Why Didn't God Stop Satan?

I heard my niece repeat her question from the Bible study last night. Jodi and I were talking to her sister and their family over Skype (they’re serving as missionaries in another country). I didn’t think that now was the time to jump in with a response, especially because I didn’t know how the question and answer played out in the Bible study itself. But it’s a question that a lot of Christians, not just young people, have pondered. The question is this: If God is all-knowing, wouldn’t he know that Satan was going to be evil, and do something to prevent it? A good question, indeed!

Strictly speaking, this does not merely assume God’s omniscience. It also assumes his omnibenevolence, or all-goodness. It also assumes his omnipotence (or at least a faculty of powers such that he could overcome Satan’s intentions). This is fine, for these things are part and parcel of historic Christianity. But then why didn’t God do something about it?

I think the key lies in the concept of love. God wants his creatures to love him (those that are capable of loving). At some level, and at some time, it appears Lucifer (Satan’s angelic name) had the ability to love God (and perhaps most or even all of the angels have had such an opportunity also). But to be in a love relationship requires two or more participants and a response that freely chooses love.

This makes sense, at least intuitively, right? Consider a man who wanted a woman to love him. She didn’t seem to at first, so he breaks out his magic spell. The magic spell makes it to where she fawns all over him, and even causes her to desire only him.[1] But can she be really said to love him? At the very least, we recognize she lacks something crucially important to love relationships: that she at least should choose to want to love him (or at least should choose to want to choose, if such a thing be demanded). Instead, this was foisted upon her. Her response is no different from an automaton.

So then, love requires freedom of choice at some level. Now the reason God doesn’t intervene is because if a choice is to be successfully made, it must be free. If God mitigates the choice when Satan tries to reject him, then it’s not really a choice (that is, forcing Satan to choose God in the event that Satan tries to reject him[2]. So God allows his choice to be real, and have real consequences. But why would God, knowing that his world would go so wrong, still stick with it? For a few reasons: 1. The love relationship God deems to be worth it. That should be humbling! 2. God knows something we don’t.[3] It may be that only in this type of a world would we get the number of saved freely trusting in Christ and living in eternal bliss with him, with the low-balance to minimize the lost.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments!

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[1] Thanks to Jerry Walls for a relevantly similar example.

[2] Frankfurt examples are interesting here, but not directly relevant, since on this discussion it’s not the case that Satan chooses and God does not intervene. On this supposition, Satan does not choose God and God has to intervene. Frankfurt examples tend to lose their intuitive force on these situations.

[3] I once heard Tim McGrew say this.

Omniscience, Omnipotence, and God

Suppose that omniscience is God’s knowing all true propositions and believing no false ones. Suppose further that omnipotence is God’s being such that he is able to perform any logically possible action. Now suppose that it is within my power (that is, it is up to me) to know what happened in the world yesterday (via a newspaper or website) or not—that is, it is within my power to know or to refrain from knowing. Suppose finally that God is essentially omniscient (that is, it is a property God must have in order to be who he is). The following paradox is said to hold for these claims:

1.     God is essentially omniscient.

2.     God is omnipotent.

3.     It is logically possible for me to know or to refrain from knowing x about yesterday.

4.     So God is able to know or to refrain from knowing x about yesterday (from 2-3).

5.     So God is not able to refrain from knowing x about yesterday (from 1).

(4) and (5) obviously contradict, and the critic of these attributes can point either to (1) or (2) as the culprit. What are we to do? Should we get rid of omniscience or omnipotence?

I think we should jettison the account given of omnipotence as too simplistic. I’m not saying we should give up omnipotence. Rather, I’m saying the definition doesn’t capture what it needs to; it’s too simplistic. Here’s an example:

6.     It is logically possible for me to know I am Randy.

7.     So, given (2), it is logically possible for God to know he is Randy.

8.     But God is not possibly Randy.

9.     So (2) is false.

(6) seems correct. I am identical to the referent of Randy, after all. (7) is an entailment of the definition we gave. (8) is a consequence of the fact that I am not even possibly God. (9) is just the entailment of (2) joined with (6-8). I find this argument far less objectionable in conclusion than the one above. So what is omnipotence? I don’t have the full account here in a short blog post, but the suggestion is that it’s maximal power (Flint and Freddoso). In this case, logical possibility is a necessary but not sufficient condition in the analysis of omnipotence. It at least has to be curtailed to something like “God can do what it is logically possible for him to do” (even if this can’t be the whole story—there could be other beings who can do everything it is logically possible for them to do, and they would fail spectacularly on the omnipotence scale).

So my final conclusion is to expand the analysis of “omnipotence” so that it captures the biblical data and works within our traditional theology. It then easily avoids the absurd conclusion that omnipotence requires God to know he is me!