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To: Fred Hayek

“Let’s look at the book of Job. Was Satan the proctor in an exam. No, Satan wanted Job to fail, to curse G*d and die.”


That is simply not correct. Satan was/is an angel (granted a very high-ranking one) who was created by God - and the express purpose of ANY angel is to do God’s bidding. To think that something created by God to serve Him could disobey, let alone lead an active revolt, let alone succeed for more than literally a single micro-second...that is blasphemy.

No, in the Book of Job, Satan is charged with challenging Job’s faith by every means possible. He/it had the task of being very tough, of stripping away everything that Job knew, had or loved, so as to get to the essential Job. God knew that Job was faithful, but he had to be tested to prove it, and also to serve as a positive example to other people.

By the way, the Jewish concept of Hell is being without God in the World to Come (i.e. the afterlife or Heaven). There is no “Evil Central,” which sits there and plans to do evil and tempt humans...evil is just what our base nature leads us to do, from the standpoint of pure pleasure/self-interest. Having a physical body and physical needs, we are almost constantly tempted to stray from the ideals that God set forth for us...but that temptation is the very purpose of Creation - to allow us to exercise Free Will by having real choices. Without Free Will, there is simply no point to existence.


14 posted on 04/19/2018 10:17:56 AM PDT by Ancesthntr ("The right to buy weapons is the right to be free." A. E. van Vogt)
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To: Ancesthntr

So God can never be angry, because He made everything happen, correct?


19 posted on 04/19/2018 10:38:21 AM PDT by ConservativeMind (Trump: Befuddling Democrats, Republicans, and the Media for the benefit of the US and all mankind.)
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To: Ancesthntr

” To think that something created by God to serve Him could disobey, let alone lead an active revolt, let alone succeed for more than literally a single micro-second...that is blasphemy.”

Then Genesis is full of blasphemy, since Genesis tells us that man was created by God to serve Him and man disobeyed and rebelled.


26 posted on 04/19/2018 11:38:00 AM PDT by Boogieman
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To: Ancesthntr
To think that something created by God to serve Him could disobey, let alone lead an active revolt, let alone succeed for more than literally a single micro-second...that is blasphemy.

*Unless* God permitted that revolt. We know that he sometimes permits evils in the interest of a greater good.

The idea that Satan (or indeed any being) can operate or even continue to exist apart from the permissive will of God is not Christianity, but Manichaenism, which is heresy. Christians understand that Satan does exactly, and only, what God permits him to do.

30 posted on 04/19/2018 1:21:15 PM PDT by Campion (Halten Sie sich unbedingt an die Lehre! [Hold absolutely onto the Teaching! -- BXVI])
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