Satan is just as important as God

[georgia]

Imagine if there were no Satan. Nothing trying to pull us away from the path towards God. No adversary to overcome. Wouldn't it be boring? Making it to the right hand of God would have so much less meaning. Or would it have any meaning at all? If everyone was just automatically good and perfect? Would there be any sense of pride in our accomplishment of staying on the straight & narrow and enduring until the end?

In order to be happy, people need struggle and challenge in order to feel a sense of agency and accomplishment. Everything good comes from God and everything bad comes from Satan... but we need the bad in order to appreciate the good. In order to live a meaningful life. If everything were good and there were no bad at all, we wouldn't even think of it as good at all. It would just be neutral.

Almost makes you wonder if Satan and God are working together

[Grunt]

I don't believe the absence of Satan would make this life any less challenging or that everyone would just be "automatically good and perfect".  

[theplains]

36 minutes ago, georgia said:

In order to be happy, people need struggle and challenge in order to feel a sense of agency and accomplishment. Everything good comes from God and everything bad comes from Satan... but we need the bad in order to appreciate the good. In order to live a meaningful life. If everything were good and there were no bad at all, we wouldn't even think of it as good at all. It would just be neutral.

Hi Georgia,

The 1997 version of Gospel Principles says in chapter 2, "Our heavenly parents provided us with a celestial
home more glorious and beautiful than any place on earth. We were happy there. Yet they knew we could not
progress beyond a certain point unless we left them for a time."  The 2009 version words it a little differently -
"Our Heavenly Father knew we could not progress beyond a certain point unless we left Him for a time."

Later in chapter 4, the 1997 version says, "In the premortal life we were free agents. That means we had power
to act for ourselves."  The 2009 version words it a little differently - "In our premortal life we had moral agency."

What other choices of good and evil do you believe the spiritual children of heavenly parents used their agency
on?

Thanks,
Jim

[wenglund]

I agree that there must needs be opposition in all things (2 Nephi 2).

However, I am not sure how the necessity of opposition somehow makes the opposing forces equal in importance--except in the very limited sense that the opposing forces make agency possible.  In fact, through the exercise of agency in compliance with God's plan of progression, God's importance increases and Satan's importance diminishes until man becomes one with God, and Satan no longer has power over them and is effectively rendered irrelevant and completely unimportant .

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[MaryJehanne]

5 hours ago, georgia said:

Imagine if there were no Satan. Nothing trying to pull us away from the path towards God. No adversary to overcome. Wouldn't it be boring? Making it to the right hand of God would have so much less meaning. Or would it have any meaning at all? If everyone was just automatically good and perfect? Would there be any sense of pride in our accomplishment of staying on the straight & narrow and enduring until the end?

In order to be happy, people need struggle and challenge in order to feel a sense of agency and accomplishment. Everything good comes from God and everything bad comes from Satan... but we need the bad in order to appreciate the good. In order to live a meaningful life. If everything were good and there were no bad at all, we wouldn't even think of it as good at all. It would just be neutral.

Almost makes you wonder if Satan and God are working together

Hi, Georgia! This is an interesting post! Things would be a little easier, but there is still plenty of damage done by the world, by our own human inclinations. There would certainly still be temptation, as well as the illness and tragedy brought into the physical world by sin.

I wouldn't worry about making it to God having less meaning... We can never do it without His help, so only so much can ever really be attributed to us. We would still be tested, Satan just wouldn't be the instrument. 

People don't need struggle to be happy! There'll be no struggling with sin in the next life, and we expect to be perfectly happy then. There's a happiness that comes as a reaction to fending off evil, to persevering, to accomplishing something, but that's not the only source of happiness, and hardly the greatest.

There are a lot of philosophies that pit evil as a massive and balancing force against the force of Good. But in truth, evil is the absence of Good. It could not exist without Good, but Good could certainly exist without evil. In Catholic philosophy and theology, it's taught that free will, in the ideal, is the ability to choose between multiple goods, not just good and evil, which is a lower. It's a misconception we fall into, being used to the battle between good and evil found in a fallen world, that evil is a necessary part of existence. But evil is a deviance, not a separate force, and it is nothing of itself.

It's always good to be careful with attributing too much power to the Enemies of our souls, as well as sin in general. It's a very common sentiment that can be used to cajole people into all sorts of faults, as well as being flattering to the pride of demons. God is prime and He is infinitely more powerful than the greatest of sin, than the strongest doer of evil. God has no real need of Satan, but (in Catholic theology) Satan depends on God to exist at all. Even in rebellion, he's subject to Him.

God bless!

[Overwatch]

I cringed when reading this post. The idea of losing 1/3 of my siblings so this life isn't "boring" for me just doesn't sit well with me. God doesn't a need a devil to accomplish his plan. Opposition can exist without rebellion of God's children. Also, if Lucifer can fall you better believe human beings in their 2nd estates can also. We act upon things and limit being acted upon but in mortality accidents and death still happen naturally. 

This "doctrine" seems to be circulated to make devils seem important and justified in being rebellious.

It would be better if the devils never had fallen.

[Anddenex]

6 hours ago, georgia said:

Imagine if there were no Satan. Nothing trying to pull us away from the path towards God. No adversary to overcome. Wouldn't it be boring? Making it to the right hand of God would have so much less meaning. Or would it have any meaning at all? If everyone was just automatically good and perfect? Would there be any sense of pride in our accomplishment of staying on the straight & narrow and enduring until the end?

In order to be happy, people need struggle and challenge in order to feel a sense of agency and accomplishment. Everything good comes from God and everything bad comes from Satan... but we need the bad in order to appreciate the good. In order to live a meaningful life. If everything were good and there were no bad at all, we wouldn't even think of it as good at all. It would just be neutral.

Almost makes you wonder if Satan and God are working together

How does your thought incorporate the millennium when Satan will be bound? Will these individuals not truly be happy, have no sense of agency and accomplishment?

[Maureen]

8 hours ago, georgia said:

...Almost makes you wonder if Satan and God are working together

Maybe they're playing a game of poker. 😊

 

M.

Edited July 16, 2018 by Maureen

[Guest LiterateParakeet]

13 hours ago, georgia said:

Almost makes you wonder if Satan and God are working together

Georgia, I understand in the context of your post what you meant by this, but think about this a bit more.  Rape, child molestation, war, torture . . . .  These are of Satan, and the only connection God has to them, is that God has the power to heal us.  God does not give us rape, child rape, war, torture or murder to help us grow.  He can heal us though and help us use them to become better, thus thwarting Satan's plan to destroy us.  

Make no mistake about it georgia, Satan wants to literally destroy you.  

[askandanswer]

13 hours ago, georgia said:

Almost makes you wonder if Satan and God are working togethe

This idea ^^, to me, seems to have some similarities with this idea:

2 Nephi 28:22  And behold, others he flattereth away, and telleth them there is no hell; and he saith unto them: I am no devil, for there is none—and thus he whispereth in their ears, until he grasps them with his awful chains, from whence there is no deliverance.
 

[CV75]

15 hours ago, georgia said:

Imagine if there were no Satan. Nothing trying to pull us away from the path towards God. No adversary to overcome. Wouldn't it be boring? Making it to the right hand of God would have so much less meaning. Or would it have any meaning at all? If everyone was just automatically good and perfect? Would there be any sense of pride in our accomplishment of staying on the straight & narrow and enduring until the end?

In order to be happy, people need struggle and challenge in order to feel a sense of agency and accomplishment. Everything good comes from God and everything bad comes from Satan... but we need the bad in order to appreciate the good. In order to live a meaningful life. If everything were good and there were no bad at all, we wouldn't even think of it as good at all. It would just be neutral.

Almost makes you wonder if Satan and God are working together

I think any condition less than exaltation with God in His presence allows room for opposition and the exercise of agency necessary for progress, at least before the final judgement.

[Rob Osborn]

15 hours ago, georgia said:

Imagine if there were no Satan. Nothing trying to pull us away from the path towards God. No adversary to overcome. Wouldn't it be boring? Making it to the right hand of God would have so much less meaning. Or would it have any meaning at all? If everyone was just automatically good and perfect? Would there be any sense of pride in our accomplishment of staying on the straight & narrow and enduring until the end?

In order to be happy, people need struggle and challenge in order to feel a sense of agency and accomplishment. Everything good comes from God and everything bad comes from Satan... but we need the bad in order to appreciate the good. In order to live a meaningful life. If everything were good and there were no bad at all, we wouldn't even think of it as good at all. It would just be neutral.

Almost makes you wonder if Satan and God are working together

And then someday, Satan will be destroyed with all his works and yet spirit children will still progress to become Gods, only the return rates will be much higher. We don't need Satan, we are better off without him.

[theplains]

21 hours ago, wenglund said:

I agree that there must needs be opposition in all things (2 Nephi 2).

What opposition did the plants and animals have in the Garden of Eden?

Thanks,
Jim

[anatess2]

"Satan is just as important as God."

Let me just shoot this down immediately right here... there is NOTHING as important as nor more important than God to us.

[BJ64]

This is something I’ve thought about. If there must be opposition in all things where would the opposition have come from if Satan had followed Gods plan. 

Perhaps rebelliousness is inevitable and if it wasn’t Satan there would have been someone else 

[Rob Osborn]

6 hours ago, BJ64 said:

This is something I’ve thought about. If there must be opposition in all things where would the opposition have come from if Satan had followed Gods plan. 

Perhaps rebelliousness is inevitable and if it wasn’t Satan there would have been someone else 

Opposition means there must be opposite choices. That's all, not that there must be opposite choices made.

[BJ64]

2 hours ago, Rob Osborn said:

Opposition means there must be opposite choices. That's all, not that there must be opposite choices made.

But there must be someone who promotes the opposite choice or there would not be temptation. 

[Rob Osborn]

39 minutes ago, BJ64 said:

But there must be someone who promotes the opposite choice or there would not be temptation. 

Would we as a society be better off with porn shops on every corner or none at all?

[BJ64]

8 minutes ago, Rob Osborn said:

Would we as a society be better off with porn shops on every corner or none at all?

Society would be better off without temptation to do evil but people would not grow in an environment of no temptation. 

[Rob Osborn]

14 minutes ago, BJ64 said:

Society would be better off without temptation to do evil but people would not grow in an environment of no temptation. 

Sure they would. They would flourish. Think of the city of Zion that was taken up because of righteousness- were they not better off?

[BJ64]

14 minutes ago, Rob Osborn said:

Sure they would. They would flourish. Think of the city of Zion that was taken up because of righteousness- were they not better off?

Yes. They were taken up because of their righteousness meaning they overcame temptation to do evil. 

[Rob Osborn]

31 minutes ago, BJ64 said:

Yes. They were taken up because of their righteousness meaning they overcame temptation to do evil. 

Future generations born unto them? What's their status without Satan's temptations?

[anatess2]

19 hours ago, BJ64 said:

But there must be someone who promotes the opposite choice or there would not be temptation. 

I don't believe this.  We are capable of evil without Satan.  Evil exists without Satan.  If you're going to say we need Satan to tempt us you're going to have to believe that someone tempted Satan to make him rebel or that God made Satan somehow "special" such that he rebels without somebody tempting him to.

[person0]

@georgia,

My simple  response to you in regards to your question is:  Who tempted Satan?

Now for the longer version:

If you can admit that Satan elected his path of evil of his own volition without another being interfering to tempt him, then there is no reason to believe Satan is necessary to the plan, as we would be capable of committing sins and misdeeds all on our own.

If you somehow believe that Satan was influenced by another being, then that would be a false belief contrary to LDS doctrine, and would also imply a third party evil deity in opposition to the Father, or that God, our Heavenly Father is somehow a chaotic neutral being who fulfills the roles of both Good and Evil.  Rest assured none of these is the case.

Remember, King Benjamin made it very clear that the natural man in an enemy to God.  Satan is not needed for the natural man and the inclinations of mortality to take hold upon us.  He certainly seeks ways to influence us and lead us as far down the path of destruction as possible, but we could easily sin all on our own, and sometimes we do.

Edited July 18, 2018 by person0

[person0]

On 7/16/2018 at 3:58 PM, theplains said:

What opposition did the plants and animals have in the Garden of Eden?

Thanks,
Jim

They existed, which is opposite to not existing.