Quote:
Originally Posted by twistedmosaic
Shouldn't God, an omnipotent being, able to stop Satan in his tracks once and for all permanently?
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By the very definition of omnipotent, yes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by twistedmosaic
If so, why doesn't he? If not, why call him omnipotent?
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The Bible has an entire book in the Bible called Job about God letting Satan fuck with a human being and his reasons why, if you gain some measure of truth from such things.
I think it makes sense that a god that would want people to have free will / choice and to do "good" would need to have a system with an opposite, which we can call "evil" for our purposes here. A similar concept to the Yin/Yang, if you are familiar... let's not get bogged down in what would be "good" or "evil" here. If God stopped the process or influenced it in some way, it wouldn't really be a choice in the sense that choices under duress aren't true choices.
I identify myself as a Christian, but I do not claim to have enough conclusive evidence to say whether Satan is a real angel made by God that fell from grace (as written in the Bible) or whether it's some metaphorical story. I don't think that it matters to this discussion, though, because whether the Bible is some factual historical book or not, the concept of an opposing choice exists and it doesn't need to have a physical form.