some unforseen way. I don't know. I do know that the consequences will indeed catch up with us all on Judgment Day.

I hope that helps. I hope I expressed it well enough.

Answer 5

According to Christians Satan was an angel of light with God and was one of his I guess you could say friends for lack of a better word. Satan decided to be God himself and lead a rebellion to oust God so he could take over, but God and Jesus kicked hinm out of heaven.

There are no real clear examples of this in the bible but are hints at it, but this is what most christians beleive.

Some go even farther and say we were created to prove to Satan that God is more powerful than he is becuse man will still choose God with free will and that is stretching things a bit. I hate to think we are pawns in a chess game with God and Satan.

Answer 6

God created Lucifer who was God's most marvelous creature.
He was an angel.
His beauty was outstanding.
His voice was outstanding.
He was the worship leader in heaven.

Lucifer became pride-full and rebelled against God.
He was thrown down to the earth, where he was known as the devil, Satan, or Apollyon.
He tempted Eve in the garden.

So, God did not create Satan as an adversary.

There are several scriptures that describe all this, but you told us not to give any Bible quotes.

grace2u

Answer 7

Was Hitler or someone who decides to molest a child or kill someone a part of the plan of God?

Satan made his own choice to rebeled against God out of his free will.

God's plan was for all intelligent beings to live in paradise and happy for eternety.

But the price of free will is that some people don't want to play by God's laws. Some people like to hurt others, some like to be adored, some like to be like God and be worshipped.

Satan was not part of God's plan, and neither are all the bad things people decide to do in this planet.

Answer 8

No one said that Satan IS part of the plan? Are you saing that the whole Bible is a "plan"? And just because Satan is there means that he's part of a plan? I don't consider a plan, all it is is a guidebook and history book.

Answer 9

The concept of a "Satan" was created by the same group that created 'Christianity' as a way to both scare people into believing, and a 'straw-man' to use as the 'alternative'-to their belief/s.

It's all part of the "my-way-or-no-way" black-and-white way that the mindset works, either You believe MY 'god' OR Your god is Satan.....

Basically, it's a trap set by Christians to stifle rational thought about their belief-system. IMO

Answer 10

I guess it depends on ones beliefs regarding satan. I personally do not believe that Satan exists in the sense.

The choices we make are of our own doing. We created this illusion of Satan in order to put blame on our own actions.

The actions one takes is of ones own choice and nobody else has any control over that.

Again; this is just my personal point of view on the subject.