There are only two possible answers; 1. Yahweh made mistakes thus is fallible. 2. Yahweh wanted him too.
Supposedly Yahweh made everything, he made the angels and the environment they lived in. When he made them he gave them knowledge they needed (how to communicate, move, etc) and gave them their personalities; he programmed them and their environment.
Now, Yahweh created the angels, there personalities and the environment they lived in; so something in the environment or in how Satan was programmed led him to rebel. If God is perfect than Satan could not have rebelled unless God wanted him too and if God didn't want him too than God made a mistake and thus is not infallible.
Of course some Christians will use the "free will" argument but that argument doesn't work. Even if Satan had free will, if he never was exposed to or never thought of the idea of rebelling against God, he would have never rebelled. If Yahweh is infallible then he is incapable of making mistakes which means unless Yahweh wanted Satan to rebel against him he would not have made the mistake of programing Satan or the environment in such a way as to make a rebellion likely or even possible
The question apples to more than just Satan. Yahweh created and programmed Adam, Eve and the snake. If Yahweh is perfect and doesn't make mistakes than he would have never programmed the snake to be "subtile and crafty" nor programed Adam and Eve to be as gullible as they were and if Yahweh would have never put the tree of knowledge of good and evil where they could get to it.
The way Yahweh programmed Adam, Eve, the snake and putting the three of knowledge where they could get to it were all mistakes. If Yahweh is perfect he would never have never made such mistakes, that means God wanted the events (the snake tempting Eve to eat the fruit, her eating the fruit and then Adam eating the fruit) to happen. If Yahweh didn't want the events to happen than Yahweh made mistakes and is thus Yahweh is imperfect.
This is were you Christians have a problem. Christians like to think of their god as infallible, you don't like the idea of a limited, fallible, imperfect god. If Yahweh is infallible than he would be incapable of making mistakes and thus everything would happen according to his plan. The world is royally fucked up and has been sense before civilization. If Yahweh is infallible and created the world and all in it that means he wants the world to be this fucked up. All the wars, death, suffering, starvation, infanticide, familicide, murder, torture, slavery, rape, etc, he wanted all that to happen. That would make your god a cruel, evil malevolent sadist. On the other hand if your god is fallible, he is extremely stupid; too stupid to prevent not only Satan from rebelling but to stupid to prevent Adam and Eve from eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, too stupid to prevent false religions from dominating, too stupid to keep his "one true religion" a single religion.
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I think just because someone isn’t exposed to something doesn’t mean it’s not possible for him to think it up. Like the invention of the phone. Or a 1-year-old who say “no” and “mine” and has temper tantrums when he doesn’t get his way. Nobody teaches toddlers how to be selfish, but they’re really good at it.
And it’s kinda easy to say something couldn’t have happened this or that way … but you can’t say for sure unless you were there.
Why do you think that just because Adam and Eve screwed up, it means God made a mistake? I have kids, and they constantly do stuff I don’t want them to do–even when I’m specific about the rules. But they’re not mistakes. I still love them.
You missed the point.
If God is perfect than he would never make mistakes, every action he takes would be the right actions based on the circumstance and his intentions.
God gave Satan his personality, God chose Satan’s personality, he made the environment Satan lived in, if God did all that perfectly, Satan would never have been exposed to the idea or thought it up.
Your analogy doesn’t work, your not God, there are many things out of your control and you didn’t set everything in motion, you are part of the motion. God set everything into motion.
Think about it this way, say you created a program, if you did every thing right, everything in the program will happen the way you wanted it to, you make a mistake, it may not happen as you want it too. If God did everything right, everything would happen as he planed it. God supposedly created everything and there are supposed to be no other gods, that means, in the beginning there would be no force out of his control.
Think about it this way, if God had programed the snake with a different personality and if God had not put the tree of knowledge in where Adam and Eve could have gotten too it, than there would have been no fall. Giving Adam and Eve access to the tree and the snake the personality he gave it where mistakes unless what happened is what God wanted.
Maybe there is another possibility – God wasn’t paying attention.
Another GREAT post, Lone Wolf. But remember, Lucifer and the angels, both those who rebelled and those who didn’t, existed with God in heaven BEFORE the earth was created. They were clearly powerful enough to challenge God himself, so it could be argued they were, in their own right, gods themselves. Right from the start it is clear God is far from perfect as a Civil War breaks out in his heavenly kingdom even before humanity ever existed. And this all knowing God fails to foresee the fact that his casting out of Lucifer sets up the circumstances that allow Satan to invade Eden and tempt Eve with fruit from the tree of life. And why exactly does God punish the serpent Satan disguised himself as instead of Satan himself? This always bothered me. Poor, innocent serpent.
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Keep up the good work.
True. From that persecutive it makes sense. A sort of Seth, Horus relationship (It would explain the repeated use of “us” by God in Genesis). It also demonstraits the pagan and or zoroatrean origens the mythology. They just turned Satan into the adversary of God with out any thought.
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