How is God not responsible for the harm caused by Satan?

[lostguest]

If God created Satan and was fully aware of the harm he wanted to cause to humanity, why would he allow him to exist, gave him "super powers" and let him loose first in the Garden of Eden and then in the world.
Here's an analogy: if a person owns a vicious dog and is fully aware of the animal's capacity to cause injury, shouldn't that person be directly responsible for any damage the animal causes if he fails to either restrain or destroy the animal. Now imagine what would anyone say if that same dog owner purposely released that dog in a room full of children and locked the doors and windows?
How is this example different from God and his vicious pet Satan?

[Divine Insight]

How is this example different from God and his vicious pet Satan?

According to the Book of Job Satan has to go to God first and obtain permission before he is given the ok by God to harm someone.

Now I'll grant you the the Bible does not say that this must always be the case. However in the case of Job it clearly was. God not only granted Satan permission to inflict great pain and suffering onto Job, but God also gave Satan permission to do anything except kill Job.

And then Satan runs off and kills Job's entire family. So supposedly Satan had permission to do this. After all, why should Satan need permission to harm Job, but not need permission to harm the individual members of Job's family. Aren't each and every one of these people individual living souls?

If we take the book of Job seriously in this fairytale, then we must conclude that Satan is nothing other than God's overly anxious "Hit man". Evidently Satan is one of God's most obedient servants. Rather than being God's enemy.

Of course very few, if any, Christians realize this from the story of Job. In fact, they would probably try to argue that Job was a special case, or whatever and that his family wasn't being protected by God because they were already disgusting sinners.

(I really hate those kinds of apologies as they are so lame IMHO.)

In any case, God's viscous pet (as described in your scenario) is really a very well-trained and obedient attack dog that will only attack the children at God's command.

In other words, Satan is just a puppet though which God does nasty things that he doesn't want to be personally blamed for.

But I agree with your original idea. This doesn't help this God at all. He would still be the ultimate guilty party even if he has full control over this viscous dog named Satan.

[ttruscott]

If God created Satan and was fully aware of the harm he wanted to cause to humanity, why would he allow him to exist, gave him "super powers" and let him loose first in the Garden of Eden and then in the world.

...

Satan was created as ingenuously innocent as everyone else and I contend that GOD did not know who would chose what by their free will.

By the time there came to be humans on earth, GOD certainly knew Satan's animosity and deviousness but I reject your suggestion Satan has super powers as unsupported in Scripture. So the question 'Why allow him to exist is pertinent and orthodoxy drops the ball on this a lot.

From my heterodoxical pov, I suggest that the parable of the good but sinful seed in Matt 13 gives us the answer when the angels ask the Farmer if they should pull of the tares (symbol for holding the judgment and getting rid of Satan) but He said, "No, lest you rip up the good (elect) seed with the tares," proving their sinfulness, and then says "Let them live together until the time of the harvest, which is the time of the maturity of the good seed and as we accept, the only maturity that can save one from the judgment of YHWH is the maturity of faith and righteous holiness.

Why do the good seed mature by living with the tares? Because they get to see their own evil natures (have their eyes opened too, like Adam and Eve, the reason the serpent was allowed into the garden with them without them being warned of his nature as crafty, the same word used to mean naked of Adam and Eve) when enticed to sin and they also learn to accept that the evil of the tares is eternal and cannot be waited out, or loved out or anything but removed. This is true perfect holiness, accepting the judgment as righteous.

To my thoughts this also implies that their sin was over the judgment and they chose to rebel against the judgment as too harsh for mere unbelief, too unloving for a perfect GOD etc etc and for that reason they self created themselves as evil in HIS sight and needed to experience the kind of life Satan lives and satanic culture as the way to be brought to repentance and faith.

Peace, Ted

[ttruscott]

The force of this op is that suffering is evil and no good GOD would allow it. In Christian terms suffering is the judgment of GOD on some and the chastisement for sin to others.

No innocent suffers, only the guilty.

The Eastern religions have no good reason for the existence of suffering because in the 'all is one' idea, why go to such lengths just to torture yourself???

Peace, Ted

[lostguest]

[Replying to ttruscott]

By the time there came to be humans on earth, GOD certainly knew Satan's animosity and deviousness but I reject your suggestion Satan has super powers as unsupported in Scripture.

Are you saying that Satan is just a human like us? So I can kill him with a gun? My understanding is that Satan is a fallen angel and not just any angel but a top angel. And if so angels definitely have "superpowers" far beyond mere human capacities. So if you don't agree that Satan is far more powerful than any human then give me your description of who or what you think Satan is.

[Divine Insight]

The Eastern religions have no good reason for the existence of suffering because in the 'all is one' idea, why go to such lengths just to torture yourself???

Peace, Ted

That's a very interesting question even within the Eastern religions. However, one thing you need to realize is that it is always "God" who is enduring any supposed suffering that might be occurring. There is no separate egotistical Godhead who is simply allowing other entities that are entirely separate from him to suffer.

Now as to the question of why would God even bother allowing himself to endure suffering. That is an interesting question, but not one that can't be answered. In fact one could argue that life would be meaningless and worthless if it didn't contain risks and challenges to overcome. If that's true, then the question isn't "Why is there suffering?" but rather the question becomes, "How much suffering is worth enduring to have a little excitement?"

The Eastern mystics think about this as follows:

There are only two kinds of suffering. Physical pain and emotional pain. That's it. There is no other kind of suffering.

The mystics dismiss emotional pain as being nothing more than a choice. If you are all worked up and emotionally distraught over something you are creating your own illusion of emotional pain there. Even if you are in emotional pain over the harm or death of a loved one, it's still your choice. The reason that you have this emotional pain is because you see this whole situation within the context of this life. However, the idea is that if you could see this from the higher spiritual plain no one actually dies, and no one suffers anymore physical pain that they are ultimately willing to tolerate.

And now we can move onto the physical pain. (I confess that this is the area where I have the greatest problems myself). But we already know that restrictions have already been built into life concerning how much physical pain a person can endure. Too much and you'll go into a state of shock automatically. You'll also become numb to the pain as well. And pain that is constant and long term reverts back to emotional pain. You're just getting emotionally upset about it because you don't like it, but that's a choice. The mystic claims that if you quit fighting it and just accept it it won't be nearly as bad as it is when you are emotionally choosing to reject it.

I'm not exactly pleased with these explanations myself. But I do confess that I think they make more sense than the idea that pain is always punishment for having supposedly sinned. In fact, the very idea that pain would be an intelligent means of "punishing" someone for sins is, IMHO, an extremely unintelligent idea.

So between these two philosophies the Eastern mystical ideas make more sense to me.

Of course, ultimately I have no choice but to confess that the pure secular atheists have the best possible solution to this problem. If life is nothing more than some sort of freak accident then pain and suffering need no explanation at all. They are just part of reality and there is no more reason for pain and suffering than there is for joy and happiness. Things just are as they are. No justifications required.

So the atheists win hands down when it comes to questions of pain and suffering.

But if we're going to turn to spiritual explanations I think the Eastern mystics have a better explanation than the Abrahamic religions. The idea that there is some God who is purposefully causing people pain and suffering because they aren't behaving in a way that pleases him is truly disgusting. As far as I can see such a God would himself need to be some sort of sadist to do that.

So between the Abrahamic religions and Eastern Mysticism I think the Eastern mystics have a more sane view of God. The Abrahamic God would be a serious jerk.

I would far rather lives in a world of atheists who believe the world is just an accident than to live in a world where everything believes that some judgmental God is causing everyone's suffering and pain to teach them a lesson of some sort.

Using pain and suffering to try to teach people a lesson is not intelligent, IMHO. That's got to be the worst method of trying to teach anyone anything.

So atheism is a more intelligent world between those two, IMHO.

[connermt]

[Replying to post 1 by lostguest]

If god is the god christians claim it to be (all powerful, all knowing, supreme creator, etc) all responsibility ultimately falls to god. If god was 'here' before the beginning, then everything, one way or another, came from god and thus, god is responsible when it's rolled up entirely.

[Wootah]

[Replying to post 1 by lostguest]

If a judge let's a prisoner out of prison and the prisoner commits another crime is the judge guilty of the crime?

In the same way, God is sovereign and therefore responsible, but not guilty for our sins.

[Wootah]

[Replying to post 2 by Divine Insight]

From memory (I'm on the train)

Satan says to God - Job wouldn't love you if you stopped protecting him.

So God removes his protection of Job. Then Satan chooses to be evil towards Job.

So there is no evidence God orders Satan to hurt Job. Satan chooses to be evil.

[Bust Nak]

If a judge let's a prisoner out of prison and the prisoner commits another crime is the judge guilty of the crime?

No, the prisoner is quilty of that crime. The judge is guilty of another, something along the lines of criminal negligence.

In the same way, God is sovereign and therefore responsible, but not guilty for our sins.

And in the same way, God is guilty of his own sins?