Why did God create Satan?

 

Dr. Greg Boyd and Edward Boyd - from Letters From a Skeptic

June 6, 1989

Dear Greg:

Wow! That last one was a doozy! As you suspected, I did find much of it pretty implausible. I can, I suppose, accept your stuff about the limitations of creation, but your devil business is farfetched. Still, I admit, this world looks to me more like a "battlefield" than a work of art from the hand of an all-loving God. So, if someone were going to believe in such a God, I think he'd have to believe in something like this "cosmic conflict" you talk about. But to me that is just one more indication that your view of God is all wrong.

In any event, I have some more questions about this if you haven't tired of me yet. First, I'm wondering how a graduate of Princeton and Yale like yourself can really believe in angels and demons and the like. The idea that there are invisible creatures who can do good or evil in the world frankly sounds like something out of a Star Wars or medieval superstition.

Another question I have is this: why would God create Satan in the first place? You'll probably say that it was Satan's free choice to be evil, but if he was created to be so wonderful, how could he make such a bad choice? Bad people make bad choices — that's what makes them bad. And good people make good choices — that's what makes them good. So, if Satan was so good, how come he made such a bad choice and now, supposedly, does so much evil?

The same point applies to humans, now that I think about it. How come all of God's people who were originally created good are so bad? You tried to excuse God for natural disasters by pointing out how unloving and uncaring humans are — and I agree — but now I'm wondering whether this excuse really works. After all, He created us, didn't He? He gave us our nature. So, isn't He to blame after all?

One final thing comes to mind. I was taught in the Catholic Church that heaven is a permanent place. I mean, once you're in, you're in forever. But Satan was supposedly in heaven, wasn't he? Yet he fell. So, do you think people may even choose evil once they get to heaven? And if not, why the hell didn't God just create us there in the first place and save everyone the pain of earthly life? I'm still wondering why God has to take risks, I guess.

It seems like every question just leads to ten more questions. Do you think we're getting anywhere, Greg? Not that I mind. My brain hasn't had to work like this for decades, and I enjoy it. But I wonder if you're going to tire of it. I'd certainly understand it if you did.

Lots of love, Dad

June 18, 1989

Dear Dad:

Don't think for a minute that I’m tired of your questions. I am loving this! Even if I don’t succeed in my undying effort to make a preacher out of you, I'll still regard our dialogue as having been more than worth whatever time and effort we put into it. But that's beside the point because I know that, sooner or later, you are going to believe. You'll see.

Well, on to your questions. First, I can understand how this "cosmic conflict" business could sound like Star Wars to you. It used to far me as well. Now, however, it makes a lot of sense. What, after all, is so implausible about the notion of "spiritual beings"? Why should the notion of a nonphysical, personal being be any more difficult than the notion of a physical, personal being? If beings with consciousness such as ourselves exist — a fact which is remarkable in and of itself— why rule out the possibility of other types of personal beings existing? I think what gives it the "feel" of being science fiction is all the stupid pictures of angels and demons we've seen. But what I’m talking about has nothing to do with these cartoons.

Look, isn't it the case that the more we know about the universe, the stranger it becomes? Quantum physics deals almost entirely with a realm of the universe — the sub-atomic realm — which is almost entirely invisible. Not only can't we see it, but we can't even conceptualize what a photon, neutron, quark, etc. might look like. We can only formulate their behaviour with mathematical equations. In fact, most of reality we can't see! It always amazes me when I think that right now there are radio waves with voices and music going right through me. But you'd never know it unless you turned on a radio. So, the notion that there could be beings which I can't see doesn't seem so outrageous to me.

Nor does it strike me as implausible that such beings could be good or evil. If the universe can be inhabited by moral beings of the physical type, why not beings of a nonphysical type? Of course, I myself would never believe that such beings existed unless I had good reasons to do so. It is, I admit, a strange belief to hold in our modem culture. But I think I have good grounds for doing so. I have, I believe, really solid ground for believing that Jesus is the Son of God and that the Bible is God's Word. (We've got to get into these reasons at some point.) And so, if these two sources of authority portray the world as being influenced by spiritual forces, my grounds for believing in these authorities also constitute grounds for believing in the existence of these spiritual forces.

Still, I owe it to you (and to me) to address the legitimate questions you raise about this belief even before we consider one's basis for believing the authorities which ground this belief. So here I go.

You have a whole series of very good questions which are closely related, so I’m going to try to answer them in one sweep. The central issue, I think, is how a good creation can choose evil. This lies behind your question about Satan's fall and about humans being so prone to sin. It also lies behind your question about heaven. In heaven, presumably, the inhabitants will be perfectly good and will, therefore, never fall. So why didn't God create us in this state to begin with?

The way I think about this matter is as follows. As I wrote in some earlier correspondence, love requires freedom. It must be chosen. And the greater the possibility of love, the greater the possibility of evil. I think we agree on this. But I don't think this implies that love must forever he a tenuous affair. We tend to become the decisions we make. The more we choose something, the more we become that something. We are all in the process of solidifying our identities by the decisions we make. With each decision we make, we pick up momentum in the direction of that decision.

Just observing people can, I think, prove this point. I knew an old lady once who was the most ugly, bitter, mean-spirited person I'd ever met. As a young lady, however, I am told that she was beautiful, personable, and fun. But at the age of 19 her fiancé ran off with her sister three days before her wedding date. She was understandably humiliated and hurt. But what is most tragic is that she proceeded to choose to be hateful and unforgiving toward her sister and Ex fiancé the rest of her life. Though her sister was extremely sorry for what she had done and tried numerous times to make amends later on (over the course of 50 years!), this lady would never budge. And with each decision against love and forgiveness, she solidified herself in bitterness. Like all negative emotions which are entertained over a long period of time, her bitterness eventually coloured her whole outlook on life. She became her hatred. She became her bitterness. The momentum of her decisions became irreversible.

She no longer chose it; she couldn't now choose otherwise! All the good God originally intended her to be was consumed by the repeated course of hate she chose. What started as her decision eventually became her nature.

So it is, I believe, in every area of our lives. The more we choose something, the harder it is to choose otherwise, until we finally are solidified —eternalized — in our decision. The momentum of our character becomes unstoppable. We create our character with our decisions, and our character, in turn, exercises more and more influence on the decisions we make.

It's in the nature of free, created beings, and I don't see how it could be otherwise. Life, I guess, is a lot like the proverbial snowball rolling down the hill.

What applies to evil also applies to love. There was a time when I had to choose to love Shelley, and there was a very good possibility that I would choose not to love her (and vice versa). It was, as it were, a "probation period" — call it "courting." But with each choice we made for love, the less choice for love we had to make. The less the possibility of not loving was present. And now, though my love for her is yet "freely chosen," it really is a part of my nature. And the snowball keeps on rolling.

Love must always start free — but its goal is to become unfree. To be unable not to love is the highest form of freedom in love. (This is why God is perfectly free and yet, the Bible says, He "cannot sin." But being eternal. He never needed a "probation period" to get this way.)

So as I see it, Dad, all the creatures which God creates to share love with must go through a "probation period" — a period in which they choose to love or not love. They could not just be created "in heaven." Once chosen, however, for whatever period of time is necessary (depending on their nature), they become solidified in their decision. This is what the Bible means by heaven and hell. It is the "eternalization" of one's character.

Lucifer, then, was the greatest of all creatures, not because of who he actually was, but because of who he could become. His greatness lay in the magnificent potential for love which he had. But this also implied that he had an unthinkable potential for evil. And a decision started the difference. The difference between a Hitler and a Mother Teresa started somewhere with a small decision.

This also was, in my view, the "goodness" of humanity as it was originally created. It's what the biblical account of Adam and Eve is all about. We had, and have, the potential to be beings of incredible love. But that means we had, and have, the potential to he beings of incredible destruction. And we, to a large degree, make ourselves one or the other.

Let me close with this, Dad. The "snowball effect" which is true of individual lives is also true of societies and of humanity in general. What can be easily discerned with our eyes, and what the Bible clearly teaches, is that humanity is now a long way down the hill — in the wrong direction! You asked about how all of humanity could be so screwed up, and this is why. Evil tends to propagate evil, individually and societally. And this is part of what is meant in Christian theology by ''original sin."

The message of Scripture, Dad, is that we are all, individually and collectively, too far down the road to now "make ourselves" what God intended us to be. We can't, on our own, make ourselves right with God, with each other, and even with ourselves! We need a new start, a new creation, a clean slate. And this, according to the Gospel, is what God has given us in Jesus Christ. He became a man, lived His life, and died on the cross to perfectly reconcile us with God and to give us a new life — God's life. And it's available to all who are willing to believe. The only way of becoming the being full of the life, joy, and peace which God created us to be — and the only way to be "eternalized" in this state— is by getting it as a gift. And this we get by entering into a relationship with Christ.

The reason why I could never grow tired of dialoguing with you about the faith. Dad, is that I want so much to see you enter into this relationship and to share in this new life.

I love you always, Greg

https://www.amazon.com/Letters-Skeptic-Wrestles-Questions-Christianity/dp/1434799808