I enjoyed watching the Star Wars movies. It was all very interesting watching the fight of good VS evil. But the logic suffered one obvious flaw. The dark side can't possibly be anywhere near as powerful as the light side (and that is a gross understatement).
Why not? After all, aren't good and evil exact opposites? Therefore the power of evil should be as powerful as the power of good, shouldn't it? And why is it that God is more powerful than Satan? Surely they should be equal in power.
The answer to this lies in the question of what makes good, good? And what makes evil, evil? Why is it "good" to love others, and "evil" to hate others? Could God just as easily have commanded us to hate others? The answer to this is that eternity has laws. They have always existed. If you punch your hand against a brick wall it will hurt. The same combination of circumstances on any planet throughout eternity will create the same result. The laws governing us, also govern God. Those laws include ways of acting upon substances to get them to form into planets etc. This requires enormous love by the person doing the holding of the planets together. No love - no power. It is as simple as that.
To understand this relative to dark and light sides, you could relate it to two people rowing in a raging river. Both are rowing as hard as they can. One is powering ahead and the other is going nowhere. What is the difference between the two? .... One is rowing with the current and the other is rowing against it. God is going with the laws of eternity, and Satan is trying to fight against them.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Light is power and darkness is the absence of power. This is from D&C 29:29. So if wickedness has no power then why does satan seem to have such great power? Interesting!
Is it just that his power isn't real? Or does he actually have power? If he actually has power, wouldn't this mean that he has light? Or is it that he just uses others power in bad ways- usurping gods power maybe? Maybe this goes back to his quest from the beginning about him wanting god to give him his power!
Rob
I hadn't noticed that in D&C 29. Great stuff.
Satan doesn't have any power. He just has determination. When I was 21 I took this guy from the army to have a discussion with the missionaries. We came back to the barracks, and I could feel this evil presence who was infuriated, standing on the veranda, before I even got out of the car. I didn't dare say anything to the guy I had taken for a discussion, as I figured it might freak him. After we were back about 5 minutes he came to my room and asked if I could feel this evil presence that he could feel. I told him not to worry, and if he had any problems to just come and see me. He went, and I wandered out onto the veranda. All of a sudden this force was pushing my head, trying to push me out. My response was to freak myself. At this point I saw Satan, and felt his feelings. He suddenly turned back toward me going, Ahhh. Like a person would if they felt they were suddenly getting somewhere when they thought they weren't. But very strongly. My fear had made him feel he had a chance afterall. He was obviously just about to give up. I looked heavenward and said, help. Immediately he was gone. My friend came down to see me about 10 minutes later saying that the presence had gone.
But the thing I noticed about all this was that he couldn't even push me out. And when we look at the story Moses presented of his experience with Satan, it reflects the same ideas as my experience.
Some things in your second paragraph are probably answered by this experience. But the thing I don't quite understand about Satan is how he is even in existence still. But that is a long subject all on its own.
I always wondered in Star Wars what happened to darth vader after he was killed or whatever. There is that part of you that almost thinks he is destroyed in every way, but another part that says- hey wait a minute, he still has some good in him. But then it kicks in that he just did too much evil and the way he did it. It is almost as if he wanted to be utterly destroyed and lose all power. I wonder if this is what happens with the devil and his angels?
I have flipped back and forth on the idea that satan and his angels would repent but there just seems to be a point that one gets to that seeks to destroy good at any cost. I believe it certainly must be true that there would be an end to eternal punishment for the devil and his buddies because as you say, I too don't understand how he can even still exist. He must still have a tiny bit of light left in him or something, maybe not. Who really knows?
Rob
At the end of Return of the Jedi Darth Vader is standing with obiwun and Yoda, in spirit form. You probably didn't recognise him without his black suit on. The idea is that he had turned back to the light side.
I have to agree with you that there just gets to be a point where people set their course. Satan has set his. He dooms himself to darkness. When I have seen him I see a spirit, but there is just darkness, through him and around him.
Thanks doug,I had forgotten about the spirit personage of vader after he was dead, I do remember now.
Post a Comment