Hi Steve,

I have never considered that question. So I looked at the introduction to Origen in the Ante-Nicene Fathers volume 4, and found nothing about his having a teacher other than his father. Here is another gem from Origen:

Satan and his cronies will be destroyed in Hell. Those who had perfect view of the Father and chose sin unlike us who were basically forced into human nature by God, had the ultimate chance to choose between good and evil because they actually saw GOOD in His complete form whereas we only see GOOD in partial and therefore can only choose on the partial. The judgement for humans was not intended to be eternal otherwise God would be unfair according to His own laws.
Let me put this another way. Satan is 100% evil because his decision to rebel is absolute. He knew 100% what he was doing. He is a spirit-being and thus doesn’t have the same value that God or humans have. Angels are merely helpers. We, at the maximum arbitrary percentage, can be 99.99% evil because our decisions aren’t absolute. We could only follow God as far our conscientious effort will go. If God could allow Satan, the accuser, to rip up us apart by finding hidden sin in our subconscious mind, we wouldn’t stand a chance if we were judged by whether we actually have sin. That goes to show that the conception of humans making absolute choices is ridiculous. Yet this is what Fundamentalist churches argue. At the same time, simply being covered by the blood of Jesus only gives us positional justification. Only by prayer and “faith-by-faith” living can one be sanctified (rid of actual sin) over time. The point of all of this is to show the contrast between humans whose choices are partial and Satan’s whose choices are obvious. To sum it up, Satan is perfect… perfectly evil.
Humans, even when justified, are castigated into darkness as a result of God’s plan so that He could ultimately get the glory for reconciling them. Satan is God’s tool to make them fall and does not deserve celebrity status from us Christians. Because God is Holy, He must ultimately destroy Satan and his demons in Tartaroo where no human is subject. God does not love Satan as He does us. Even if Satan is reconciled, what in the world could he even do? His purpose was to do evil. God created him that way from the beginning. It would just be bizarre for God to save him.
I think anyone who knows just how complete of a damage Satan has done would rather just have him forgotten throughout all eternity. I mean who would want to awkwardly meet with him and talk about how great of a time they had while he tortured them with temptation, sickness, and so on.
I could post all of the exegesis behind all of this but I think that would take awhile. So, if anyone wants to hear some actual logic rather than ranting from me please ask.

As with others, I’m not a fan of the word ‘heaven’, but I am sure satan and all other beings will eventually be part of the eternal order. Animals, ETs, Angels, AIs, proto-humans … Whatever. All things, all times.

Other viewpoint: I’m not sure but I believe God is Love and he will do what is right. I don’t (currently) feel like the fate of the Devil, if he is even a real spiritual entity, is my problem as such.

Origen helped Clement of Alexandria in his old age, but I don’t know for how many years. Not very many, as Clement was old and Origen was young when he was appointed as president of the catechetical university.

“Assuming” that the “devil” is an individual, a person, and not the personification of evil, I think that it will be reconciled to God. In fact, it is possible that much of this human experience/story is meant to do just that, to reveal to all principalities and powers that love does not fail, that light is greater than darkness, that good overcomes evil.

Why would God create a being to do evil? Did God want evil in the world? If so, why will He destroy Satan in hell? That might also destroy evil in the world, which God supposedly wants. Did God also create Adam and Eve also for the purpose of doing evil, and rebelling against Him?

I agree with the common view that Satan was created as an archangel, the beautiful angel of light—Lucifer, created with a free will, so that he chose to be a rebel, just as Adam and Eve also freely chose to disobey.

If you think God created Satan with the express intent that he would be evil and only ever evil then I’m genuinely not sure how you could get around the idea that God has committed some sort of evil in doing so.

To answer your question, Johnny, it is because God is sovereign and just. He is above evil yet He is ultimately good. Just because God creates evil does not mean He is evil. That is a human concept. God put Jesus, His son on earth to take the penalty for His own debt to us so that he wouldn’t ultimately be liable for the punishment of sin that falls on us. We have the choice to honor Him or not. It is rather complex but within good reason of God’s grace. It all can be understood if one grasps the fundamental principles of God’s laws which depicts God’s character.
With regards to evil, God wanted it temporarily to show the contrast between good and evil so as to present the need for holiness and all positive traits. Without any conflict, it is impossible to have a grasp of the real value of everything good. Humans are the blessed subjects of this activity taken by God. God is perfectly content and therefore the creation or engineering of evil by God is purposely for our benefit and not specifically for His own satisfaction. His satisfaction is in our worship of Him and recognizing the goodness of God amongst the distraction of evil that God created to test us who are believers. Satan is merely a tool to distract us. I won’t negate the possibility that he can be saved as I believe in universal reconciliation but I don’t understand what his purpose would be if he would be somehow conserved through the purifying process of Hell. Also, I do believe that Satan was created as a perfect archangel but his position and design ultimately would lead him to fall and bring down humans with him. I believe the punishment is eternal for him as opposed to the temporary punishment of sinners who believe not in the covering blood of Christ.

I’m not really going to get into the argument over whether God plans for at least some temporary evil but I will in regards to permanent evil.

I don’t really see how saying that He is sovereign and just provides an answer to the problem first of all. I too believe that. I also believe that He is above evil and that He is ultimately (and only) good.

Does He create evil? Well He is clearly in some way responsible for it seeing as He is the one who created a world with at least the possibility, possibly the propensity, to do evil, and He is the one that sustains the existence of it. And then you have occasions where the Bible seems to tell of God’s active direction and orchestration of evil to fit his purposes (though it has to be said, never after the evil inclinations are already clearly present in the hearts of men).

Permanent evil though? That God, who is completely dedicated and passionate about righteousness and justice, would purposely create some beings to never be righteous and just but to be evil for all eternity would mean God desiring and actively making certain that evil exists for all eternity, even when He could stop it. How a person tries getting round that without saying that God commits evil in doing so, I have literally no idea.

Yet you say that Satan will be evil for all eternity so clearly evil is not temporary but permanent in that case. And what’s more you seem to say that God designed that to happen. Evil ultimately wins with Satan and God willed it to and will continually will it to.

What do you mean that you wouldn’t understand what His purpose would be if He were ultimately reconciled to God? His purpose, at least in part, would be in glorifying God’s ability to save the most evil of the creatures He has created. In what way is God glorified more in his desiring, designing and sustaining evil so that it permanently exists in one of His creatures (and thereby making sure that creature cannot himself glorify God)?

On top of that, if Satan is for our benefit and we all end up ultimately reconciled to God, then why can’t Satan then become reconciled to God? If he’s only evil for our benefit, as you say, and if he’s served up that purpose, then what could possibly be wrong in God reconciling him to Himself?

Why the difference between humans and Satan?

And again, if Satan is punished eternally (because he is evil eternally) and if God purposed that to happen, then he’s actively designing and making certain that evil will always exist through its existence in the creature, which means that God wants evil to always exist and to be, at least partly, triumphing over good, even when He could stop and reverse that from happening.

If you could explain how God wanting, desiring, willing, planning, designing, making certain and actively sustaining evil for all eternity doesn’t make He Himself partially evil then I’d be very grateful to hear it.

Permanent evil though? That God, who is completely dedicated and passionate about righteousness and justice, would purposely create some beings to never be righteous and just but to be evil for all eternity would mean God desiring and actively making certain that evil exists for all eternity, even when He could stop it. How a person tries getting round that without saying that God commits evil in doing so, I have literally no idea.

Paul addressed this by calling this age a “present evil age” which means in Paul’s view evil will be destroyed after this age ends. I do think God intended to use evil as a learning tool for humans to experience as a necessary contrast to good. God actually said it in Gen 3.22 “The man has become like us knowing good and evil.”

I think that probably evolution is the cause of what we usually call evil, and it was this method (I believe) that God chose to use in creating this world. Why would He choose such a violent method? Maybe there are other ways (and maybe He’s used them in other universes), but from my limited context, I can’t think of any other way in which He could have created a world that would produce beings completely separate and other from Himself. Not that we aren’t dependent on Him – all of creation depends on Him; but we ARE separate until we choose to rejoin Him through the intermediation of our Lord Jesus.

We have, in a sense, created ourselves – or at least, ordered the elements of His creation INTO ourselves. We didn’t have much choice in the matter, but I think He kind of took His hands off and allowed the process He started with the Big Bang to play out. Maybe we could have been shaped differently, have different means of living, and still have been sentient creatures capable of receiving His breath of life at some point. Maybe He didn’t have a need to control that. Maybe He WANTED not to control it. Maybe NOT controlling that developmental process was the ONLY way for us to be truly free, even if we ALSO did not control it – or did not consciously and individually control it. Maybe we are what we are because that’s the way things developed, and now He is ready (because we’re ready) to take us up to the next level where, having voluntarily taken Him as our Rabbi, Mentor, Father, Brother, Sister, Mother, we can begin the next phase of our development – our conformation into the image of His Son Jesus Christ.

On a construction site, you might say there’s a certain degree of evil/violence – the killing of trees, ripping of boards, cutting to length, pounding nails, digging up the dirt for the foundation, forming up for concrete and then (when worn out) discarding the forms – lots and loads of stuff gets thrown away at a construction site – sacrificed for the building of a house or an office tower or a dance hall, etc. Unless you know what you’re seeing, none of it looks terribly attractive at this stage. There are good things – lovely things – too, of course. Personally I love the bones of a framed house, but if we didn’t cover them up, it would never be a house. These good things get hidden out of sight hardly to be thought about again (if they’re well made), and evil things end up in the landfill or the burn pile. But ALL these things were necessary in the production of a finished building. In that sense, they were ALL good. They were all necessary. There was nothing morally wrong about hitting those nails with a hammer to force them into places they never would have gone on their own.

Of course, a 3" piece of pointed steel wire is not equivalent to a sentient being. Yet God doesn’t allow any of His good creation to be ultimately damaged or harmed. We suffer pain so that we can experience joy – not because we need the contrast, but because the pain was necessary in the forming of creatures capable of sustaining joy. We have to learn to reject the bitter and choose the sweet. Part of that might even include rejecting the bitterness of depression (which is hard to reject as anyone subject to depression will understand well) and choosing to reorder our brains toward joy and peace. We must choose to reject selfishness in favor of loving service to one another, to reject reaction to evil in favor of becoming initiators of good. None of this can happen without making a mess – or at least, what looks like a mess, feels like a mess, hurts like a mess. Yet it can’t really be avoided if one wants this particular kind of finished product; that is, free people willingly submitting to one another in love and rejoining our source, our Father who loves us dearly.

free people willingly submitting to one another in love and rejoining our source, our Father who loves us dearly.

Yes Cindy but how could we be free without the ability to make informed choices and how could we be informed without experiencing the bitter vs sweet, the love vs hate, selfishness vs giving freely, good vs evil? M/C

That may or may not be true, Nick. Either way, God having created man in His own image, in that He imparted free will to man, ensured the possibility of the rise of evil (or the eventual probability, even if Adam and Even had not sinned). Thus it was unnecessary for Him to have created an evil agent with the express purpose of bringing much more evil into the world.

Paidion,
I meant that satan played a part in causing Adam and Eve to sin. He fits into the story and continues to do the same thing that He did then and that’s to find ways to get people to sin. I think how one views free-will affects our view of whether the devil and the demons will be saved or not. I believe there is only the illusion of free-will. Satan helps play the part of the bad-side in the choices we think we make with free-will. In order for there to be sin no longer, there can be no tempter anymore. Thus, the devil and demons must be removed from the picture somehow.

Addendum: People are a product of their circumstances and past. It is Christians who live in the future and continually live in the expectation of sanctification. As a result, Christians become different from regular people (sinners) in that they are dependent on Christ for everyday living. The devil is the one who reminds us Christians of our past life before we were saved. That was always his mission (and that’s why we should remind him of his future). When I say that I don’t know what his purpose would be at the end of the reconciliation of all things, I mean that there literally is no more sin to be endured and therefore satan would be consumed by the judgement of God because his mission ends. Humans are variable, though, unlike satan. If satan somehow did make it then he would have to 100% different being. Whereas the most sinful sinner that has ever lived would still get to retain .00001% (or some arbitrary percentage above 0%) of their personality.
This is the part I would dare say that satan is not even deserving of “personship”. He is a bit more like a robot programmed to be perfectly evil and to tempt all humans to sin but not past what they are able. What see throughout the account of faithful people in the Bible is not so much about believer versus Satan but rather believer versus sin in self. It’s about maturity, not a conflict between God and satan. While satan is often blamed for evil in the world, the responsibility of it really falls on God’s shoulders.
In response to the potential purpose of satan “glorifying God’s ability to save the most evil of the creatures He has created” if he were saved, I don’t really understand what that means. Sure, satan is a creature of god. What I don’t understand is why God would need the praise from the mouth of satan when He can get it all the praise of angels and good humans. He doesn’t need satan and the demons. He doesn’t need us either. The difference is that Bible clearly mentions that God wants us saved where it makes no mention of wanting satan saved. In fact, I’m convinced from the language in the Book of Revelation that God positively wants satan and the demons destroyed.
As for the difficulty of accepting God creating things so that they would ultimately be destroyed, there is no need to accept it emotionally. The Bible doesn’t really get into the details of how satan and the demons will be destroyed. This implies that is not something that Christians need to worry about. There are some things we should just not question God on and let Him do what He needs to do. This is sort of what I meant when I opened my previous response with “God is sovereign”. I don’t play philosophical games with God’s sovereignty.

That sounds familiar. Isn’t every truly regenerated person a totally new being?

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. (2Cor 5:17 NKJV)

I don’t know that we actually disagree that much, Steve. I think I’m looking at it from a slightly different angle. We start out in selfishness but grow into love. Not because God wanted us selfish, but because this was a necessary part of our development – and yes, we see the bad and the good. It’s just that I don’t know that I believe the contrast was the primary reason for allowing the bad…

Yes but when a person is regenerated they don’t lose their personality or soul. Paul speaks of a person as body, soul, and spirit. The spirit facet part of a person is regenerated. The difference between humans and satan is that satan is only a spirit. This means that since satan is only a spirit and does not actually have soul or body that if his spirit is regenerated then he would literally be a new being retaining no property of his previous identity.

I strongly believe that the devil and the fallen angels will all ultimately be saved from their sin and enjoy eternal bliss. Nothing will be lost whatsoever. Not a blade of grass, not an eyelash. “Not the least lash lost.”

Regarding the origin of evil, I’m a cosmic warfare theodicist. Take a look if that’s a new term to you.

Geoffrey: yes.