by Molotov » Tue Jun 09, 2009 1:14 am
No.
Of this order I am made one,
From Mankind to guard this place
That through their Guilt they have foregone
For they have forfeited His Grace;
Therefore all this must they shun
Or else my Sword they shall embrace
And myself will be their Foe
To flame them in the face.
-The Fourth Angel
I may be wrong, I am neither a theologian nor particularly well read but:
Lucifer (the Angel, first of God's host, Lord of the Morning), I think, exists, and indeed betrayed God because of Lucifer's compassion and poor judgement. His punishment was that he be King of Earth and witness and bear all the evil in existence (Lucifer betrayed God because he thought Him unjust). The serpent (associated with Lucifer, or the Devil in mediaeval writings) was invented by Man (this is just my opinion, and as far as I know it might be heresy), to absolve the sin of his forebears. It is slightly less of an evil to be instructed by another in a bad deed, than to do so all by oneself. I think the Devil is what Man is capable of. He is the freedom of choice, which only God and Man has, and the terrible things that may result from that freedom, and I think we invented him to excuse ourselves our sin. The Lord God gave us the gift of free will, and we made the Devil to excuse what we have done with it.
(This opinion is probably heresy, and the thing is I've gained it by having read translated pre-Torah Jewish texts and many other things apart from the Bible, and the stories we grew up with. I'm probably in the wrong for thinking it, but I believe in God and I believe God is more than 'love'. I think we ought to educate ourselves about our faith, we ought to read what was written before and observe what happens now and never accept without thought the words of the few. It worries me, because in doing so (as far as many Christians are concerned, the Catholics, those bloody awful American evangelicals), I am probably a heretic. I may have already fallen for the Socinian heresy. I think, though, that if I serve God, why shouldn't I know Him?)