Are demons/fallen angels capable of self-love?

[friend of]

Since God is the truest essence of what Love actually is and since He has abdicated Himself from that race of rebellious angels and their cohorts the demons (if there's a difference between them at all) how then is it possible for these evil ones to love anything or anyone at all, including themselves?

On one hand, I think they probably do love themselves and only themselves (pride is self-obsession), it's just not the same kind of love as God's love. They rebelled because they wanted to be their own gods and put their own self-wills above God's will. This implies that they regard themselves with high-esteem to some degree.

Would they then be capable of loving their fellow evil cohorts? In the same way evil human beings love others around them who are evil whose presence enables them to gratify themselves and promulgate evil in this world? Is there warring's and strivings and jockying for position in the demonic hierarchy between the egos of those evil angels, like the same competition man has between his fellow man in this world, or are they all of one accord, much like the angels of heaven in their ranks?

 

[Blade]

Love is of God. Satan, as Christ said I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. There is no grace no mercy no forgiveness for Satan and his fallen angels. Sin was found in him and he was kicked out. Ever notice when the world talks about ghosts..it always gets very cold? He can make himself look like an angel in white. There is no love there. That is of God and they left God. Is it not written he comes to kill steal and destroy? He was a murderer from the start. Good/evil like hate/love can not be together. You love the one and hate the other.

Hell was made for Satan and his angels never for man. See we are not like the fallen. They freely left God and then kicked out. We were lied to deceived. So God here on man rains on the just and unjust. We born into sin only knew sin. Satan and his created only knew GOD in all His glory power love mercy grace yet sin found in Satan and got 1/3 of the angels to go with him left all that. Like being kicked out of your home. You are never around any of it ever again. We can not love and hate at the same time. One of the other. No middle ground.

 

[BobRyan]

Since God is the truest essence of what Love actually is and since He has abdicated Himself from that race of rebellious angels and their cohorts the demons (if there's a difference between them at all) how then is it possible for these evil ones to love anything or anyone at all, including themselves?

The love to survive - to get ahead at the expense of others. Selfishness comes naturally to them.

 

[ViaCrucis]

As we see testified throughout the Scriptures, purely selfish love isn't love at all. While a certain kind of love of self is good, after all "love your neighbor as yourself" assumes that the individual does care about themselves, even as "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" assumes that one has a healthy and proper desire to be cared for and respected; it is never selfish but always what we might call koinonial, a love expressed in fellowship and communion--with God, with one another. Self-less love, not by self-loathing; but by recognizing the intrinsic dignity of all human persons and our place within that--as givers of love, as doers of love.

In that sense, I don't think the devils can love themselves. They have destroyed and burned the bridge between themselves and the Source of all love, God the Holy Trinity. They may be selfish, but selfishness is not true love of self it is hatred of self and other. True love of self can only be found in the love of others, even as love of others recognizes that the self also is to be loved by others. Selfishness, therefore, is merely another kind of self-loathing, one that refuses to be loved by another and therefore seeks to assert and dominate, to be master rather than servant.

But the love of God says that God gives Himself away, "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us", "Though being God by nature, He did not seek to exploit this, but emptied Himself and became a slave", "The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many". God Himself is love and shows forth His love not by force and mastery, but by being Servant, God became a Servant, God ministers, God comes down, God rescues us by giving Himself away. And in the fellowship of the Three Persons in the Trinity, we see love from One to Another: The love which the Father has for the Son, the love the Son has for the Father, the love of the Holy Spirit for the Father and the Son, etc. So that we can see the Father pointing to His Son when He says, "This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased" and also "Your Throne O God is forever and ever"; even as the Son points to His Father, saying of the Father that He is the Source, and the Son honors and glorifies His Father; and Jesus points to the Holy Spirit saying He and His Father would send Another Comforter, and that the Spirit Himself would again point back to Christ.

See, then, that in the Holy Trinity there is Love, love that gives, and love that makes perfect; and so we--made in the image of God--are called to love, to share in the same love of God.

The devils, however, have cut themselves off from that love. I feel it safe to say, then, they can neither love themselves nor love anything or anyone. And here is the frightening and sobering thought: So would it be for us unless God intervened to save us; so we too would one day, perhaps, find that there is nothing left of us other than loveless and empty rage. As C.S. Lewis puts it in the Great Divorce, like a machine groaning on and on, a grumble with nothing left of us to even criticize our own grumble.

-CryptoLutheran