What was Satan's first sin?

[vitomanny]

I have trouble conceiving the possibility of sin in Heaven, therefore I not comfortable with the typical explanations given by most people. The fallen angels, created as pure spirits, must have done something that was not in essence a sin. Since all creatures, material and spiritual, have the free will of choosing to accept God or not, it could be possible to reject Him without committing any sin. This possibility must be true in order to keep free will valid. The consequences of rejecting God, in the other hand, must have left these angels without the necessary state of grace to keep them without sin. Once they were able to commit sin there was no place for them in Heaven anymore. Since they are pure spirits, the mentioned battle with Michael and the other faithful angels has no literal meaning. No swords, no weapons, no violence. Sin is incompatible with Heaven, and like two equal magnetic poles, they repeal each other. There was no place to go in the Universe other than Earth. Where man has just evolved and has been provided with a soul. All of this, of course, is just theory. Please, feel free to comment on this and bear with me because my English is not that good.

[Patricia]

Since all creatures, material and spiritual, have the free will of choosing to accept God or not, it could be possible to reject Him without committing any sin. This possibility must be true in order to keep free will valid.

Rejecting God is equal to committing  a sin.  He has given us the free will to commit or not to commit a sin .  Even angels have free will. They freely will to love and serve God, not because God has forced them to.

Since they are pure spirits, the mentioned battle with Michael and the other faithful angels has no literal meaning. No swords, no weapons, no violence. Sin is incompatible with Heaven, and like two equal magnetic poles, they repeal each other.

Once the fallen angels rejected God there would be no place for them in heaven since there is no place for sin and thus the battle. What kind of  battle it was I can't tell, but it couldn't be like the bloody battles on earth, maybe on a spiritual level and even more scarier. 

[RachelKH]

Angels' free will was a one-time choice to follow God or turn away, as I understand it.. 

[vitomanny]

Thanks Patricia and Rachel. I am still confused. Free will is not necessarily having to choose from good or evil as the only two possible choices. As I see it, free will was given to angels prior to the existence of evil or sin, or we would end up saying that evil and sin were created by God. As cold is the absence of heat, evil and sin are the absence of God. If rejecting God is a sin, then every good person, Christian or not, is “forced” to accept God to avoid evil and sin. In other words, God will be punishing with evil and sin those who choose not to accept Him. God wants us to accept Him because He loves us and wants what is best for us. If you choose not to accept Him, you will be on your own and you will be without His protection and much probably you will end up committing sin and having the same self-inflicted punishment as the fallen angels. Hell is precisely this, total absence of God….and that burns like fire. Please, feel free to comment on these opinions. Thanks.

[Patricia]

Angels' free will was a one-time choice to follow God or turn away, as I understand it.. 

As I understand it angels still have free will as we , humans do.

[Patricia]

Free will is not necessarily having to choose from good or evil as the only two possible choices.

Then what other possible choices are there?

[Patricia]

If rejecting God is a sin, then every good person, Christian or not, is “forced” to accept God to avoid evil and sin.

A Christian is not 'forced' to.  There are many who merrily sin while alive and go to hell .  I wouldn't use the word 'force'.  It is more like a loving warning that hell awaits those who live in mortal sin and that a safe and secure refuge would be God's mercy (through the Sacraments) .  He continually attracts  us by His love and Mercy , so how could that be force?  It is like a parent who loves his child and warns him when he is misbehaving of the consequences for his own good. It is upto the child to listen to the parent or disregard him.

[vitomanny]

Then what other possible choices are there?

Within our faith you can choose to pray the Our Father and not the Rosary or you can choose to believe that our Mother appeared to those little pastors in Fatima or not. You are not sinning by doing this. Free will is about choosing among a variety of possible alternatives without being forced to do so. Those alternatives could be all good, all bad or a mix. Angels did not have sin/evil as an alternative because sin did not existed. Nobody had experienced sin/evil prior to those fallen angels. Only alternatives which did not constituted a sin were possible in Heaven. Which were those alternatives? Nobody can tell. The thing is that they made a choice, and after that choice was made, they eventually experienced sin and evil and no longer could stay in Heaven.

[vitomanny]

A Christian is not 'forced' to.  There are many who merrily sin while alive and go to hell .  I wouldn't use the word 'force'.  It is more like a loving warning that hell awaits those who live in mortal sin and that a safe and secure refuge would be God's mercy (through the Sacraments) .  He continually attracts  us by His love and Mercy , so how could that be force?  It is like a parent who loves his child and warns him when he is misbehaving of the consequences for his own good. It is upto the child to listen to the parent or disregard him.

I agree 100%. That's why choosing to not accept God is not intrinsically a sin. He doesn't force us to accept Him, like the common saying: "is my way or the highway". If you do not accept Him the consequence is, "being without Him “,and that's the state in which the condemned are. Thanks again for your comments.

[Shin]

Then what other possible choices are there?

Within our faith you can choose to pray the Our Father and not the Rosary or you can choose to believe that our Mother appeared to those little pastors in Fatima or not. You are not sinning by doing this. Free will is about choosing among a variety of possible alternatives without being forced to do so. Those alternatives could be all good, all bad or a mix. Angels did not have sin/evil as an alternative because sin did not existed. Nobody had experienced sin/evil prior to those fallen angels. Only alternatives which did not constituted a sin were possible in Heaven. Which were those alternatives? Nobody can tell. The thing is that they made a choice, and after that choice was made, they eventually experienced sin and evil and no longer could stay in Heaven.

Welcome to the forums Vitomanny!

Do not worry about the English! So too if you have trouble understanding what someone says, just ask.

Have you ever read the Summa Theologica? St. Thomas Aquinas has some interesting speculation on this, and what kinds of sins the angels could commit, and could not commit being spiritual and not material. He writes too on the fall of the angels.

I will look up what the saints have to say about the fall of the angels and see what I can tell you.

There's a passage from the Revelations of St. Bridget of Sweden that describes how Satan fell, that with some thought on should help some I think:

'Tell me, while she is listening, why it was just that you fell so far and what you were thinking when you fell!" The devil answered: "I saw three things in you: I saw your glory and honor above all things, and I thought about my own glory. Hence I was determined in my pride not merely to be equal to you but even greater than you. Second, I saw that you were the most powerful of all. Hence I longed to be more powerful than you. Third, I saw what was to be in the future and, since your glory and honor were without beginning and would be with out end, I envied you and thought that I would gladly be tortured forever with all manner of harsh punishments if only you could die. With such thoughts I fell. And in that way hell was created."'

The Revelations of. St. Bridget of Sweden

[Shin]

From what I have read, one of the meanings for the word sin, is 'missing the mark' and this is one of its more fundamental and primary meanings from the beginning.

The way you speak about sin Vitomanny, I wonder if you think of sin as a 'something that exists' rather than 'something missing'? 

[vitomanny]

Have you ever read the Summa Theologica? St. Thomas Aquinas has some interesting speculation on this, and what kinds of sins the angels could commit, and could not commit being spiritual and not material. He writes too on the fall of the angels.

Hi Shin. Thanks for your warm welcome  . I haven't read the Suma, but I believe I have read some extracts from it. From the Saints and Fathers I have read about this topic, and that's what got me asking these questions. They also, have theories about the sin committed by these angels, and I say theories because nobody can know for sure. The Holy Scriptures doesn’t give much light regarding this. I don’t know whether this is from Thomas or not, but it was what got me started :

"If by this we mean equality with God, then the Devil could not desire it, since he knew this to be impossible, and he was not blinded by passion or evil habit so as to choose that which is impossible, as may happen with men. And even if it were possible for a creature to become God, an angel could not desire this, since, by becoming equal with God he would cease to be an angel, and no creature can desire its own destruction or an essential change in its being".

[vitomanny]

From what I have read, one of the meanings for the word sin, is 'missing the mark' and this is one of its more fundamental and primary meanings from the beginning.

The way you speak about sin Vitomanny, I wonder if you think of sin as a 'something that exists' rather than 'something missing'? 

Like I said before, the absence of heat is what we call cold. The absence of good is what we call evil. I guess that in sin:  "everything that is God is missing". Thanks Shin.

[Shin]

Here let me quote the passages from the Summa.

The extracts are here.

[Shin]

"If by this we mean equality with God, then the Devil could not desire it, since he knew this to be impossible, and he was not blinded by passion or evil habit so as to choose that which is impossible, as may happen with men. And even if it were possible for a creature to become God, an angel could not desire this, since, by becoming equal with God he would cease to be an angel, and no creature can desire its own destruction or an essential change in its being".

Article 3 covers the reply to this.

'I answer that, Without doubt the angel sinned by seeking to be as God. But this can be understood in two ways: first, by equality; secondly, by likeness. He could not seek to be as God in the first way; because by natural knowledge he knew that this was impossible: . . .'

 

[Shin]

Hi Shin. Thanks for your warm welcome  .

It's great to have you here and asking such thought provoking questions!