Who is Satan?

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Who is Satan?

Post by awesome guy »

What do we know of the nature of Satan from a strictly biblical standpoint?

Here are some satanist trying to put a statue of him on the OK State Capital.
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2014/01/0 ... statue230p

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Re: Who is Satan?

Post by BG Hokie »

The first fictional bad guy in AD? A precursor to Lex Luthor, etc.
awesome guy wrote:What do we know of the nature of Satan from a strictly biblical standpoint?

Here are some satanist trying to put a statue of him on the OK State Capital.
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2014/01/0 ... statue230p

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Re: Who is Satan?

Post by Once »

An ex-Cub Scout.
awesome guy wrote:What do we know of the nature of Satan from a strictly biblical standpoint?

Here are some satanist trying to put a statue of him on the OK State Capital.
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2014/01/0 ... statue230p

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Re: Who is Satan?

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BG Hokie wrote:The first fictional bad guy in AD? A precursor to Lex Luthor, etc.
Well, aside from the obvious point of contention on "fictional", Satan was in the Old Testament, too.

This is from Isaiah 14. Isaiah was written ca 8th century BC. (By the way, liberals love to late-date everything, but we have a copy of it written in 125 BC and of course the whole OT was translated into Greek in the 3rd century BC, so it had to have been written before then.)
12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!

13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:

14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

16 They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;

17 That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners?
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Re: Who is Satan?

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awesome guy wrote:What do we know of the nature of Satan from a strictly biblical standpoint?

Here are some satanist trying to put a statue of him on the OK State Capital.
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2014/01/0 ... statue230p

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Re: Who is Satan?

Post by Florida Hokie »

awesome guy wrote:What do we know of the nature of Satan from a strictly biblical standpoint?
Are you kidding? He didn't even try to hide it. He switched ONE letter in his name:

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Re: Who is Satan?

Post by BigDave »

Uprising wrote:Barack Hussein Obama...
Obama!
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Well, that goes without saying. ;)
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Re: Who is Satan?

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BigDave wrote:Well, that goes without saying. ;)
It was a simple answer if one follows The Law of Dots.
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Re: Who is Satan?

Post by BG Hokie »

BigDave wrote:
BG Hokie wrote:The first fictional bad guy in AD? A precursor to Lex Luthor, etc.
Well, aside from the obvious point of contention on "fictional", Satan was in the Old Testament, too.

This is from Isaiah 14. Isaiah was written ca 8th century BC. (By the way, liberals love to late-date everything, but we have a copy of it written in 125 BC and of course the whole OT was translated into Greek in the 3rd century BC, so it had to have been written before then.)
12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!

13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:

14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

16 They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;

17 That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners?
I should have known Lucifer was older. Does Satan exist in the other Abrahamic religions? Same God of Abraham but same Satan as well?
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Re: Who is Satan?

Post by Major Kong »

That's easy John Adams' dog was named Satan. :)
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Re: Who is Satan?

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Major Kong wrote:That's easy John Adams' dog was named Satan. :)

Old Scratch would've been funner. :-D
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Re: Who is Satan?

Post by awesome guy »

BigDave wrote:
BG Hokie wrote:The first fictional bad guy in AD? A precursor to Lex Luthor, etc.
Well, aside from the obvious point of contention on "fictional", Satan was in the Old Testament, too.

This is from Isaiah 14. Isaiah was written ca 8th century BC. (By the way, liberals love to late-date everything, but we have a copy of it written in 125 BC and of course the whole OT was translated into Greek in the 3rd century BC, so it had to have been written before then.)
12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!

13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:

14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

16 They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;

17 That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners?
yes, but it doesn't tell me much about him other than he's another entity rebelling against God.
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Re: Who is Satan?

Post by Once »

Yes... The big three. Christianity and Islam's beliefs are more similar to each other's, with Judaism viewing satan as more symbolic - an adversary or temptation of evil. I think (not sure) Jews don't believe in the fallen angel thing, but rather the angel in the Job story was more disobedient than anything else... I'm not sure.
BG Hokie wrote:
BigDave wrote:
BG Hokie wrote:The first fictional bad guy in AD? A precursor to Lex Luthor, etc.
Well, aside from the obvious point of contention on "fictional", Satan was in the Old Testament, too.

This is from Isaiah 14. Isaiah was written ca 8th century BC. (By the way, liberals love to late-date everything, but we have a copy of it written in 125 BC and of course the whole OT was translated into Greek in the 3rd century BC, so it had to have been written before then.)
12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!

13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:

14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

16 They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;

17 That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners?
I should have known Lucifer was older. Does Satan exist in the other Abrahamic religions? Same God of Abraham but same Satan as well?
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Re: Who is Satan?

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Is Satan consistent with the idea of monotheism? IOW, doesn't Satan act independently of God to manipulate the world? A lower ranking deity?

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Re: Who is Satan?

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Uprising wrote:Is Satan consistent with the idea of monotheism? IOW, doesn't Satan act independently of God to manipulate the world? A lower ranking deity?

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That's my understanding, he's a fallen angel, also a creation of God with more power than man, but still under God's domain. For me the question is did God make him for the purpose of temping us? Was he made to serve a purpose or is he abusing his freewill to rebel against God? If God's sovereign, then Satan is serving under that sovereignty too. He certainly had a hand in leading us astray and from God via Adam, Eve, and the forbidden fruit. Was it planned or did he interfere with God's plan for mankind?
Last edited by awesome guy on Tue Jan 07, 2014 9:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Who is Satan?

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Uprising wrote:Is Satan consistent with the idea of monotheism? IOW, doesn't Satan act independently of God to manipulate the world? A lower ranking deity?
totally consistent.
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Re: Who is Satan?

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Once wrote:Yes... The big three. Christianity and Islam's beliefs are more similar to each other's, with Judaism viewing satan as more symbolic - an adversary or temptation of evil. I think (not sure) Jews don't believe in the fallen angel thing, but rather the angel in the Job story was more disobedient than anything else... I'm not sure.
Modern Judaism, yes. Ancient Judaism not really. They didn't necessarily single Satan out amongst the various demons. For example, Asmodeus - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asmodeus - was a demon mentioned in the apocryphal Book of Tobit. (Catholics consider Tobit to be canonical. Neither Jews nor Protestants accept it as scripture.)

In Tobit, Asmodeus is the king of the demons and fell in love with a woman named Sarah. He killed her seven husbands and took her for his own bride. This obviously is very far away from the Christian concept of Satan (or any other demon) but it gives you an idea of what the pop culture believed at the time this book was written.

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13219-satan has a good writeup
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Re: Who is Satan?

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awesome guy wrote:
Uprising wrote:Is Satan consistent with the idea of monotheism? IOW, doesn't Satan act independently of God to manipulate the world? A lower ranking deity?

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That's my understanding, he's a fallen angel, also a creation of God with more power than man, but still under God's domain. For me the question is did God make him for the purpose of temping us? Was he made to serve a purpose or is he abusing his freewill to rebel against God? If God's sovereign, then Satan is serving under that sovereignty too. He certainly had a hand in leading us astray and from God via Adam, Eve, and the forbidden fruit. Was it planned or did he interfere with God's plan for mankind?
Satan was created for a useful purpose and was originally an angel. There is a dual answer to your question. Satan had the choice whether or not he wanted to rebel and both options served God's ultimate purposes.

Think of it this way - Jesus when He came into Jerusalem was offering Himself to the Jewish people as their Messiah. That was a legitimate offer and if they had accepted Him right then, then I suppose the events of the Second Coming would have happened right away. As it happened, though, they rejected Him and here we are a couple of thousand years later.

It's the same thing with Satan - had he chosen not to rebel, God's purposes would have been served differently and the end result would have been different.
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Re: Who is Satan?

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BigDave wrote:
awesome guy wrote:
Uprising wrote:Is Satan consistent with the idea of monotheism? IOW, doesn't Satan act independently of God to manipulate the world? A lower ranking deity?

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That's my understanding, he's a fallen angel, also a creation of God with more power than man, but still under God's domain. For me the question is did God make him for the purpose of temping us? Was he made to serve a purpose or is he abusing his freewill to rebel against God? If God's sovereign, then Satan is serving under that sovereignty too. He certainly had a hand in leading us astray and from God via Adam, Eve, and the forbidden fruit. Was it planned or did he interfere with God's plan for mankind?
Satan was created for a useful purpose and was originally an angel. There is a dual answer to your question. Satan had the choice whether or not he wanted to rebel and both options served God's ultimate purposes.

Think of it this way - Jesus when He came into Jerusalem was offering Himself to the Jewish people as their Messiah. That was a legitimate offer and if they had accepted Him right then, then I suppose the events of the Second Coming would have happened right away. As it happened, though, they rejected Him and here we are a couple of thousand years later.

It's the same thing with Satan - had he chosen not to rebel, God's purposes would have been served differently and the end result would have been different.
Huh?
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Re: Who is Satan?

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VisorBoy wrote:
BigDave wrote:Satan was created for a useful purpose and was originally an angel. There is a dual answer to your question. Satan had the choice whether or not he wanted to rebel and both options served God's ultimate purposes.

Think of it this way - Jesus when He came into Jerusalem was offering Himself to the Jewish people as their Messiah. That was a legitimate offer and if they had accepted Him right then, then I suppose the events of the Second Coming would have happened right away. As it happened, though, they rejected Him and here we are a couple of thousand years later.

It's the same thing with Satan - had he chosen not to rebel, God's purposes would have been served differently and the end result would have been different.
Huh?
Here is an article to read about the idea: https://bible.org/question/if-jews-had- ... ished-then
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Re: Who is Satan?

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awesome guy wrote:That's my understanding, he's a fallen angel, also a creation of God with more power than man, but still under God's domain. For me the question is did God make him for the purpose of temping us? Was he made to serve a purpose or is he abusing his freewill to rebel against God? If God's sovereign, then Satan is serving under that sovereignty too. He certainly had a hand in leading us astray and from God via Adam, Eve, and the forbidden fruit. Was it planned or did he interfere with God's plan for mankind?
The definitions seem to be ambiguous enough that either would cover Christianity with belief in Satan.

Monotheism is defined by the Encyclopædia Britannica as belief in the existence of one god or in the oneness of God. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church gives a more restricted definition: "belief in one personal and transcendent God"
-is Satan a god?
-is Satan personal and transcendent?

Polytheism is the worship of or belief in multiple deities usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own religions and rituals.
-More specifically-
Henotheism is the belief in and worship of a single God while accepting the existence or possible existence of other deities that may also be worshipped.

I think henotheism most accurately describes what I most often observe: the worship of one God with the belief in other lesser supernatural agents (without going so far as to call them gods).
As a comparison, many Romans considered Zeus "the supreme, all-powerful and all-knowing, king and father of the Olympian gods."

Sole source: wiki

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Re: Who is Satan?

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Uprising wrote:
awesome guy wrote:That's my understanding, he's a fallen angel, also a creation of God with more power than man, but still under God's domain. For me the question is did God make him for the purpose of temping us? Was he made to serve a purpose or is he abusing his freewill to rebel against God? If God's sovereign, then Satan is serving under that sovereignty too. He certainly had a hand in leading us astray and from God via Adam, Eve, and the forbidden fruit. Was it planned or did he interfere with God's plan for mankind?
The definitions seem to be ambiguous enough that either would cover Christianity with belief in Satan.

Monotheism is defined by the Encyclopædia Britannica as belief in the existence of one god or in the oneness of God. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church gives a more restricted definition: "belief in one personal and transcendent God"
-is Satan a god?
-is Satan personal and transcendent?

Polytheism is the worship of or belief in multiple deities usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own religions and rituals.
-More specifically-
Henotheism is the belief in and worship of a single God while accepting the existence or possible existence of other deities that may also be worshipped.

I think henotheism most accurately describes what I most often observe: the worship of one God with the belief in other lesser supernatural agents (without going so far as to call them gods).
As a comparison, many Romans considered Zeus "the supreme, all-powerful and all-knowing, king and father of the Olympian gods."

Sole source: wiki

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Christianity is most certainly monotheistic. No other entity is worshiped but God.
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Re: Who is Satan?

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Uprising wrote:
awesome guy wrote:That's my understanding, he's a fallen angel, also a creation of God with more power than man, but still under God's domain. For me the question is did God make him for the purpose of temping us? Was he made to serve a purpose or is he abusing his freewill to rebel against God? If God's sovereign, then Satan is serving under that sovereignty too. He certainly had a hand in leading us astray and from God via Adam, Eve, and the forbidden fruit. Was it planned or did he interfere with God's plan for mankind?
The definitions seem to be ambiguous enough that either would cover Christianity with belief in Satan.

Monotheism is defined by the Encyclopædia Britannica as belief in the existence of one god or in the oneness of God. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church gives a more restricted definition: "belief in one personal and transcendent God"
-is Satan a god?
-is Satan personal and transcendent?

Polytheism is the worship of or belief in multiple deities usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own religions and rituals.
-More specifically-
Henotheism is the belief in and worship of a single God while accepting the existence or possible existence of other deities that may also be worshipped.

I think henotheism most accurately describes what I most often observe: the worship of one God with the belief in other lesser supernatural agents (without going so far as to call them gods).
As a comparison, many Romans considered Zeus "the supreme, all-powerful and all-knowing, king and father of the Olympian gods."

Sole source: wiki

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Satan isn't a God. "Accepting for worship" is also shaky ground. I look at Satan and the angles no differently than God also creating elephants, rabbits, and all forms of life. Satan is another species created. That doesn't open him up for warship any more than elephants, rabbits, dogs, etc. You could say there are other supernatural beings, but they're not to be worshiped, only the Lord.
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Re: Who is Satan?

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VisorBoy wrote:Christianity is most certainly monotheistic. No other entity is worshiped but God.
I don't see that as inconsistent with henotheism. A deity is:
C. Scott Littleton's Gods, Goddesses, and Mythology defined a deity as "a being with powers greater than those of ordinary humans, but who interacts with humans, positively or negatively, in ways that carry humans to new levels of consciousness beyond the grounded preoccupations of ordinary life."
Christians worship one god, God. But they also accept other deities, Satan and angels. They just choose (?) not to worship them. In the grand scheme of things, it makes no difference and is only semantics. It doesn't change the underlying of the belief.

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Re: Who is Satan?

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Uprising wrote:
VisorBoy wrote:Christianity is most certainly monotheistic. No other entity is worshiped but God.
I don't see that as inconsistent with henotheism. A deity is:
C. Scott Littleton's Gods, Goddesses, and Mythology defined a deity as "a being with powers greater than those of ordinary humans, but who interacts with humans, positively or negatively, in ways that carry humans to new levels of consciousness beyond the grounded preoccupations of ordinary life."
Christians worship one god, God. But they also accept other deities, Satan and angels. They just choose (?) not to worship them. In the grand scheme of things, it makes no difference and is only semantics. It doesn't change the underlying of the belief.

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That's a loose definition of a deity, but sure, if you take deity to mean anyone with powers greater than ordinary humans, why not consider Lebron James a deity?
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