Angelology and Satanology

636 Words2 Pages

Some challenges facing Christians are the battles against temptation, sin and evil. The question is, do we have answers for what the Bible teaches about ethical dualism, the relationship between God and Satan, whether they are two eternal and equal forces that have struggled and will struggle for eternity, what the Bible teaches in the passages of Isaiah 14:12 – 17 and Ezekiel 28, what some of the common objections to my interpretation of these two passages are, and how the origin of Satan explains that God didn’t create evil. Then from a biblical point of view prove what Satan’s limitations are, how they prove that he’s not God’s equal but is in fact subservient to Him. And lastly, whether Satan can be blamed when a person yields to temptation and commits a sin? Let’s see what we can do to help explain the Christian view of these topics.

Ethical dualism is an interpretation that, “asserts that there are two mutually hostile forces or beings in the world, the one being the source of all good, and the other the source of all evil,”1 and the idea that God and Satan are two eternal and equal forces that will struggle for eternity. This idea began around the third century. Some religions attempted to solve the problem of evil and held to the idea of dualism, which caused faulty teachings to arise.

The Bible teaches that the origin and destiny of Satan contradicts ethical dualism. It says in Genesis that God created everything from nothing, so therefore Satan was created by God. Satan is subservient to God and can only do what God allows him to do. It becomes apparent in the book of Job where God told Satan he could inflict Job’s family and livelihood, but could not lay a hand on his person. The story goes on but each time S...

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W. S. Bainbridge, “Satanism” in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 2nd ed., ed. Walter E. Elwell, Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001.

H. Bietenhard et al., “Satan” in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 2nd ed., ed. Walter E. Elwell, Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001.

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Towns, Elmer L., “Satanology” in Theology for Today, Mason, Ohio: Cengage Learning, 2008

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