The Evangelical Universalist Forum

james.goetz on the Devil

From “Reformatory view of justice…”

If you’re trying to claim that the fallen messengers in 2 Peter and Jude were fallen human messengers instead of fallen celestial messengers, then you’re rejecting the original first century context of those verses. And the devil and his angels are also called “spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms”. Or were you talking about something else?

And are you trying to imply that the Kingdom of God will fail if some heavenly messengers rebelled?

If that were the case, then I suppose that the Kingdom of God would fail if ancient Jewish or Christian messengers fell from grace.

The Bible is not a set of propositional truths that we can set up against each other to ‘figure out’ what happened.

I’m unsure of what you mean by this comment in the given context. Are you suggesting something about opposing propositional truths or something else?

I guess I am supporting you (in a way) by saying that you can’t just line up the sentence ‘a kingdom divided against itself will fall’ with every kingdom in the Bible or in real life. I am not saying that there is not propositional truths in the Bible, but I am saying that the Bible isn’t to be treated like a science book and thus I feel like harmonizing the verses to divine the origin of Satan is simply a waste of time. Especially since he is ultimately defeated.

I will make this very clear.

Try to prove that fallen angels is talking about Celestial Beings who were once in service to God as part of the Kingdom of Heaven and demonstrate that Satan was indeed one of these Celestial Beings. I guarantee you, you will find yourself grasping at straw men, argumentum ad popularum, circular reasoning and chasing red herrings.

If you can create a convincing argument, I will then address each point. If you are unwilling to do such work, I have no problem having you still believe in the Roman myth of the two lights before and after the Sun. A story of Lucifer [The Morning Star] and his wife Phosphorus [The Evening Star] who was known as the herald of Apollo, who grew proud of his own light and gathered many of the other lights in the sky against Apollo but was defeated along with his wife Phosphorus cast down to earth and replaced by a single light, the daughter of Jupiter, Venus who would serve as the Morning Star and the Evening Star from that day forward.

So James, I gladly give the floor to you to make your case of who Satan was and is, and who those fallen messengers were referencing in the Scriptures.

On the contrary Indeed you can. Every kingdom which has been divided has failed. At no time in Scripture, or in real life, has the Kingdom of God had a power struggle which opposed itself; except somehow this Roman myth of the 3rd Century CE, in which the Jerome had incorporated into the Scriptures. It documented fact before the 3rd Century, prior to his interference, there was no Christian concept of an Archangel name Lucifer who rebelled against God in a war and was cast out of heaven and condemned to the Earth.

The story was added because it was at this time, 3rd Century CE, which Roman Astrologers noticed a fatal error in their the astrology charts. They believed the Morning Star (which at that time they called Lucifer) and the Evening Star (which at the time they called Phosphorous) were two separate stars in the sky and not one and the same. It was also at this time that Apollo and Helios and Sol were reconciled into a singular deity (which prior to this they were considered separate). In order to correct their star charts, the Roman Astrologists told the roman myth of why there is now only one light which is both the Morning and Evening Star instead of the two. The Story of Lucifer, fallen star cast from heaven, was invented.

Jerome, a student of Roman rhetorical and philosophical studies, and contemporary of Augustine, who was also very much versed in Roman philosophy, Manicheanism, and Neo-Platonism before converting to Christianity, is the first one to make this connection into Christianity. Jerome is also recorded to have initially used classical authors to describe Christian concepts and one of these stories was the myth of Lucifer. It was Augustine, who encouraged Jerome, being himself previously heavily influenced by Manicheanism who helped mold this myth into Christian doctrine along with the doctrine of Original Sin and the concept of Just War.

So now we know the Roman myth (read above), let us look at Manichaeism: The syncretic, dualistic religious philosophy taught by the Persian prophet Manes, combining elements of Zoroastrian, Christian, and Gnostic thought. Manichaeism is distinguished by its elaborate cosmology describing the struggle between a good, spiritual world of light, and an evil, material world of darkness. Through an ongoing process which takes place in human history, light is gradually removed from the world of matter and returned to the world of light from which it came.

It is no coincidence. Augustine and Jerome are both known for although claiming to abandon their past philosophical understandings, to later find these principles at work in their interpretation of the Scriptures and God’s plan for humanity. How can a myth invented and incorporated into the Scriptures in the 3rd Century, have any relevance to what Jesus taught and his disciples taught 300 years earlier?

So, care to demonstrate where you ever got the idea that Lucifer is the name for Satan prior to His rebellion from God; demonstrate if this were true, where you ever go the idea that Lucifer ever rebelled from God; demonstrate if this is true, how the references to fallen messengers (In Greek ‘angels’) refer to those who sided with Lucifer in this rebellion.

Peace :ugeek:

I wasn’t literally supporting his thoughts on Satan, which don’t matter at all to me.

I don’t see how anything you typed out has anything to do with my sentence, which simply says that you can’t take every sentence of the Bible and turn it into propositional truth and then take every kingdom and compare it to the sentence and then determine if the kingdom has failed or not. Or maybe one could waste his/her time doing that and determining whether something counts as a kingdom or not or what ‘fails’ means. But anyways. This isn’t a very productive thing to argue about, so I will graciously bow out on this topic. I ask your apology for butting in when in fact I have no idea about the origins of Satan. Thank you.

It’s okay, it isn’t a big deal. No need to apologize, your opinions on the topic are appreciated. I find not too many people know much about Satan, let alone able to actually explain by the Scriptures what it is; but the good news is that he is defeated.

Craig, I’m sorry, but I’m confused by your reply. For example, in my first post in this thread, I wrote, “I reject that “Lucifer” is the biblical name of the devil while I believe that the Bible teaches that there are fallen angels, which includes the devil and his angels.” Likewise, I’m unsure why you say, " I have no problem having you still believe in the Roman myth of the two lights before and after the Sun. A story of Lucifer [The Morning Star] and his wife Phosphorus [The Evening Star] who was known as the herald of Apollo, who grew proud of his own light and gathered many of the other lights in the sky against Apollo but was defeated along with his wife Phosphorus cast down to earth and replaced by a single light, the daughter of Jupiter, Venus who would serve as the Morning Star and the Evening Star from that day forward."

Anyway, the Bible teaches that the devil and his angels are spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. They’re fallen heavenly being, regardless if they fell during the first act of their will or after serving God for a while.

May I ask, apart from rejecting the story of Lucifer, do you accept or reject that the devil and his angels are evil heavenly beings?

Do you believe that they were in service to God? If so, where and why?