The Devil, Deification, and Dante
July 19th, 2023 by G.
It’s a Christian commonplace that the devil is God’s ape. He imitates what God does, badly. We Saints learn this in the temple.
Given this, what should Christians make of the devil’s offer to Adam and Eve that if they follow him by disobeying god, they would “become as gods, knowing good and evil”? If he is offering to them that he will make them semi-gods, of what divine offer is this the pale shadow?
You know. Becoming gods. Being Gods with God.
Speaking of deification, I was thinking recently of the beatific vision at the end of the Divine Comedy. It’s not just looking at God like a a gawker. Its communion with Him.
I have come to think that any real communion means becoming as He is. You cannot commune with what you are not.
sute
July 19, 2023
You missed the most interesting theological components.
“Patterned after the old world where we used to live.”
“For that is the way Father gained his knowledge”
When we take the temple seriously and commune with our Father in Heaven and ponder on it, we can receive inspiration.
If we want to dismiss one uncomfortable thing the serpent said to Eve as a lie, we don’t get to pick and choose. The reality is, he was speaking accurately, but not telling the entire truth. Weren’t Adam and Eve indeed naked? Didn’t they truly come to know Good and Evil? Did they instantly die? Didn’t they learn to comprehend opposites?
If we want to say the devil was only saying what he needed for effect, couldn’t the same, even more so, could be said of what God told Adam and Eve? In fact, what God said to Adam and Eve was far more veiled.
This doesn’t make one or the other a liar.
The devil sought to have what God promised all his obedient sons and daughters. A world he can have dominion over. Indeed, he claims it for himself as the God of this world, when we can recall earlier Adam is pronounced Lord and given dominion over the whole earth. It was the devil who sought this by subjugating God’s children in the bondage of sin. God promises it through is exalting his children to become like him.
Which brings us back to an opening question. How did Father gain his knowledge?
G.
July 20, 2023
Interesting, but I’m not sure it’s a response to the post. My point was probably too basic.
All I was saying was Satan’s offer of becoming like gods is a cheap inferior knockoff to God’s purpose that his children will be Gods.