Question On Timeline Of Satan

[RemnantRules]

As a Catholic Church, do we believe that he fell before or after he tricked Adam and Eve?

If it was before, then why did God allow Satan to come into this world when after he created everything he deemed "it was good" thus no evil had tainted it yet.

Thanks in advance

God Bless
Jason Gregory

[Thy Geekdom Come]

Satan's fall could not come after the fall of man, since his activity in the fall of man was in itself a sin on Satan's part. The most common tradition on the fall of Satan is that when angels were created, they were tested before being able to see the Beatific Vision. That test was the command of God to serve (many theologians and spiritual writers including the revelation that God would become man as part of the test). Satan and his cohorts refused the idea of serving God and of something lower in nature (a man, the Christ). Some traditions also say that they refused to serve the Blessed Virgin as their Queen, since she would be the Mother of God (keep in mind she wasn't around at the time, but the tradition is that God was unfolding what would be). In any event, every tradition records Satan as having the attitude that he would not serve ("Non Serviam" - "I will not serve" - being what he said in the Latin tradition).

With that background aside, the exact reason why God sent him among men is unknown, except that God also wanted to test Adam and Eve, who living in grace, had every ability to refuse the devil. That God allowed him to be a player in the beginning of the drama of human history doesn't mean that God wanted Adam and Eve to sin or that God wanted the devil to conquer man, but it does show us that God knew He would conquer and that the actions of the devil, while evil, would play a role in divine providence.

[url="http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/390.htm"]CCC 390-395[/url] address all of this pretty simply.

God bless,

Micah

[Jaime]

See that's an interesting question. And it has a lot to do with context. Jews (who don't have much regard for New Testament) would see Satan not as bad or evil. They (and the original authors of OT books) saw Satan as a part of the heavenly court who thought so much of God, he wanted to test humanity to demonstrate if they were worthy or not of God's love. The phrase "devil's advocate" comes from the OT understanding of Satan. So when you read excerpts about Satan in Genesis, Job, etc. the writers had had no intention of showing Satan as evil.

Its in the New Testament that the fullness of Satan's role is revealed. Christ meets him in the desert, he cures those who are possessed by demons and we read about the war in heaven in Revelations 12:7. In NT we find out that Satan is in fact evil.

So the real answer to your question is "We don't know when the war happened". We do know that the OT understanding of Satan was not a full understanding.

[StColette]

Just wanted to add that the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas is another great source about the fall of Satan and the other rebel angels.

Prima Pars - The Angels

[url="http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1.htm"]http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1.htm[/url]

God Bless,
Jennie