Timing of Satan's Fall and YEC

I listened to a very good sermon this morning about the enemy. The preacher pointed out that the fall of Satan and the demons must have been after creation began. He is a created being after all, and in Job 38:4,7, it says that ALL of the angels sang at creation. There is no mention of a rebellion and the devil was created as lead angel first. So, according to this preacher from Dallas, the rebellion happened after creation. But Satan was clearly fallen when Adam and Eve were created (Gen 3). So, it happened between the start of creation and the garden of Eden. I am aware that there may be several views on this for BioLogos adherents - depending on your view of the devil and Adam and Eve. And for most of us, the timing of all of this is not a problem or not relevant. But my question is: How do YECers explain that, in their thinking, the devil and a third of the angels fell between day 1 and day 7, yet it gets no mention in Gen 1 or 2? Surely that was a massive event? And if Gen 1 is purely historical narrative, shouldn’t the rebellion of a third of the angels be found in the text? Would this be a good question to ask them, or have I missed something in the YEC account?

3 Likes

It seems that a lot of the suppositions come from the Book of Enoch, which is interesting how inerrantists integrate non-canonical information to support their theological ideas at times.

2 Likes

I have no issue with considering Enoch as canon, Jude certainly thought so, when he claims that Enoch ‘did prophesy’ a prophecy from 1 Enoch. Furthermore his statement about angels who committed sexual sin comparable to Sodom and Gomorrah appears to be derived from Enoch as well.

From Jude’s use, the most we could say is that Enoch contains some truth Jude was willing to use, much as Paul does when he quotes the pagan poets in Acts 17: [God] is actually not far from each one of us, for ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said."

There’s good reason to think that neither in Jesus’s day (nor ours) did the Jewish people consider the Apocrypha to have the authority of the canonical books. Even in the arguments between Jesus and the Jewish teachers of his day there is no evidence that they differed on the contents of OT scripture. In Luke 11, Jesus spoke of the blood of the prophets extending “from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah," meaning all the prophets from the beginning to the end of the Hebrew scriptures. 2 Chronicles is where Zechariah’s martyrdom occurs. This is one data point that, to Jesus, this is where the Hebrew Bible ends (unlike the Septuagint).

3 Likes

Phil, you’re right that there’s some intellectual dishonesty or theological negligence at play here. It’s analogous to the confirmation bias that many bring to science–only embracing scientific claims seem to cohere with their pre-existing, iron-clad biblical interpretation.

1 Like

I’m a bit lost where Enoch fits in to the original question. Does anyone want to respond to my question about the YEC way of explaining the fall of Satan?

1 Like

Sorry, guess we went off on a tangent. As you said, this isn’t an issue for most of us here. I don’t know if they have an official position but I remember being taught by a YEC in college that Satan isn’t mentioned in Gen 1 or 2 so as not to detract from the creative works of God. He appears between the state of “perfection” of Genesis 1:31 (how he interprets “behold, it was very good”) and the temptation account in Genesis 3, and only later in Jude 1:6 and 2 Peter 2:4 do we learn what happened in the insurrection and fall of Satan.

1 Like

Here’s what AIG has to say about it. Evidently there is a lot we “can’t know” from Scripture on this topic and they don’t seem as willing to speculate as they are with other things we “can’t know” about. (ETA: But according to Ussher, it was on Day 10 of the world’s existence.)

3 Likes

That is an amazing read. I have to give AiG credit in this case. They try to be consistent. So in their view Satan was created and fell within ~2 week time frame.

This reminds me that some years ago “Ah-nold” made a movie called End of Days where he fights Satan. It is a terrible movie. Don’t see it! But I did–because I read the book, which was also awful, save for one great scene. In the book (and the movie) Ah-nold fights Satan in a high-rise apartment building and tosses him out a window on the ump-teenth floor. Satan falls and crashes into a car on the street. In the movie he just gets up and walks away. The book did it way, way better. In the book when he gets up and shakes himself off a bystander says to him, “Man, that was some fall!” Whereupon Satan looks up, shrugs, and says “I’ve had worse.” Then he walks away. Perfect.

5 Likes

Thanks Christy for that article. It is mostly well written - though of course I would not get so bothered by which ‘day’ or the exact nature of each reference to "heavens’. The day 10 idea does seem very speculative though! And I still think my point stands - that if Satan and all his angels fell on day 10, give or take a day or two, and were then on earth trying to cause havac - surely that is a major topic to talk about before the Eden account? - given that in the eyes of YECers, this is the chief account of the important points of history. There is a limit to what you can argue from silence, but this version really doesn’t make much sense to me!

You’d think. If it was indeed a straight history.

This is actually a very important matter for any type of literalism in early Genesis, but esp for the YECs. If (a) Satan fell after “the beginning” (or, the “Big Inning,” if you hold as I do that the heavenly host were playing the divinely created game of baseball at the time) but prior to the creation of humans at the end of day 6, then it’s awfully hard to make the standard, virtually universal argument that when God pronounced it all “very good,” better than the mere “good” of previous days, God really meant “perfect.” That particular view crucially underpins their key theological tenet, that there was no animal death & suffering prior to the garden of Eden.

I hope I’ve stated this with sufficient clarity. If so, why doesn’t this just undermine the common view that Satan “fell” before Adam? What exactly am I missing?

5 Likes

It seems from the discussion above that the YEC view is now that Satan fell between the creation of Adam & Eve and the fall of Adam & Eve. So I guess they say Satan fell, appeared as a serpent in Eden (of all places) and then got to work immediately on Adam and Eve?

Apart from the speculation and odd historical narrative that the YEC account suggests, this doesn’t feel fair. Satan, who sees the glory of heaven, then falls without provocation, whereas the weaker Adam and Eve are tempted by Satan, who is allowed in the special garden just created, as a kind of test! This implies characteristics of God that don’t seem to fit with the rest of the Bible!

1 Like

Just playing devil’s advocate (pun intended). Satan could have fallen (in the sense he rebelled) long before creation of our universe–existing still in the heavenly realm (perhaps under heavenly incarceration, like in the TV show Supernatural. ) And this could have been at an indefinite time in the past–whatever “past” means prior to creation. (It means something, since the bible refers to “before the foundation of the world”, as any card-carrying Calvinist knows.) After creation of the physical realm, which God declares good, then God could have exiled Satan to the physical realm, crash-landing him near Eden, just as Adam and Eve were exploring their boundaries.

I do not think that the language of Job 38:4-7 demands that, at the time creation was initiated, Satan was still in good-standing. One could plausibly argue that for the bible, with the assumption that it was meant to be read intelligently, a parenthetical clarification “(except of course for Satan and his minions!”) was simply not necessary, and/or that Satan in rebellion had lost the honorifics “morning star” and “son of God” and so was already excluded from those under discussion.

I am not saying this is what I believe. But I am suggesting that it is a view that can be used to preserve a literal view of Genesis with both the historicity and exceptionalism of Adam and Eve, be it a YEC or OEC position.

2 Likes

Thanks, This would make more sense to me if I was YEC, but I don’t think it is what most of them believe! They prefer to take Job 38 at its literal word.That is an approach that is more consistent with their treatment of Gen 1. Of course if they are more relaxed about Job, this may be a way in to asking them to consider being more relaxed about Genesis!

I propose a Babylonian “influence” to the question. Suppose we equate Marduk with the office of Lucifer? Personally I think the Word of God was well preserved during the Babylonian captivity, and if anything the Hebrews left their mark, instead of getting their information from the Babylonians and the Persians after them.

It is quite possible that Satan, Adam, and Eve were friends and part of God’s council. It is not logical that Adam would let Eve, or even Eve herself have dialogue with an enemy. The walks and talks in the Garden would have been just as normal and trustworthy with Satan as with God. Getting Eve to see his side of things may have just been the beginning of his path towards all out defiance of God. Satan was still trying to get Job to sin as well, a long time after Adam and Eve left this earth.

Enter Marduk and the Babylonian version of “history”. There was a shake up in how the planets were “behaving” and it was said that Marduk cut Tiamat in half and rearranged the order of things. Some say this is the dividing of the waters in Genesis 1. I think it has to do with the earth and another planet colliding which caused the moon to be in a tidal lock position with the Earth. A third of the planets were lost in the event. Satan/Marduk was in charge of the other planet and Adam was in charge of this planet. Well until he “was fired”. I think the earth was not under any particular leadership until after the Flood. That is when Satan lost the planet he ruled and was given charge over the earth. That leadership came to an end when Jesus finished the task of “correcting” the disobedience of Adam. It is indicated that the church would have a loose control over the earth in a social outlook of equality. An equality where humans would leave the stronghold of personal sins behind and live in the freedom of Grace and Mercy.

Obviously that did not go over very well and we ended up with a centralized form of government led by one spiritual leader and all the hierarchy involved in keeping that control moving forward. Not to mention all the push back from others who wanted to control their world in their own desires. I think the fall of Satan was not one particular point in time, but a process over a long period of time.

I realize that it seems Satan has little influence today, but not sure he really needs that much. I think there will be a short period yet to come where he will be given a chance to lead this world according to God’s will, but he will mess that chance up, and will still loose all influence whatsoever, before given one last final chance.

Was there a thousand or more year period where the Perfection of God’s creation went according to plan? Does long periods of nothing but evolution count as anything in God’s plan? Humans in the ANE did not seem to think leaving God out of the equation was wrong. That is why I think it wrong to define religion as having anything to do with God, but to a divine being they conceptualized as God. Perhaps even Marduk or Satan would fit the divine concept that religion incorporates. I think that when the church took over control, they attempted to erase the original concept of divinity in religion as just being of human origin, and convinced the world that the divinity mentioned, was God. Now that the trend is to bring about an ecumenical change in what religion and culture are, we are back to the philosophical view that divinity is of and about humanity itself. Perhaps even to the point where Satan or Marduk is once again accepted as the physical god on earth.

I still think the view of Satan’s demise over a long period of time is still close to a creation that happened “out of time” with the evidence we have. It could be that conflating stars with planets even back in ANE time periods that humans even then had an evolutionary view of change over long periods of time. Not knowing the spatial relevance of one solar system with other star systems did not help. The Chinese zodiac system may have been the first step in viewing star systems as separate from the planets that looked like stars. It certainly would make more sense that what they called stars were actually planets. In reality they were, they just called them stars as being bright points in the night sky. It would take telescopes to point out the differences.

Why view Satan’s fall as evolutionary instead of a literal point in time and not accept long periods of evolution? I am not trying to say that Satan is behind the fact there is a discrepancy in God’s Word and the physical record. I do think that Satan would prefer not to point out his long historical relationship with God as related to God’s longsuffering. Why take an approach to interpret the Bible through the lense of an outside source? Humans attempting to figure out the world around them does not go against a belief in or knowledge of God. I think the issue has always been, how can we as humans figure a way to get away from God. Only looking at a materialistic view of the physical is a start. However there is really nothing in the physical that says God does not exist or for that matter on how well God preserves in written form, and to what extent, what actually happened in the past.

There is no clear timetable associated within the Bible and this why YEC exists. The timeline that existed in Early Christianity was as follows: 1) Creation of Heaven and its countless angels, 2) the Fall, 3) creation of the material world and man. Creation of the material world was in response to the Fall and created for the restoration of the fallen 1/3 of Heaven (billions of trillions of angels).

Genesis was the first revelation given to the fallen, and as with your children, they were not told why the creation was needed. Only after many prophets was Jesus able to come and teach the real reason for creation. He revealed to John the Heaven that existed before the fall (Rev 4), and the fall.

I know that few read the Bible along this timeline, so I give it as food for thought.

Who held that timeline 2000 years ago? The universe as infinite is still a secular view of the universe. If the universe had a beginning then the chances of it being infinite dropped to 50%. That the book of Revelation mentions that it has an end, the chances of it being finite went back to 100%. If we live in a finite universe then the stars of the universe can be counted. So far there is 0 evidence of life physical or spiritual existing elsewhere in the universe.

I have no way to prove if you are wrong or right. That humans cannot acount for much that goes on in the universe, is not really a spiritual or religious matter. It is built into the universe itself. There are lots of imaginations on the topic of supernatural beings that exist in the universe besides us humans. So far there is no physical proof.

What is this Fall? The mention of a fall from “heaven” of Satan is an event without a given time frame. It could be Jesus predicting a future event or remembering a past event. It could even be an ongoing event. Satan returning from heaven in defeat each time a member of the bride of Christ wins a personal battle in prayer over a particular situation.

The apostle Paul said that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against spiritual wickedness. If there is going to be a restoration, why does it seem that a battle has been raging against God since Adam sinned? I agree that this battle is spiritual and seemingly separate from the physical universe. I do not see that having much to do with the current state of affairs. It would seem to me that more humans would make a public showing of whose side they are on. It seems to me that humans are trying to come together and get past all differences of opinions that have separated them for thousands of years. That is probably a nice size burden for humans in the physical universe to face, without making up imaginative enemies.

Dear Tim,
From Homer to Socrates, the poets and the philosophers taught of the great spiritual battles and the main characters in the Fall. Early Christianity taught the theory of the apocatastasis which carried forward the concept that the material universe was created to restore the spiritually Fallen to Heaven (Olympus). The childish concept that Adam caused 100’s of billions to sin came after Christianity rejected the Wisdom of the Philosophers and the declaration that these teachings were anathema.

Jesus said that His Kingdom is not of this world, and implies that the king of this world is Satan, the god of the dead. (Mark 12:27) The restoration is all about those where once followers of Satan to re-learn their devotion to the King of Heaven, Jesus. That is how the spiritual battle is associated with the chaos and suffering in this world.

I have a huge problem with Enoch and the whole idea of a war in heaven before Eden and a fall of Lucifer before the fall of man. It makes for great science fiction but terrible theology.

Genesis 3:14-15 This is the origin of the adversary “Satan.” It is a consequence of the fall not a cause of the fall. The responsibility for the fall must be squarely on the shoulders of God’s children NOT on God’s servants. There is something seriously wrong with the latter idea. The inability to create and manage servants properly makes God inept, and bringing children into a universe which is already contaminated with evil is just wrong!

Isaiha 14 is about a king of Babylon, NOT about Satan. It is fine if we take the name “Lucifer” from that passage for the angel who became Satan. It is just a name after all. But I cannot see any legitimate reason for taking any theology about Satan from that passage.