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Angels and choice.

Idiolatry

Antagonist
To my understanding, humans are God's favourites. We're the ones that got the souls, got choice, and everything is designed for us.

Angels, on the other hand, are mere minions. Such as in Judaic/Islam belief, they have no free will.

My question: Lucifer/The Beast/The Devil/etc was an angel of God. If he had no free will, did God force Lucifer to defy Him? If so, why?

In the assumption that God is omnipotent/omnipresent/omniscious, why would He go through so much effort to create evil?
 

Breathe

Hostis humani generis
I guess within Christian belief, Angels do have free will.
Within Islamic belief, the devil is not an angel, he is a jinn. Jinn have free will, like humans - within Islamic belief, the devil refused to prostrate in front of humans because he wanted to be over them, and thereby defied Allah and asked to become the tempter of humankind - but he will be punished in flames for eternity.

Generally, Judaism Satan is just an angel - a dark angel, nevertheless, but one who works for God and tempts humanity - so he has not defied God within Jewish belief, I guess.

If God forced Satan to disobey, defy, or go against Him, then that would be one crazy deity - but every religion has an explanation for what happened, I guess, and reconcile it generally with free will - even though God knew it would happen.

It could be said that evil was made by said God to help humans become more God-like, or more spiritually mature?
 

Riverwolf

Amateur Rambler / Proud Ergi
Premium Member
I tend to separate Lucifer from Satan.

To me, Satan is a jester of sorts, but not an angel. The angels are nothing more than messengers. (the word 'angel' means message) They don't need free will. The Perfect World had plenty of beings who had free will, including mankind under the rule of Adam and Lilith, who still had knowledge and immortality. Lucifer, being the original king of the Perfect World, under God, had the free will to defy God. But the story I'm working on is far from finished so I'll leave it at that. :D
 

gnostic

The Lost One
Angels and demons, including the archangels and Satan, were never given names in their writings, until the Exile in Babylon and post-Exile (commonly known as Second Temple Period) periods. They were not personified with names and there were no hierarchy or order of ranks.

Angels and fallen angels as we know today were derived from foreign influences such as the Iranian Zoroastrianism and later by mixture of Hellenistic and Egyptian religions.

Zoroastrianism had a complex hierarchical system of angels and fallen ones, had names of archangels.

Ezekiel was said to have lived during the Fall of Jerusalem and the Exile period in Babylon had vision of God's chariot and throne, which was full symbolic images of angels, which Jews have pointed out, not to be taken literally.

This and the books of Enoch written during 2nd half of the 3rd century BC, have largely coloured our view of angels (and fallen ones) of what angels are like, such as having wings, face of bull, lion, eagle, etc, remind us of earlier depiction of Egyptian and Sumerian/Babylonian gods/goddesses.

The Islamic view of Satan being a djinn, were derived from Jewish literature (like Talmud and Haggada) that Satan defied God when he refused to prostrate before Adam, who had defeated him, during the naming of animal contest. Through free-will Satan and his followers had "fallen" from heaven and God's grace, when they defied God's commandment.

This contest and defiance were never supported in canonical scriptures, and yet have great influences on Jewish mysticism, and on Christian and Muslim theology. Which is why conservative Jews considered Christian and Islamic religions to be blasphemous and idolatory, by giving names to angels and devils (and djinns for Islam) and attach great importance to them, when they (Jews) don't take such visions literally as Muslims and Christians do.

Seriously, can you take visions in the Revelation quite literally? Apparently some large number of Christians do? They wait for the 2nd Coming of Christ and Judgement Day.

It happened 1000 CE, and later still in 14th century CE when the bubonic plagues, known as the Black Death, swept through Asia and Europe, and thinking it was the sign of the End. Doomsday cults believed that the year 2000 would herald the sign of Jesus' 2nd Coming, and still nothing happened.
 

Idiolatry

Antagonist
Wow, some great answers. Thanks for all the replies. I guess I just have to research a bit more. I figured most religions would say "Free will" or there'd be a separation theory but, I wasn't sure. Thanks, again. I have a lot of reading to do now. Lol.
 

Peace

Quran & Sunnah
My question: Lucifer/The Beast/The Devil/etc was an angel of God. If he had no free will, did God force Lucifer to defy Him? If so, why?

From the Islamic point of view, Satan is not an angel he is a jinn, and jinns have free will that's why he went astray and disobeyed God.

In the assumption that God is omnipotent/omnipresent/omniscious, why would He go through so much effort to create evil?

First of all, everything is so easy for God, so He doesn't need to make an effort. Yes, God is omnipotent and omniscient. He created evil because we are here on this earth for a test. He created both good and evil within everyone of us and gave us a free will to see what we will follow.
 

Peace

Quran & Sunnah
Within Islamic belief, the devil is not an angel, he is a jinn. Jinn have free will, like humans - within Islamic belief, the devil refused to prostrate in front of humans because he wanted to be over them, and thereby defied Allah and asked to become the tempter of humankind - but he will be punished in flames for eternity.

True.
 

Idiolatry

Antagonist
First of all, everything is so easy for God, so He doesn't need to make an effort. Yes, God is omnipotent and omniscient. He created evil because we are here on this earth for a test. He created both good and evil within everyone of us and gave us a free will to see what we will follow.
If God is omniscient/omnipotent, why would He bother with any of this? He knows everything. He knew He would create Adam and Eve (I'm avoiding throwing Lilith into the mix at this point.) and they'd be perfect without sin. He also knew that they would disobey Him.

This does seem like a lot of effort for something that knows everything, and has control over everything--aside from free will.

What's the point of creating evil, and humans, and everything? Love? To me, if God's doing this because he loves us, it seems like a dysfunctional co-dependent relationship. He wants us to love Him so He tests us with plagues, floods, earthquakes, and allows Satan/Lucifer/etc to roam freely tempting us--even turning it into a sport (eg Job).

What kind of love is that? Especially because He knows what we're going to do.
 

Breathe

Hostis humani generis
I think that within Islam, humans are made for one reason alone: for the sole worship of Allah. At least, this is what I've been told by any sheikh that I've spoken to.
 

gnostic

The Lost One
odion said:
I think that within Islam, humans are made for one reason alone: for the sole worship of Allah. At least, this is what I've been told by any sheikh that I've spoken to.

You make it sounds...well..."empty".

If that's his real purpose, then it is empty one indeed.
 

Godslove

True Follower
Answer to your question” Lucifer who is your brother also did have his free agency to choose, Lucifer’s choice was evil he wanted to take away man free agency .And force all of Gods children to follow him. And to do his own will and not the will of our Heavenly Fathers. And for this cause Lucifer was cast out of heaven with 3 quarters of the host of heaven all they that would follow Lucifer. and they were never to have body’s of flesh like you and I but to be cast on earth in there spirit form to temp God children, to have them follow Lucifer and not God. This is why there is so much suffering on this earth because there are so many that do follow Lucifer and pleasure in doing evil. This is the cause of so much sorrow a pond the earth today. And God will one day end it all .Amen.
 

gnostic

The Lost One
godslove said:
Answer to your question” Lucifer who is your brother also did have his free agency to choose, Lucifer’s choice was evil he wanted to take away man free agency .And force all of Gods children to follow him. And to do his own will and not the will of our Heavenly Fathers. And for this cause Lucifer was cast out of heaven with 3 quarters of the host of heaven all they that would follow Lucifer.
I wished you wouldn't use the name, Lucifer, for your link with the Christian Devil-Satan. There's no explicit link to Lucifer with Satan in the Bible. It is only a name that St Jerome used to a few passages, when translate the scriptures to Latin. And the name stuck in, with later English translations. In Roman myth, the morning star (Venus) was named Lucifer, son of Eos, goddess of Dawn.

There was never a Lucifer in Isaiah's original passage (Isaiah 14:12-13) to the morning star or day star, and the parable/prophecy of Morning Star (Venus) was linked only to the King of Babylon at that time (Isaiah 14:4), not to Satan.

And Jesus have been compared with Morning Star (or Day Star, hence Lucifer) in 2 passages (2 Peter 2:19 and Revelation 22:16).
 
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