(Theologically, an all powerful adversary is only needed if you have an all powerful, infinitely good God. Interestingly, there is no true Satan figure in Judaic beliefs. That belief comes directly from Zoroastrianism. My own belief is that if there is a God, he isn’t all that good, which I find infinitely more interesting than the Mormon version.)

Very true. And yet when I learned the missionary discussions to teach them to others, the bit about Satan is skipped over in Joseph Smith’s history. Many potential reasons for that, I suppose.

I have a testimony of the adversary’s power. I believe we will be surprised one day at the protection from it we receive day to day.

For some reason they don’t post the credits at the end of the film like you normally see…

Oh well.

Both Darryl Yeager and Michael Ballam, who are pictured above, are LDS actors who have portrayed the devil in LDS temple dramas.

Of course Satan’s misguided and unhappy, and has the option of converting someday. He’s pretty invested into his whole worldview, and would find it very hard to change, but of course he has the light of Christ, even. God still loves him greatly. Satan does have feelings he tries to scoff at or deny, feelings of tenderness and the joy of innocence. He could choose to follow those, to expand them, and could change and grow to become a great force for good in the universe.

If he does that, someone else will be there to follow his former calling, no doubt. He will certainly bring his own personality and individual tastes to the job. It’s interesting to speculate what would be the effect at our level to a satanic conversion and succession in the universe. For a while, evil might be greatly abated, then renew with growing force in the different flavor the new satan brought to the job.

I do know that evil far greater than my ability to comprehend exists in the universe. J.R.R. Tolkien, a prophet in his own way, wrote about the Nazgul, beings of almost pure evil. I’ve met a couple of guys in real life who chilled my blood like Nazgul. Cruising by in a battered pick-up truck, they looked with predatory delight on a seven year old African American boy in my care. I’ve never seen nor felt evil as strong and pure as that at any other time in my life. It completely froze and panicked me. I wanted to wave a flaming branch at them and yell out “Elbereth Gilthoniel”. Instead I spoke to the boy quietly and told him to get back in the car. I stood there and looked at them with a courage I did not feel. I think they decided I didn’t look like fun sport, and would be boring and tiresome to deal with. In no way did they seem even the slightest bit afraid. They simply chose to find other amusements that day. I’ll never forget that encounter.

It seems that, just as there are beings at all levels of exaltation, from ordinary humans, to Joseph Smith, the angel Moroni, and onward to Christ, there are beings of darkness at all levels of power as well. If you think about it, we ourselves are beings of unimaginable power and capacity for good and evil to the lesser creatures like our pets or wild birds, squirrels, etc. I try always to represent the good, to be a good demigod, to those other creatures I encounter. Not always with success. I wonder to how many small creatures in the world I have seemed like a horrible Satan?

Good is always more powerful than evil, though. Good will inevitably win out in the end. Because good beings join together and become greater than the sum of their parts. Evil beings are always and forever alone. They tear each other down and don’t enhance each other’s existence. They subtract and do not add. All satans ultimately choose exaltation, or else the darkness of nonexistence. Only the christs move forward and upward to higher planes of being. May I choose to become one of those.

The second premise is that Lucifer also believes that whomever holds this calling deserves glory, honor, power, and laud not just equal with the Father, but beyond the Father. In other words, that person should supplant the Father.

The third premise is that he believes, and has always held, that he, not Christ should be the chosen Savior. To that end he has set himself against Christ, and by extension the Father.

He has always taught that it doesn’t matter what our actions are in this life because the grace of the Savior should be extended to everyone without regard for their actions, thus giving exaltation without regard for whether or not that would be best for the individual in question (this is where some might say “what, of course exaltation is best”, but the careful student knows that someone exalted without being worthy will be miserable, a fact that Satan has always tried to deny, I think because he himself does not believe it to be completely true).

There is one thing that must be understood here. The scriptures make one thing clear about Lucifer–he has never been truthful. He has always been a Liar. This is one of the most serious charges levied against him in the scriptures in my mind because it gives us more insight to his motivation than almost anything else. The thing to remember about habitual liars is this (and this is always true)–they cannot imagine that anyone else is capable of being more honest than them. A person who will consider a white lie in some circumstances may imagine a person who would not, but a person who is a compulsive liar, which is what the scriptures are charging, cannot imagine what it is like to always tell the truth about everything. They so habitually conceal their emotions, true motivations, and true feelings that they imagine that EVERYONE ELSE DOES TOO. I put Lucifer in this category, probably from the beginning, which means that he likely assumed from the beginning that certain parts of the plan of salvation were a lie.

Think about the implications of that for a moment. Satan knows God is real. He knows the Father has real power, and is afraid of the Father. He fears Christ, and he knows the Plan. But he still strives to win. The logical explanation is that Lucifer is either insane or is assuming that their are parts of the plan as presented to those mortals who do have the truth that are a lie. If what the LDS church has is the truth, then Lucifer doesn’t believe it.

Satan doesn’t believe the idea that we will be miserable if we are all returned to exaltation regardless of our actions here because he thinks it is a lie. That or he is insane. Those are the options, and they are not mutually exclusive, unfortunately. The implications of insanity extending to spiritual beings frightens me deeply, however and I choose to believe that Lucifer simply thinks of certain parts of the plan of salvation and the Order of Things as a lie. I’m not ready to consider Lucifer insane. Please let that not be true. Please.

There must be opposition in all things. We accept that as a truism. In general Christian theology, the devil is portrayed as the SOURCE of opposition or sin–not just an instigator and perpetrator of it. He is commonly known as the “father of lies” for instance. But if the devil is the actual source of sin and opposition, it would be impossible for the plan of happiness to exist without a “devil.” And if that is true, then when all of you go off and create your own worlds to populate will one of your angels NECESSARILY fall from grace so as to act as that source? That seems to go against the concept of free agency as an eternal principle.

What if in the pre-existance 100% of the Lord’s children had chosen to follow Christ’s plan? If free agency is in fact an eternal principle, and everyone has a fair chance to choose one path over another, this has to be a possibility. And if that HAD happened, where would opposition have come from? Would Adam and Eve simply remained in the Garden forever refusing to break God’s commandment to never partake of the fruit and just stay forever confused as the other commandment to “go forth and replenish the Earth”?

Here’s what I think. I don’t know if the Devil is necessary or even actually who we tend to think he is. I do believe in sin and, of course, I believe in opposition. But it seems that these things exist pursuant to our human nature and nothing more. I think one could easily have written the bible and substituted “Satan” with “the Natural Man”, side-stepped the whole issue of a great war in heaven, and achieved an identical result.

On the other hand, if the Devil is a necessary part of the plan of salvation, then every world which has ever been made subject to that plan MUST include a devil, which further means at least one spirit child of Deity must necessarily rebel. But again, this seems to be at odds with free agency.

Is the Devil necessary, or were we just lucky enough to get one?

The Lord also extends gifts that are not readily seen or accepted. These gifts are manifest in many ways as outlined in the scriptures. A few who have commented in this post referred to having experience with their gift that allowed them to know that satan exist. They have a healthy respect and understand he is a being with power and is not to be trifled with—I’ve had several encounters.

One thought about feelings and emotions. In recent months as I’ve surfed the bloggernacle there are those who demean relying on feelings and emotions as a source of inspiration. I understand where they are coming from—they cannot always be relied on. It takes time and spiritual effort to develop sensitivity to the things of the spirit so that we can tell the difference between the workings of our mind and those promptings that come from the Holy Ghost. If a person wants to grow in this “gift” they can. However, I find that few are interested. I’ve set up a blog to aid those who are interested.

I know from my own experience that when Heavenly Father wants to communicate something to us He has many ways to accomplish this and feelings is one way—-dreams, visions, ministering of angels and etc are used as well.

1. The Devil as a being isn’t the source of evil or temptation. Inherent/eternal moral agency is. “Opposition in all things” springs from human agency and not a whisperer. The plan would have gone on just as well without a devil-like being, especially if you don’t believe the fall to be “caused” by the devil. In this sense I disagree with Nick L.’s conclusion about the necessity of a devil.

2. The Devil wanted to be god, but on his own terms (as sole controller). Honor, glory, and power flow to Deity from his children. In order to get glory and power, he feels like he needs the adoration of “his” children. He got a number of them from his behavior at the pre-mortal council by promising them a chicken in every pot. He notices this still doesn’t make him a god (God’s power only functions in righteousness and flows to him by non-compulsory means only), he feels like he needs to get more followers/worshippers.

3. In the allegory/story/history of the Garden, he is trying to usurp again, making a play for the remaining 2/3 of heaven. God isn’t displeased with the fruit incident as much as he’s displeased that it was Satan that was trying to hand out the goodies. In my opinion, the job of handing out the fruit was supposed to be one of the Godhead, a gift of knowledge when the time was right, as has been done with other creations. Satan was trying to take over global operations, as it were. (This to me explains why he thinks he’s the god of this world, and is proud of his pre-mortal accomplishments, authority, and “powers.”)

4. Since he sees he gets more deific power/glory/honor/priesthood/whatever from worshipping children, he’s playing the zero-sum game with humanity. Everyone who *isn’t* worshiping the Father is taking away from His glory, and is fair game to co-opt for Satan’s glory. Since he knows that eventually every impure person will be cast out at the last day, he’s willing to wait for his sum total of deific power until then.

5. Satan’s misery comes from unfulfilled desire, covetousness, and the inability to satiate his controlling urges. Although I can see how he might want to do his work out of spite, and I(sadly) have felt the same way sometimes, I think he’s just thinking “just one more hit/soul/convert, *then* I’ll be worshipped, loved, powerful. Then I’ll show them I was better/smarter/etc.” So he wants us to be with him, not to suffer, but to alleviate his suffering by our adoration. However, in doing so, he brings his torment to his followers, rather than being healed by having them.

6. I’m really starting to warm to the new-to-me idea that Satan is a “calling.” It’s a great thought-experiment.

To bring to pass the misery and eternal damnation of man, to show the Father how wrong he was about His children.

In a sense, he convinces us to surrender it by leading us to believe that the physical reward of sin outweighs the less immediately gratifying reward of obedience. Many addictive behaviors, including addiction to pornography involve release of the neurochemical dopamine. Certain areas of the brain become more highly activated, in theory, of those who regularly view pornography and their neurochemistry is altered. One study cites that a portion of the brain called the “nucleus accumbens” receives the signal from the increased release of dopamine and it relays a signal to the “reward system” that “whatever it was attending to was better than expected.” This feeds back to reinforce learning. The learning pathways are made more efficient, a sort of rewiring of the brain. The new medication “Chantix” helps smokers to quit smoking by preventing the attachment of nicotine to brain receptors that release dopamine. The absence of this stimulus/reward cycle help overcome those rewired pathways in the brain.

If he couldn’t take our mental freedom away with politics, then using mortal neurochemistry to take it away is “another chance”.

Seriously though, I didn’t say there was no devil, just that the concept makes no sense to me. We may be in the business of saying we should believe things that make no sense, I don’t know. In fact, some I know believe BECAUSE a proposition makes no sense. Credo ad absurdum and all that.

I should also add that the scripture you quoted makes no sense to me out of context either. Wouldn’t Jesus Christ be the deliverance from the devil’s awful chains? And who is this disembodied weirdo whispering to me anyway?

Verily, on this day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. John, thanks for helping create yet another fulfilled prophesy from the Book of Mormon.