In the beginning, before the Heaven and The Earth and The Angels, God created Satan.
He wasn't "The Devil" then, he didn't even have a name. But he could see and touch and think and speak. Which was why he was created in the first place, so God would have someone to talk to.
God had a lot to talk about.
He planned to build a golden kingdom peopled by beautiful and kindly angels and far below it would be a universe of stars and moons and planets, all interlinked, all relying on each other like a perfect piece of clockwork.
Life on planets would be like that too. Animal and vegetable, carnivore and herbivore, ecosystems so complex and yet so perfectly simple that they could never fail.
Stars at dawn and moonlit snowfields, whalesong in the marianas, tiger tracks in endless green, wings so wide that a world could shelter under them.
And Satan shouted "YES!" until his tears ran through his smile.
That was what he thought was intended. God would use the power He had for marvelous CREATION, never tiring of the variety and depth of beauty He could bring to the Universe, an endless palette, an endless canvass.
Then God planned to enhance His creation with a new race He'd been thinking about. It's chief characteristic was the replacement of instinct with the grandiose concept of Free Will.
This was a disastrous notion according to Satan. Offer a choice and nine out of ten people will instantly make the wrong one. Asking for trouble.
Satan told Him so.
God looked at Satan, one eye narrow and one eye wide:
"WHAT did you say!?"
Satan had that plummeting free-fall sensation that only the most exquisite faux pas can bring to a conversation - the dreadful awareness that words can never heal the wound, and nothing can ever be the same again.
Satan no longer had God's ear. He no longer had any idea of what God planned than His angels did. He was terrified.
Satan skulked around the Kingdom of Heaven like a wayward infant, expecting his father's voice of Justice with every step he took.
Well, if you put all your energy into dodging someone for long enough, sooner or later you'll run right into them. Satan found the Great Redeemer squatting in a corner of Eternity.
That's why He gave Humanity the choice, and why He imagined they'd pick Him.
Why a Loving God would curse His creation with centuries of pain, why a Supreme Being is so enamoured of Free Will.
And you just think He "moves in mysterious ways".
A child of four can see through that one.
God knew it and threw Satan out of Heaven.
And he's been falling ever since.
After that He went ahead with it anyway. The Heavenly Host weren't much more than a dry run for Humanity.
(Look at them now - StormTroopers with haloes.)
Down below, Satan's purpose was clear.
He had to storm the walls of Heaven, to bring sanity to the heart of Creation, and the only way to do that was to raise an army. So he took advantage of the choice that God was so keen on, and offered one of his own.
Satan cajoled and bribed and threatened and his realm and his soul-legions grew and grew.
The other Fallen appeared but they were nothing but distractions.
On and on Satan went, his eyes forever on his goal, his dream of Earthly Paradise before him.
Then Satan woke up.
The methods he employed had their effect. The tools he used were Lust and Envy, Hate and Avarice. What good would they be in building a better world? What good would HE be? His reactions, decisions, were all based on Hatred.
Satan is exactly what The Devil should be - the tempter, the deciever, the serpent crawling in the garden. The Adversary.
So what did God originally intend him for?
What was the point of someone He could talk to if He wouldn't listen?
The answer is obvious.
Satan was God's conscience.
His Jiminy Cricket.
The little voice everyone gets in their head.
"Come on, don't do that, do this. Don't be nasty. Don't hurt her. Don't have that last drink, get on home. Do the right thing."
That was Satan.
So God takes the nagging little whine out of His head and gives it a body. And the minute he steps out of line, that's it. He kicks it's arse for it.
He bars him.
So God doesn't have to listen anymore and does whatever He fancies.
Mortals call Satan "The Devil". It is not a title he minds. Mortals have to call him something after all, but it is inaccurate.
Satan fell before there were even any angels to become devils, or demons, or whatever. When he got to the bottom there wasn't even a Hell for him to rule. That came later, with Lucifer.
Satan picked himself up from the longest fall of all, and remembered what he'd seen in the eyes of the Almighty.
And he wept with pity for the world He had created.
He wasn't "The Devil" then, he didn't even have a name. But he could see and touch and think and speak. Which was why he was created in the first place, so God would have someone to talk to.
God had a lot to talk about.
He planned to build a golden kingdom peopled by beautiful and kindly angels and far below it would be a universe of stars and moons and planets, all interlinked, all relying on each other like a perfect piece of clockwork.
Life on planets would be like that too. Animal and vegetable, carnivore and herbivore, ecosystems so complex and yet so perfectly simple that they could never fail.
Stars at dawn and moonlit snowfields, whalesong in the marianas, tiger tracks in endless green, wings so wide that a world could shelter under them.
And Satan shouted "YES!" until his tears ran through his smile.
That was what he thought was intended. God would use the power He had for marvelous CREATION, never tiring of the variety and depth of beauty He could bring to the Universe, an endless palette, an endless canvass.
Then God planned to enhance His creation with a new race He'd been thinking about. It's chief characteristic was the replacement of instinct with the grandiose concept of Free Will.
This was a disastrous notion according to Satan. Offer a choice and nine out of ten people will instantly make the wrong one. Asking for trouble.
Satan told Him so.
God looked at Satan, one eye narrow and one eye wide:
"WHAT did you say!?"
Satan had that plummeting free-fall sensation that only the most exquisite faux pas can bring to a conversation - the dreadful awareness that words can never heal the wound, and nothing can ever be the same again.
Satan no longer had God's ear. He no longer had any idea of what God planned than His angels did. He was terrified.
Satan skulked around the Kingdom of Heaven like a wayward infant, expecting his father's voice of Justice with every step he took.
Well, if you put all your energy into dodging someone for long enough, sooner or later you'll run right into them. Satan found the Great Redeemer squatting in a corner of Eternity.
That's why He gave Humanity the choice, and why He imagined they'd pick Him.
Why a Loving God would curse His creation with centuries of pain, why a Supreme Being is so enamoured of Free Will.
And you just think He "moves in mysterious ways".
A child of four can see through that one.
God knew it and threw Satan out of Heaven.
And he's been falling ever since.
After that He went ahead with it anyway. The Heavenly Host weren't much more than a dry run for Humanity.
(Look at them now - StormTroopers with haloes.)
Down below, Satan's purpose was clear.
He had to storm the walls of Heaven, to bring sanity to the heart of Creation, and the only way to do that was to raise an army. So he took advantage of the choice that God was so keen on, and offered one of his own.
Satan cajoled and bribed and threatened and his realm and his soul-legions grew and grew.
The other Fallen appeared but they were nothing but distractions.
On and on Satan went, his eyes forever on his goal, his dream of Earthly Paradise before him.
Then Satan woke up.
The methods he employed had their effect. The tools he used were Lust and Envy, Hate and Avarice. What good would they be in building a better world? What good would HE be? His reactions, decisions, were all based on Hatred.
Satan is exactly what The Devil should be - the tempter, the deciever, the serpent crawling in the garden. The Adversary.
So what did God originally intend him for?
What was the point of someone He could talk to if He wouldn't listen?
The answer is obvious.
Satan was God's conscience.
His Jiminy Cricket.
The little voice everyone gets in their head.
"Come on, don't do that, do this. Don't be nasty. Don't hurt her. Don't have that last drink, get on home. Do the right thing."
That was Satan.
So God takes the nagging little whine out of His head and gives it a body. And the minute he steps out of line, that's it. He kicks it's arse for it.
He bars him.
So God doesn't have to listen anymore and does whatever He fancies.
Mortals call Satan "The Devil". It is not a title he minds. Mortals have to call him something after all, but it is inaccurate.
Satan fell before there were even any angels to become devils, or demons, or whatever. When he got to the bottom there wasn't even a Hell for him to rule. That came later, with Lucifer.
Satan picked himself up from the longest fall of all, and remembered what he'd seen in the eyes of the Almighty.
And he wept with pity for the world He had created.
