The existence Satan

Cis.jd

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Hello. I am here because there is big question in my mind that's been bugging me to get answers and it's on the topic of Satan. Does he really exists, is he a metaphor, or just an invention of the Catholic Church?

Now, here is where i draw my questioning.

Satan is believed to be a former high angel, who fell from heaven because he either hated Man, rebelled against God or both. Now, this world is a suffering world.. we die, there is pain, there is evil, the world is just damaged because sin entered it through Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve fell into the temptation of the Serpent, so the serpent is accepted to be Satan which means his fall pre dates the Garden of Eden.

So here is the problem, if this world became what it is because of Adam and Eve sinning, then why didn't heaven get the same results if the actual first sin was done in heaven - through Satan?

The whole existence of Satan just contradicts ALLOT about what we know about God -the just God, how Heaven is the perfect place. I will get into the contradictions later on after this question has been tackled.
 

Papias

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So here is the problem, if this world became what it is because of Adam and Eve sinning, then why didn't heaven get the same results if the actual first sin was done in heaven - through Satan?

Yes, that's a direct contradiction. Don't let people tell you to just stop thinking about it because they don't want to face it.

I've come across many of these in scripture, if read literally. They are often solved if one stops trying to read the text literally, and especially to stop believing ideas that others just made up, like the idea that there was no death before the fall. Of course there was death before the fall.


-Papias
 
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My Shalom

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Satan is the lord of this world. Scripture tells us this.
Satan was let to live by God so that we could make a choice as to what master we wished to serve. We were born with the fallen satanic nature. Jesus arrived to give us the opportunity to assume the connection we once had with the divine nature before the fall of Adam and Eve from that place. That's why we're said to be 'reborn' in the spirit. Because we are spirits encased in flesh and once we accept Jesus Christ, Christ=the anointed, we cross that bridge back to the Father and are rejoined in the spirit of divine nature with him.
While living in Satan's world we are to don the armor of God in order to navigate the hurdles that then are there not to test our faith necessarily, but to allow us to demonstrate in overcoming them that the spirit of Christ is superior for those who are alive in Christ. And that's why scripture tells us they, the non-Christians, shall know us by our fruits.
We become the living new testimony of the truth of Christ.

Satan is part of the process that proves God us the King of Heaven. And those who are of God need not fear. While those who are of Satan are known by their fruits as well.
 
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Cis.jd

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Yes, that's a direct contradiction. Don't let people tell you to just stop thinking about it because they don't want to face it.

I've come across many of these in scripture, if read literally. They are often solved if one stops trying to read the text literally, and especially to stop believing ideas that others just made up, like the idea that there was no death before the fall. Of course there was death before the fall.


-Papias
But doesn't the bible say that Adam and Eve would only die if they bit the apple?
 
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JackRT

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So i get no answer?

God didn't create Satan, man did. Satan (ha'shaitan) occurs by name in the Old Testament in the Book of Job, and here it's clear that Satan IS NOT the Devil! The Devil is supposedly banished from the presence of God, yet in Job, Satan is allowed to come and go from God's presence and on a mission for God yet! What's going on? Satan here is not "the Devil" but sort of God's prosecuting attorney.

Most of Isaiah 14 is a long rant against an egomaniacal, tyrranical king of Babylon. This is clearly seen in context:

Isaiah 14: 3 On the day the LORD gives you relief from suffering and turmoil and cruel bondage, 4 you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon: How the oppressor has come to an end! How his fury has ended!

Isaiah is clearly talking of a man here. And again:

Isaiah 14: 12 How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star [Lucifer in some translations], son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations! 13 You said in your heart, "I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. 14 I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High." 15 But you are brought down to the grave, to the depths of the pit. 16 Those who see you stare at you, they ponder your fate: "Is this the man who shook the earth and made kingdoms tremble, ...

It was later that the Jews and early Christians began to conflate the snake in Genesis, Satan in Job and Lucifer in Isaiah into a single personage named Satan. I suspect that this was accomplished under the strong influence of Zoroastrian belief to which the Jews were exposed during the Exile.

The reality is that Lucifer is the ironic name for a Babylonian king, Satan is an angel in God's service and doing God's will and the snake is, well, just a "garden variety" talking snake.
 
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Willtor

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But doesn't the bible say that Adam and Eve would only die if they bit the apple?

It says they would die that day: "... but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die." (Genesis 2:17, NRSV)

Then they ate... and didn't die! Maybe God wasn't talking about physical death and that was already present. Maybe we're not even supposed to read the garden account literally. The point is, it's difficult to reconcile the introduction of physical death at the fall with the Genesis account.

There's a thread about some of this in the Theistic Evolution subforum.
 
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miamited

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Hello. I am here because there is big question in my mind that's been bugging me to get answers and it's on the topic of Satan. Does he really exists, is he a metaphor, or just an invention of the Catholic Church?

Now, here is where i draw my questioning.

Satan is believed to be a former high angel, who fell from heaven because he either hated Man, rebelled against God or both. Now, this world is a suffering world.. we die, there is pain, there is evil, the world is just damaged because sin entered it through Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve fell into the temptation of the Serpent, so the serpent is accepted to be Satan which means his fall pre dates the Garden of Eden.

So here is the problem, if this world became what it is because of Adam and Eve sinning, then why didn't heaven get the same results if the actual first sin was done in heaven - through Satan?

The whole existence of Satan just contradicts ALLOT about what we know about God -the just God, how Heaven is the perfect place. I will get into the contradictions later on after this question has been tackled.
Hello. I am here because there is big question in my mind that's been bugging me to get answers and it's on the topic of Satan. Does he really exists, is he a metaphor, or just an invention of the Catholic Church?

Now, here is where i draw my questioning.

Satan is believed to be a former high angel, who fell from heaven because he either hated Man, rebelled against God or both. Now, this world is a suffering world.. we die, there is pain, there is evil, the world is just damaged because sin entered it through Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve fell into the temptation of the Serpent, so the serpent is accepted to be Satan which means his fall pre dates the Garden of Eden.

So here is the problem, if this world became what it is because of Adam and Eve sinning, then why didn't heaven get the same results if the actual first sin was done in heaven - through Satan?

The whole existence of Satan just contradicts ALLOT about what we know about God -the just God, how Heaven is the perfect place. I will get into the contradictions later on after this question has been tackled.

Hi cisjd,

Satan is a created angellic creature. However, you seem to be working under a false understanding that heaven is a perfect place. The Scriptures point out at least twice that their is war in heaven between the obedient and disobedient angels.

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted
 
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Papias

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But doesn't the bible say that Adam and Eve would only die if they bit the apple?


Sorry for the delay. I just saw this response.

In short, no. As Wiltor pointed out, they were told they would immediately die if they ate it, not that they would live forever otherwise. That's like saying that if a person threatens you with a gun, he's saying that you are going to live forever if he doesn't shoot - of course he's not saying that.

One place this is clear is in Gen. 3:22, where if they ate from the tree of immortality they'd become immortal - so they must have been mortal from the start.

Another is the very fact that God told them they'd die immediately if eating the fruit. If nothing died, then how would they know what death even was? God's words would have made no sense, and would have needed explanation of what "dying" was.

There are tons of logical reasons too - like, how could they eat without death? Anytime anyone eats something - whether that's meat or vegetable, the living cells of the food die.
Other reasons are discussed on this thread - see especially post #4, where I talk about an explosion reaching out past the moon!

http://www.christianforums.com/threads/animal-death-before-the-fall.7542459/#post56943417

In Christ-

Papias
 
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Job8

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Hello. I am here because there is big question in my mind that's been bugging me to get answers and it's on the topic of Satan. Does he really exists, is he a metaphor, or just an invention of the Catholic Church?
You may get a 100 responses and a 100 opinions. Since this is bugging you, please get hold of a Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (KJV) and a King James Bible and go through every reference to Lucifer, Satan, the devil, the old serpent, the great red dragon, the prince of the power of the air, the Enemy, and cross reference all of these with each other. Result: Satan is as real as you are. Since he is a spirit being, you can't see him.
 
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yeshuasavedme

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So i get no answer?
If you want answers, ask The LORD to open your eyes that you may behold wondrous things out of His TORAH/Teaching/Law.
Traditions of men is what you are asking questions about, of men, but what you are asking is not the doctrine of the Word of God/YHWH.
Satan is a whole class of created evil angels who are in heaven from the beginning and their purpose is to tempt, test, and try holy angels in heaven and the Adam creation.
Their reward for serving God in the separating out from the creation those who will believe the Creator and obey Him is the "food" they are rewarded with forever and forever, in the Lake of fire, which was prepared for the devil [a created evil angel] and his angels who serve him, under him.
Their food is to torment and to torture their prey forever, who become their legal property when they believe the lies of the satans, instead of the Truth which God spoke from the beginning.

The satans are called evil angels, Belial, Destruction, angel of death, and many other names, in the Tenach.
They have one chief, who is called "Prince Mastema" =the "Prince of the Satans", in the Book of Jubilee.
The Satans are the original preppers, laying up food to last them forever in the Lake of Fire, which is their kingdom of darkness prepared for them from the beginning, and where they will be boundaried in when they are cast into into it.
From there, they will never depart, so they want to go in wrath so as to gain as much [food to lay up], as they can, while they still have authority to do so.

It was never Satan who wanted to ascend to sit on the throne of God in heaven, but a satan tempted the female Adam who tempted the male Adam, who was defiled when he disobeyed the Word of YHWH.
In Ezekiel, the Hebrew says it is an Adam, who thought to sit on the throne of God, and all Adam bears the guilt of the first father of us. Only adoption into the New creation Man's One Living Spirit and flesh will give us the power to escape the Lake of Fire. God has redeemed "whosoever will", and His plan was promised from the beginning... to ransom us back and destroy the power of the "head" =the chief satan, who tempted Eve. who was herself, deceived, and then tempted her husband, who then willfully sinned.

The defilement of the Adam creation is irrevocable and is the reason why we who are the seed of the first father of us, who were created in his loins to come into our being as " holy sons of God" [Malachi 2:15] to build the temple of God not made with hands for the Glory to indwell, and to "plant the heavens thereby", must be born again, into the One Living Spirit of the Christ/Messiah, who is Himself God the Word come in flesh of a New Creation, and He is not named "Adam", but "Israel", in that flesh.

He came to be our Kinsman/Redeemer so as to ransom us back by his Acceptable Atonement, so as to cover the sin of our first father and then to reclothe us with the New Man Living Spirit, which is the Adoption of the spirit of us. We await the adoption of the flesh of us, which will be when we are elementally dissolved and regenerated anew in the flesh body, and clothed with the Glory that Adam lost at the fall.
The English translations do not do justice to the Truth of the Hebrew that God gave to the prophets, but you can take a concordance, and begin to seek out the words God has spoken through the prophets, in the Hebrew.

Look at Psalm 82 in the Hebrew, and see that Adam is the one prince that "died", and the warning God gives to the holy sons of God in His congregation of them is to do justice over that which they are entrusted to do, else they will "die like Adam, the one prince".

Look at the location of Eden, Gods holy Mount where the Paradise of God is located, in Scripture. It is in the third heaven, where the Tree of Life is, and from which Adam was driven out of [the Hebrew is "divorced"], when he was cast down, dead in spirit, to till the earth in vanity of his being, and from which earth his flesh, now corrupted by the entrance of the satans who "eat the dust" by the spiritual corruption of it that entered it's physical flesh when Adam "died", now have authority over it until The Everlasting Father and the King who ransomed it back by His Atonement takes up His power and reigns over it, in the New Man name, as the "Everlasting Father" as Adam would have done if he had not defiled his flesh irrevocably and lost the authority over it by Death entering in, and died as "Adam, son of God", forever. [Luke 3:38]
 
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-57

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You may get a 100 responses and a 100 opinions. Since this is bugging you, please get hold of a Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (KJV) and a King James Bible and go through every reference to Lucifer, Satan, the devil, the old serpent, the great red dragon, the prince of the power of the air, the Enemy, and cross reference all of these with each other. Result: Satan is as real as you are. Since he is a spirit being, you can't see him.

I find it hard to believe the bible would mention Satan so much...if he wasn't real.
 
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BobRyan

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Hello. I am here because there is big question in my mind that's been bugging me to get answers and it's on the topic of Satan. Does he really exists, is he a metaphor, or just an invention of the Catholic Church?

Now, here is where i draw my questioning.

Satan is believed to be a former high angel, who fell from heaven because he either hated Man, rebelled against God or both. Now, this world is a suffering world.. we die, there is pain, there is evil, the world is just damaged because sin entered it through Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve fell into the temptation of the Serpent, so the serpent is accepted to be Satan which means his fall pre dates the Garden of Eden.

So here is the problem, if this world became what it is because of Adam and Eve sinning, then why didn't heaven get the same results if the actual first sin was done in heaven - through Satan?

The whole existence of Satan just contradicts ALLOT about what we know about God -the just God, how Heaven is the perfect place. I will get into the contradictions later on after this question has been tackled.

1. Yes Satan exists - so also did he take 1/3 of the angels with him - they are now demons.

2. IF Adam and Eve had had children without sinning.

3. If they numbered in the 100's of thousands all of them sin free. -

4. if then one of those children chose to sin - should all the 100's of thousands of humans - sinless humans, have been doomed to an experience like ours -- because "Someone on the planet" sinned/ No that would be unjust.

5. Even if 1/3 of those sinless humans turned to evil - it would not be just to doom the 2/3's that did not choose sin.

In the world of Angels - 1 chose to sin, then 1/3 of the rest of the angels chose to join him. Then there was war in heaven and the good angels -- won - expelling the bad angels from heaven. Still no sin among the 2/3's --
 
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-57

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1. Yes Satan exists - so also did he take 1/3 of the angels with him - they are now demons.

2. IF Adam and Eve had had children without sinning.

3. If they numbered in the 100's of thousands all of them sin free. -

4. if then one of those children chose to sin - should all the 100's of thousands of humans - sinless humans, have been doomed to an experience like ours -- because "Someone on the planet" sinned/ No that would be unjust.

5. Even if 1/3 of those sinless humans turned to evil - it would not be just to doom the 2/3's that did not choose sin.

In the world of Angels - 1 chose to sin, then 1/3 of the rest of the angels chose to join him. Then there was war in heaven and the good angels -- won - expelling the bad angels from heaven. Still no sin among the 2/3's --

Keep in mind, the angels were not deceived like Adam and Eve were.
 
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brotherjerry

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Also look at the possibility that Satan fell when he caused man to fall. We are given no "time" as to when Satan rebelled against God...but leading man from God's path is a sure fire example of rebellion.

Also something to note is that Satan did have access to heaven before Christ. But it apparently is not open access, any time we see Satan in heaven, it is because he was summoned.
 
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Also look at the possibility that Satan fell when he caused man to fall. We are given no "time" as to when Satan rebelled against God...but leading man from God's path is a sure fire example of rebellion.

Also something to note is that Satan did have access to heaven before Christ. But it apparently is not open access, any time we see Satan in heaven, it is because he was summoned.

Do you think the garden deception was the last straw?
 
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