is perfect. These angels inhabited my home. My gardens, my forests, so they had to be perfect. Like me. I have perfect knowledge so it was only right that my perfect will is done in Heaven. And here are all these perfect and multi-talented beings with enormous intelligence and freewill of their own but—unable to express it—at least not without the consent of infinite intelligence. I felt sorry for them, but what could I do? Could I help it that unlike them I was perfect to an infinite degree?
ME: Well, yes you could.
GOD: I had no choice but to choose infinite perfection. No choice at all. I’ve told you but you don’t believe me. A perfect God has the least freewill of all beings. I must always choose the infinitely best choice at all times or be less than infinitely perfect. I knew what was going to happen. An angel would revolt and choose for himself. Like human beings they would rather decide for themselves and be wrong than to forever obey another’s perfect advice. It was inevitable it would be one of the top three. Lucifer did not surprise me. He just wanted to see what would happen if he secretly decided to do something without my permission. That’s where it all began. He liked the feeling and did it again, revolted still further.
ME: Anyone would do and feel the same. “Give me liberty or give me death!”
GOD: It is illogical to choose a course which may be less than best when you can have the best. Inevitably he chose wrongly. He made an inferior decision. He was less than perfect. My home was tainted. He had corrupted himself and Heaven.
ME: So, wipe him out! Destroy him!
GOD: I’ve already explained how morally wrong that would be of me—
ME: I’m not convinced. So what did you do instead?
GOD: Nothing. I watched events unfold. He advised other angels of his discovery. Because of their great respect for him they too tried making decisions without consulting my chain of command. They too chose error. On and on it went until angels came to me complaining. But I wanted every angel to choose my rule of his own freewill. No coercion. Their decision. But it went on and on and on.
ME: And you did nothing. You are complicit in the bringing of evil into our world—
GOD: Every angel is delighted that I allowed them the freedom to choose for themselves. That is one huge difference between my kingdom and Lucifer’s. Once they agreed with him they discovered they were expected to do as he said. If angels don’t want me, I give them the right to go.
ME: You threw them out of Heaven—
GOD: Not me. My angels did. The fallen ones kept falling, revolting further than they ever intended, corrupting my home with the filth of their increasingly imperfect decisions. Until the pure ones wanted them out, urged them to go, but they wouldn’t leave, so my angels pushed them out.
ME: And you sent them to Hell. Good! Why didn’t you keep them there?
GOD: I made them a home. They turned it into a Hell. They couldn’t bear the light from the purity of Heaven. Eventually they went into deep rock caverns to escape the light. To this day they hate light. They hate peace and love and everything that is good. They love pain and fear.
ME: No that’s not good enough. That is highly unconvincing. Think what it must have been like for the angels, and sympathise.
GOD: Oh I sympathise! You have tremendous wisdom but you can never act on it, tremendous knowledge but you can never rely on it. Why? Because you are always trumped by one with infinite wisdom, infinite knowledge. The only logical, sensible, reasonable way in which you can use your will is to totally agree with the one who has all the cognitive skills you have, only to an infinite degree. Your whole lifetime then is one of consent. You can never disagree with infinite wisdom and be right. To have a view differing from infinite wisdom is to be wrong, automatically wrong.
ME: It must have been/must be a terrible existence. To not be permitted to have your own opinion or the freedom to make your own mistakes. Or at least you DO have that freedom, ostensibly, yet it ends up being only the freedom to agree with, to align all your thinking with, and therefore your will with, infinite correctness. Yuck!
GOD: There is obviously no solution to this. Self-evidently, how could I be anything other than always right? And am I to be blamed for that? It could be thought that it would be imperfect of God not to delegate areas of authority to angels in which they could make their own decisions. But this is no solution, because they logically should refer any of their decisions back to the one who can infallibly correct or approve them. In fact not to refer them back to infinite perfection would be a less-than-perfect decision on their part.
ME: So they are scarcely better off than if God had told them what to do in the first place. They may as well have had no free-will at all. Puppets in all but name, beings with their free-will forever on hold.
GOD: I admit it. I foresaw it.
ME: It was inevitable that some angel would rebel at this claustophobic straight-jacket. And good on him I say!
GOD: Even when that decision leads directly to the horrifying murder of that little girl? You don’t understand. If any choice is anything less than perfect, that choice corrupts the character and the thinking of the one who made it. All my choices are infinitely perfect. If any angel makes a decision different from mine, it is automatically inferior—
ME: So you just said—
GOD: They are no longer perfect. It is easier the second time to make a less than perfect decision. A downward spiral commences. They go from bad to worse. The only way to stop the descent is to recant and repent.
ME: Did any do that?
GOD: Oh yes! When they saw where they were headed. When they felt the tarnishing of their own perfect beauty.
ME: And you restored them?
GOD: I forgave them and restored them. I offer the same to all who sin.
ME: Even Lucifer?
GOD: Lucifer became so intransigent so quickly that I changed his name to Satan.
ME: If he repented now, would you forgive him?
GOD: It is far too late for that. His corruption was long ago so complete that he is evil incarnate and that is all he can ever be. He will never want to be anything but totally defiant of me. He never wants to be under my rule ever again. He can only choose evil. It is no longer possible for him to choose good. Many of his followers are in the same condition. They can no longer choose anything other than evil.
ME: But not all?
GOD: Some follow Satan at a distance. He ignores them. They are useful for menial tasks thought up by Hell’s lesser commanders. Some have come out from their number but not recently. And they are on the periphery of Heaven, unsure, uncertain.
ME: They doubt you?
GOD: They don’t know who is right, Satan or me.
ME: I think I would be among them. I doubt you even exist. Or Satan.
GOD: Touch me and see. This is my hand.
ME: Maybe if there were holes in them.
GOD: There will be soon enough.
ME: So you say. Give me proof.
GOD: Blessed are those who have not seen yet believe.
ME: Blessed or stupid.
GOD: The choice is yours.
ME: Yes it is. Here’s another simple question—“Why didn’t you destroy him?” See, everybody’s asking it!
GOD: Satan? I answered that.
ME: Yes you did, But to nobody’s satisfaction.
GOD: If I destroyed Satan, all angels would know the same fate could be there’s if they stepped out of line. The whole atmosphere of Heaven would change. Love would be replaced by elements of fear. They now would have a secondary motive apart from love to obey me—self-preservation. Besides, Satan must suffer. He who caused infinite pain must himself suffer infinite pain. It would be unfair and unjust for that not to be so—
ME: So stick him in Hell and tie him to a fire or something. Why let him loose to torment us poor earth people?
GOD: Because one third of all the angels agreed with him. One in every three sides with him, prefers his leadership to mine. But there is a Day of Judgment comi
ng. He will be judged and condemned, he and all his angels and all who side with him. They will never be permitted to torment the human race again—
ME: A third of the angels don’t like you! What kind of a tyrant are you then? What don’t we know that they do? I thought Heaven was a fabulous place but if one third of the angels prefer Hell to God...
GOD: “Give me liberty of give me death.” They would rather be what they call free than have a perfect environment run by a being who can only choose perfection for them—
ME: One third! That means only one in six at present in Heaven—if one in six revolts, Satan will have as many followers as you! What would happen then?
GOD: Well—
ME: And if just one more then went over to his side giving Satan a majority—
GOD: It will—
ME: Would you resign?
GOD: Of course—
ME: Is there some kind of democracy? If he gets more votes than you do—