If you were Satan....

[Athetotheist]

I remember a TV preacher once asking his broadcast audience, "If you were Satan....." I don't remember the rest of the question, but I seem to remember that he was talking about prophecy and arguing that Satan was up to some diabolical mischief ("If you were Satan, isn't that what you would do?").

A lot of detail in Christian scripture about what is to happen before Jesus returns is tied to the activity of "Satan". The appearance of the "antichrist", in particular, is supposed to be part of Satan's last gambit before he goes down to utter defeat.

Since it was asked of me how I would react if I were Satan, I think it's fair for me to answer. I know that "Satan" is supposed to be a being of superhuman intelligence, but I can't help thinking that if such a being actually existed and if I were that being, I could do a lot better.

If I were "Satan", I would scrap the antichrist plan. If it's all laid out in the Bible, then everyone knows what to expect and you've lost the element of surprise. With that one simple deviation from the prophetic scenario, the whole thing would be gummed up. No antichrist, no mark of the beast, no abomination of desolation, no anything I was supposed to do as Satan to set the stage for the return of Jesus. And without those prophetic components in place, Jesus couldn't return to fulfill prophecy. And how could anyone stop me? I wouldn't be taking some action which could be prevented; I would be defeating prophecy by not taking action.

So let me pass the preacher's question on to you. If you were "Satan", what would you do----or not do----to thwart prophecy?

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to Athetotheist in post #1]

Satan is not at war with God. He knows God is eternal and all powerful, so it would be pointless.

Also, Revelation is mostly about Nero.


Here is my take on Satan's fall and why he tries to keep humans from God - https://www.freelymeditate.com/single-p ... f-creation

It is inline with Catholic dogma.

"If you want to understand something, go to the place where it first appears."

[TRANSPONDER]

If I were Satan, I would corrupt the Christian Churches. The organisation intended to further God's plan would then work against it.

No Church does that better than the Catholic church.

So who cares about Catholic Dogma? However, going by the Bible, we know who Satan is. He is the adversary that is needed to take blame, where necessary. And you are quite right. Satan (as Lucifer) knew that he had no chance to win even without the precognition that is needed to make prophecy work, or God's plan anything but an intent with no reliable outcome, God could have eliminated Lucifer and his rebel angels as soon as he made the first move. He didn't.

No, the reason God keeps Satan and his rebel angels about is because they are useful to God. Apart from running God's Other creation - Hell, created as a result of Man's sin (if not as a preliminary to it), needs staff. Satan is needed to do Gods's dirty work, where God in NT times was too busy still scrubbing the blood off his own dirty OT work off his invisible hands.

The thing about Job (aside that it is a very human musing on the Problem of Evil) is the way Satan and God chat about human Faithfulness over tea and buns in the Third Heaven, and Satan can say 'Let's try a little test'.

'Thou shalt not test the Lord Thy God."

"Not testing you, Lord, but man - the faithfulmost that you have,'

'Well - ok; do what you like to Him. But if you kill him, you lose.'

'How about his wife and kids?'

'They don't matter.'

But more is the thought that seems to have escaped all Christian Theology (not just Catholic) is that Satan is the good guy in the Resurrection -story. Our posting pal Shem Yoshi suggested that God can do the impossible, like make the untrue, true. What is far more possible is that he could answer Jesus' prayer but not with a No.

"Father, let me off crucifixion, allright? If it's possible, of course.'

'Anything is possible with me, lad, ok. I'll just make a loophole in sin -death and people can access heaven if they are halfway decent."

"Judas is on his way with a posse." (1)

"No worries, I'll just uproot them, like a tree and remove them into the sea."

But speaking of Judas, IF the crucifixion was necessary to make the loophole in God's own law of sin -death, then Pilate was working against that to let Jesus go free. The Sanhedrin were doing God's work in making sure that Jesus got banged up in the worst way.

Judas apparently has to play his part in having Jesus arrested, and moreover, Jesus appears to have known it and sent him off to do it. After all, he could just tell the disciples:
Don't let him leave this room, until I come back."

"Ok, until you come back, we're not to leave this room."

"And see that he doesn't leave."

"What?"

And Judas did this (Luke tells us) because Satan invaded his brain and made him do it. And that could only happen if it was part of God's plan. Matthew even has Jesus rounding on Simon's suggestion that death and resurrection shouldn't happen and only because he knows that it must. The forces of darkness have Jesus 'handed over' (Paul) to them by God, because it has to happen. The forces of Darkness, Satan, Judas and the High Priests are all part of that plan.

Peter, Pilate and (for an instant) Jesus himself are the bad guys, trying to make God's plan fail.

But, no; the church dogma never considers that, and any that did (the Gnostics of Egypt, fir instance) were denounced as heretics.

(1) and, while Jesus may have boasted that he could have called in an airstrike of angels to save him, he knew that God would not have given them clearance. That wasn't the Plan.

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #362

And Judas did this (Luke tells us) because Satan invaded his brain and made him do it. And that could only happen if it was part of God's plan. Matthew even has Jesus rounding on Simon's suggestion that death and resurrection shouldn't happen and only because he knows that it must. The forces of darkness have Jesus 'handed over' (Paul) to them by God, because it has to happen. The forces of Darkness, Satan, Judas and the High Priests are all part of that plan.

What I find striking is this:

"And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it saying, 'If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.'" (Luke 19:41-44)

I find it morally questionable that, after the city had to reject him in order for the whole plan of worldwide salvation to be carried out, it would have to be punished for what was known it had to do to make salvation possible.

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #362

And Judas did this (Luke tells us) because Satan invaded his brain and made him do it. And that could only happen if it was part of God's plan. Matthew even has Jesus rounding on Simon's suggestion that death and resurrection shouldn't happen and only because he knows that it must. The forces of darkness have Jesus 'handed over' (Paul) to them by God, because it has to happen. The forces of Darkness, Satan, Judas and the High Priests are all part of that plan.

What I find striking is this:

"And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it saying, 'If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.'" (Luke 19:41-44)

I find it morally questionable that, after the city had to reject him in order for the whole plan of worldwide salvation to be carried out, it would have to be punished for what was known it had to do to make salvation possible.

I agree. And this is the agendas as well as plot -construction through the entire gospels. The Jews rejected (and in fact killed) Jesus, and that is why the Romans burned the Temple.

Along with the idea (Perhaps Paul's, perhaps thought up by the apostles) that the crucifixion wasn't a failed messianic effort, but a sacrifice to make a loophole for the Faithful in sin -death, the idea that it wasn't the Romans who killed Jesus, but the Jews. What I might call the 'Bar -Serapeon meme (What good did it do for the Jews to kill their just king?)(1). Your passage (Which I think we also find in Matthew in a different place, and not in Mark, so identifiable as 'Q' material), is this idea that Jerusalem, symbolising the Jews, would reject Jesus and would be punished for it, and Jesus knew that it would happen. Which makes no sense. If it wasn't going to work, why do it?

Because it had to not work for the sin -death loophole to happen. But then, if this was God's plan, why are those who helped it to happen punished? Well one can come up with an apologetic, but to me I see plot - construction which makes no sense in itself, but it helps the Christian apologetic to work out.

I also see this as the point of the symbolic cursing of the fig -free (Matthew/Mark material, not in Luke). The fig symbolising fruition, in this case of God's supposed intention for Jerusalem to accept Jesus and everyone become Good Little Christians. But the time was not right and the Jews would reject Jesus and Jerusalem would be cursed and succumb, just as did the Fig tree. This is also why the disciples, like a bunch of stooges, point out the impressive buildings and stones of the Temple, like they'd never seen it before. And Jesus sourly predicts that the whole boiling will be reduced to rubble. He (supposedly) knows beforehand that it is going to happen, and yet he goes ahead. Not because the 'plan' has any hope of succeeding, but because Jesus has to be killed. He supposedly knows that has to happen as well.

All this seems to make no sense, other than as plot construction based on a Pauline Christian theological agenda, and of course written after the events had happened, not before. So never mind these Experts who claim that Mark was written around 50 AD.There is no shred of evidence for that, or even the original that Mark was based on, but a bit of evidence that the Synoptic original had to post - date the Jewish war, and the other gospels after 100 AD with John maybe around 150 AD and Matthew and Luke even later, and Peter latest of all, since it borrows from both Matthew and Luke.

(1) "What advantage did the Jews gain from executing their wise king? It was just after that their kingdom was abolished." Though arguable, this could be a garbled reference to the Christian polemic that the Jewish war was punishment for rejecting Jesus.