Both Disputations and Catholic and Enjoying It take up the question of whether the Devil can/should be loved. As I suspected, most people think not. I agree with them and I think John gives the definitive answer.
Both Disputations and Catholic and Enjoying It take up the question of whether the Devil can/should be loved. As I suspected, most people think not. I agree with them and I think John gives the definitive answer.
Fr.,
I’m glad we could help. Your mentioning of evil as the absence of good reminds me of a debate that used to go on at Franciscan University between the Thomists and the phenomenologists about whether evil is some thing (“res”) or whether it is a privation, an absence. I won’t pretend to understand the arguments, but it was an interesting question nonetheless.
Matt,
Can you be more specific as to the verse you cite? Are you sure it’s Paul? Are you sure that’s even in the New Testament or even the Bible?
I think the ultimate response comes in Genesis 3:15; “I will put enmity (hate) between you (the serpent/Satan) and the woman, and between your offspring and hers.” That seems pretty clear to me.
Charleen:
I have to disagree. God does not create evil. He does allow us to choose it. God doesn’t want following him and loving to be hard, but that’s the way it is in a fallen world. If we were to take that literally, it would mean God created a system by which we are doomed to failure, to never live up to his ideal. That would be pretty cool.
Dan, Matt:
I don’t interpret the verse as telling us not to hate the Devil so much as that we are told not to rely on our own powers to oppose, but to cling to the Lord’s power.