Why does God allow Satan to exist and prosper in this world?
This question has been asked for a very long time. It is the age old academic approach attempting to disproving the existence of God.
“How can an all-good, all-powerful, all-knowing God allow evil to exist?”
To understand the answer you must first understand the components of the question. Satan, A.K.A. Lucifer, was created by God as a PERFECT being and one of very high stature in God’s kingdom. Lucifer allowed PRIDE to overtake his thoughts and actions to think selfishly about deserving MORE than what God had given to him. Keep in mind that Lucifer was one of two cherubs that covered the throne of the entire universe! That is a pretty high position that offered him both power and stature. Yet, it was not enough.
So, why did God allow Satan to live after he rebelled? This gets back to the entirety of God’s plan. God created MAN in his own image. God gave humans free will, as he wanted their adoration and worship freely given, not forced and coerced. So, MAN must toil and experience perfect grace and love from God, and then compare that to what is offered by the world. In our current form, we humans are NOT perfect. However, we have the ability to achieve perfection by accepting the sacrifice of Jesus as a no-strings-attached gift of grace and redemption.
Satan (the Angel Lucifer) is not a red-skinned dual horned creature, rather he is nothing more than “The Accuser”. Satan points out our failures. Satan reminds us of our imperfections. Satan seeds our minds with his desires for power and stature vs. subordination to The Lord God. Satan whispers to us about our failures and tries to convince us that God will never want us in his kingdom. If we succumb to these attacks, we FREELY move away from the grace offered to us by God. However, we have the FREE WILL to resist these temptations and move closer to a perfect personal relationship with God. So in the end, God is using Satan for good… We are shown grace and perfect love, and we are also offered fleeting indulgences of the world. We get to make a FREE WILL CHOICE. This setup is a perfect illustration of the message that Paul gave in his letter to the Roman Church.
Finally, the last component to understanding this is to consider TIME. God is not constrained by time. Time is relative to your own situation. What seems like an eternity to man is a nothing more than a fraction of a second to God. To better understand this concept, consider a man made illustration in our own world: Dog Years. We have pets that live for a short time compared to our life span. However, we want to normalize their life spans to match ours. So we say that for every year a dog lives, it is to be calculated like 7 of our years. I’m not sure if Jesus has a Human Years calculation, but this illustration helps us, in our limited capacity, to understand.
Now take that concept and consider another age old argument of God creating everything in 6 days… I’m sure He did, and it is easier for me to grasp that concept by understanding that His definition of a day is most likely different than mine.
So, when we consider Satan’s existence and God’s timeline, Satan really hasn’t been around very long… In God’s time, he just recently fell from grace and will be dealt with accordingly. For more on how this all ends, be sure to read Revelation 20.
One response
Kos,
I had to comment. Reading your comment:
“it is easier for me to grasp that concept by understanding that His definition of a day is most likely different than mine.”
I am with you 100%. I have often used this line of thought when in discussions about biblical “wrongness’ of the age of our planet. Well said and I loved this post. Let me encourage you to keep them coming!