Why did Satan sin?

[theditchmagnet]

This is mainly a question for "Christians" or the like, but all replies are welcomed.

OK, so since Satan wanted to be God, he sinned by that right? But i want to know WHY? there was nobody around to "tempt" him, so that makes me think that he was made with this desire in the first place, that he was made for that purpose? ok, im sounding very wacky to everybody i bet...lol

[Shiggy]

No, that's not wacky at all. In fact, it's an excellent point. A related one, I believe, is Adam and Eve's sin (they were created in a supposedly "perfect" state and "perfect" world, but still with an unavoidable and innate propensity to sin, in reality unable to "choose" not to). Usually Christians invoke the "free-will defence" in answer to these points, but true free will, in my opinion, would entail informed choice and if they knew what would result from their "choice" to sin, they certainly wouldn't have wanted or chosen to.

The case of Satan is somewhat different, though, as angels usually aren't granted free will - their duty and purpose being to give glory to God eternally, so yes, it makes no sense that an angel could choose to go against God. It's simply not logical; like all ancient myths.

[Satori]

Oddly, I was discussing something similar with some Christian friends just recently.

I believe it's Ezekiel that's supposed to describe Satan's initial sin thus:

"Son of man, take up a lament concerning the king of Tyre and say to him: 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: "'You were the model of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you: ruby, topaz and emerald, chrysolite, onyx and jasper, sapphire, turquoise and beryl. Your settings and mountings were made of gold; on the day you were created they were prepared. You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you. Through your widespread trade you were filled with violence, and you sinned. So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God, and I expelled you, O guardian cherub, from among the fiery stones. Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. So I threw you to the earth; I made a spectacle of you before kings. By your many sins and dishonest trade you have desecrated your sanctuaries

I should point out that the above passage is actually referring to the King of Tyre who is generally thought to represent Satan (the Prince of Tyre being the Antichrist).

So it appears that 'wickedness was found within Satan' and it seems to allude that through 'widespread trade' Satan was filled with violence. However, it's most likely that 'trade' in this instance is a mistranslation. The Hebrew word 'rekullatekha' is what has been translated to trade, but that word comes from the root 'rakal' which means 'to go about' or its derivative 'rakil', which means 'slanderer'.

This does sound like a lot of linguistic license has taken place, but it is lent some support by the fact that the Greek 'diabolos' for Devil also means 'slanderer'.

So, taking that as true for one moment, we have Satan's 'slander' as the original cause of his wickedness.

So why did he slander? I think it's because he felt that he should be dominant on Earth rather than Man and he supposedly persuaded a bunch of other 'angels' that this was the case too. Anyway, he popped down to Earth to try and screw Man up with the old apple trick but God sussed out what was going on and cursed him.

However, Satan had succeeded to a certain extent because God cast Man out of the Garden of Eden who then started suffering from death and other such inconveniences.

I guess we'd call it 'pride' that drove Satan to tempt Man.

Not sure how that tallies with the understanding of Christians here.