Theological question from my goddaughter

[Terabith]

My goddaughter's 5 year old said that God loved everyone except the devil.  She told him that she thought God loved Satan but that Satan did not love God.  

What says the Hive?

[Carol in Cal.]

That's part of the hidden mind of God, and we can't know.  It is not given to us to know.  It's better to accept that than to guess.

Lucifer is a fallen angel, and we just are not told much about angels.  I'm not sure whether God loves them or not.  Thankfully, I AM sure that he loves people.

 

Edited May 3, 2020 by Carol in Cal.

[Scarlett]

31 minutes ago, Terabith said:

My goddaughter's 5 year old said that God loved everyone except the devil.  She told him that she thought God loved Satan but that Satan did not love God.  

What says the Hive?

I don’t think God loves Satan. 

[Tanaqui]

I think that if your goddaughter is starting to have deep conversations with her child now, that child will grow up to be quite a strong and flexible thinker as an adult.

[J-rap]

Well, good for her to have these deep, existential thoughts already!  She'll probably be a very deep and complex thinker when she grows up.  That's a question I've actually wondered about myself.  If God loves everyone, wouldn't His first emotion toward Satan be to pity him for his choices?  

I guess I'd answer a child by saying that we cannot know God's mind exactly, except that we do know that He is all about love.  I think it makes Him deeply sad that Satan chose a path opposite of love.  I do not think God is capable of hate, since He is love in its purest form.  So I think His sadness comes out of a great love.  At least, that's how I make sense of it.

(ETA -- I made a few small changes as I've thought about this more.)

Edited May 3, 2020 by J-rap

[ElizabethB]

I've heard people preach whole sermons on this topic! One of our ministers agreed with the 5 year old, he said there were others who disagreed and that it was up for interpretation.

[bolt.]

I think that both of those answers are reasonable, and both are within the boundaries of Christian theology. (I also think it's perfectly fine to have theological differences with a 5yo.)

The love of God is deep and fundamental to God's being. Our understanding and experience of it is a very narrow sliver of the truth of God's love. We don't really have reason to believe that we have enough information to truly grasp it, or to make assumptions about how it works, how it extends, or what its limits are.

We also know shockingly little about "the devil" -- who is an extremely vague Biblical person (or character, or characters, or force, or metaphor). Therefore there is clear merit in both perspectives on God's potential for love towards the devil.

On the one hand, we know that God does not love "evil" because "evil" does harm to God's loved ones. If "the devil" is some sort of personal expression of evil itself, it makes the most sense that God would not love "evil in a personal form" or "evil understood in an anthropomorphic way" any more than God loves evil in all of the other ways that evil can be evil.

On the other hand, if "the devil" is something more similar to 'a being in the spiritual realm' -- someone who was created by God, who has free will, who has a story and a history involving how a spiritual being, like a human, might make an alliance with evil, succumb to evil, be overwhelmed by evil, and *therefore* participate in evil at great depth... well, then, maybe God still does love all of the children of God (in that 'longing to redeem them' way) even though it doesn't include their evil as 'one of the lovable things about them'.

Edited May 3, 2020 by bolt.

[Terabith]

My thoughts on the relentless grace of God make me believe that God could never stop loving satan, who was not created as evil incarnate but as a creature who turned away from God.  I take great personal comfort in the fact that Jesus shared communion with Judas.  

Biblically, the term satan is more like a prosecuting attorney than Milton's version of Satan.  I'm on team goddaughter, but I also think that's a level of nuance most five year olds can't cope with.  

[MercyA]

nm, wasn't actually answering the question. 🙂 

Edited May 3, 2020 by MercyA

[JustEm]

From what I know of God's grace, he would never stop loving anyone including the fallen, including Satan.