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Why Did God Create Satan Knowing What He Would Do?

by Greg Baker  
1/19/2011 / Bible Studies

As a pastor, I get asked, quite often actually, why God created a devil if He knew all the evil Satan would do. A corresponding question is why did God create the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? After all, if God hadn't created the tree, then Adam and Eve couldn't have sinned! This article attempts to give a logical and rational explanation to these questions.

Read Genesis chapters 2 and 3.

The answer to these questions is, I believe, found in the purpose for God creating Adam and Eve in the first place. What is the purpose of human creation? Quite simply, it is to choose to love God. If there is one thing an all mighty, all knowing, all present God would want, it would be someone choosing Him freely. To that end, mankind was given free will.

But having free will and not having the option to use it is not free will. Imagine me asking you, "Okay, you have a choice. What do you want? A can of Pepsi or a can of Pepsi? Go on, pick, it's your choice!" Is that really a choice? Having only one choice is not a choice. How can we exercise the most important and unique aspect to the human nature-free will-if there is no choice to make?

For that reason, I believe God but the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden. God specifically told Adam not to eat of it and He even outlined the consequences of doing so. Nevertheless, Adam had a choice. He could refuse God and eat of the Tree or he could decide to forego the tree and choose God. This is important. It is important to God that we have this choice!

I mean imagine if you were the only woman in the world where only one man existed too. If this man walked up to you and said, "Of all the women in the world, I think you are the most beautiful, the most wonderful, the most intelligent one! Will you marry me?" Would you be very impressed with his choice? He had no real choice. So choosing you is almost meaningless. But if there were two women to choose from, you and another of nearly equal beauty, intelligence, and capability, then his choice of you over the other woman is much, much more significant to you!

This, I believe, is why God created Satan and allowed the Devil to tempt man. Satan makes the choice more appealing. He came to Eve and made the Tree much more interesting. "Thou shalt not die! You shall become as gods knowing good and evil!" he proclaimed to Eve. Well now, that makes the choice much more interesting.

Think about out it, if I offered you a choice between a thousand dollars and a single candy bar, which one would you choose? How many candy bars can you buy for a thousand dollars? This is still not a choice. Satan made the tree much more of a choice to Adam and Eve. He made it a choice between a thousand dollars in cash and a thousand dollars in gold. Now, the choice is much more difficult to make. The gold's value could fluctuate and just might be worth more than the thousand dollars. But then again, it might not. The choice between the two is much more significant.

This is what Satan did, and what God knew Satan would do. This wasn't about setting man up to fail and sin. This was about giving man a real choice. If man chose God under these circumstances, the choice to love God would be much more real to both God and the person who made it.

God allows Satan to continue to give man this choice. He makes lifestyles outside of God's will more appealing, more equivalent to our mind. If we, as Christians, decide to choose God over the pleasures of sin, then the decision is much more meaningful to both us and to God.

Christianity to me is all about the relationship, not a list of things we can or cannot do. For me, choosing God is more important than what I can't do. I chose this lifestyle and would not change it for the world! But it was a choice. And making that choice, for God, is what God wanted from the very beginning!

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