God did not create the devil as he is. If you read the first chapter of Genesis, you see that there are things that are seemingly uncreated, and things that just seem to appear. The darkness does not appear to be created, for example - it just is. So it's not necessarily a valid assumption to assume God created everything. He started and fashioned everything, and allows things to progress to a new/different creation, but He did not "create" everything. He did not create sin. He allows for free will, and sin can follow as a consequence of that. The devil is another example of this principle. He started out as an angel in heaven pleasing to God and sinless, but when he rejected God and heaven, he turned into a new creation - his own due to his rejection of God. God's hatred of sin has nothing to do with it, but the attachment of sin and the devil is a natural result of rejecting God. Sin is not tolerated by God, so everything sinful is out of his light and heaven. The devil chose this lightless and sinful existence by rejecting God - so sin really is all he has.

To answer this question, we really need to understand who the devil is, and what sin is. The word 'sin' comes from the ancient Hebrew word "Chatta'ah", and the Greek "Hamartia". Both of them mean 'to miss the mark'. Sin is anything that misses God's mark. The moment he gave us free choice, the concept of sin was born. If we did not have free choice, then we would be forced to go his way every time, and we could never 'miss the mark'. There are many theories as to why God created Satan. If God knew that he would sin and become the devil, why create him? Well, that was the burden upon God of giving free choice, as was creating us. If he knew we would sin and fall away, why give us free choice? -------- [Edit] It is true - God did not create 'satan' as an adversary. The being called satan was created as an angel - some believe he was the head of the 'worship team' of angels. By his own choice did he rebel, and was thrown out of heaven. However, even if God didn't create him to be bad, he must have foreknown it, and been prepared for it. That's my belief, anyway. -------- There are some passages in the bible that give clue to Satan's nature and his role in the big picture. To read the bible, I get the picture that God knew what was going to happen, and has planned out eternity to cater for that. The tree of knowledge of good and evil was nothing more than a test. Adam and Eve already knew good from evil. Whatever was of God was good, and whatever wasn't, was bad. So why the tree of knowledge. Nothing more than a test. But with the tree there on its own, there was not much of a test. It wasn't until Satan put the pressure on that Adam and Eve faltered. Look at Job. Satan was allowed to tear him to shreds. Why? A test. In the months that he sat in the trash-heap and scraped his sores with potsherds, he never once cursed God. He cursed himself, and cursed the day of his birth, but never cursed God. Satan did all the attacking, and God allowed it. We may think that's unfair, but what happened at the end of the test? God (not satan) gave Job back twice what had been taken from him. Had he cursed God, the outcome could have been very different. The bible says that Satan is the accuser of the brethren. By brethren we believe he means Christians. He does not need to accuse non-christians because they have not chosen to live God's way. If God cannot look upon sin, how could he see ours to forgive it? By satan's accusation. Satan brings his attention to that which he overlooks. If we haven't repented, then God will stir up his Holy Spirit within the christian to convict them of that sin, and if we repent, then he forgives the sin and wipes it away. Without realising it, Satan is actually helping God get rid of sin in the lives of Christians. He accuses with the hope of condemnation. God turns that into conviction and forgiveness. Satan is called the deceiver of the nations. By nations we believe he means non-christians. To christians, God and his way are truth. For us to have free choice, there has to be an alternative to truth. In this case, it is satan's deception. Without his deception, there would be no free choice, for we would only have one way to follow. Satan and his cohorts bring suffering - affliction. But there is purpose even in that. When Adam and Eve sinned, their natures were changed. As humans we became inherently selfish. The natural inclination for us is to feel that the world revolves around us. Babies and children are the best example, because they don't even know they are doing it. They just do it because it is in their nature. We do the same. Suffering, however, when viewed in light of God's ways, tends to slowly weed that selfishness out of us. If we choose to turn our eyes outward and look at others, then we can see their suffering as well. As christians, we draw our comfort from Christ. He suffered the ultimate agony - and died in our place. So we are able to take comfort in him. But because we go through suffering, and he brings us out the other side, we have experience of that, and are able then to offer comfort to others. The Apostle Paul writes about this in 2 Corinthians. That is one of the most powerful outreaches of christianity - getting beside people in their suffering and trying to help them through, and give them hope. Sadly I think too many christians have lost sight of that. So why create Satan? Well, in this world of free choice, God needed an alternative for us to choose. Satan also plays an unwilling role in God's outreach to humanity. If there was no suffering, what reason would we have to seek him? Everything we needed would be right in front of us, and we would come to worship our comfort. Suffering gives us a reason to hope, and a reason to look forward to what is promised to come after we pass on from this world. Suffering also gives us the motivation to come together and help each other. Other than that, we really can't offer a better explanation. It is a difficult concept to understand

God created all of us. Some of us are good, some are bad. We will all be judged in the end according to our works. The devil was an angel in heaven. He was kicked out of heaven because of his evil works.

BECAUSE EVIL IS THE ABSENCE OF GOOD. GOD WHO LOVES US HAS GIVEN US FREE WILL BUT THE BIBLE WARNS US NOT TO DO WRONG THE SAME AS A MOTHER WHO LOVES HER CHILD HAS GIVEN HER CHILD FREE WILL BUT TELLS HER CHILD NOT TO PLAY IN THE STREETS. THE POINT IS WE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR OWN FATES. WE CAN CHOOSE. SIN MAY BE TEMPTING SUCH AS PLAYING IN THE STREETS, OTHER WISE WHY DO KIDS PLAY IN THE STREETS. AVOID TEMPTATIONS. GOD SAYS IT'S NOT ABOUT WHAT WE WANT IT'S ABOUT WHAT WE NEED.

Mybe because god wanted to know exactly who to keep in heaven and who to throw out so he gave us, me , you a choice to either follow his way or be thrown into the lake of fire.

because the sweet is never as sweet without the sour

Man created sin and the devil as an excuse for bad behavior.

Yes. Satan, or St. Lucifer was once an angel, who was cast down from Heaven.

Yes He did. Satan was described as an angel in the Old Testament of the Bible. He thought himself higher than God. Not a smart move on his part! He was cast from Heaven.

Well, he created free will. Which is why lucifer became the devil... Cuz he wanted to.

Even God is in need of his real opponent as positive electrical charge be in need of negativity to be able to discharge! God's disharge is us- our full cosmic story!

God created a vast host of spirit creatures known as angels. What they turned into because of their own improper desires is due to their own doing. If we were only allowed to behave one way, we would be robots and not blessed with the right to choose (free will).

God created Lucifer [the lightbearer]. Lucifer used his free will to create Satan [the adversary]. So technically, no.

He was created by God, not as the evil loser that he is now, but he was, perfectly righteous and obedient before God. But Satan chose to be bad, very bad - "How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn! [or Lucifer, which means light-bringer] You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations! You said in your heart, "I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like The Most High." (Isaiah 14:12-14) Satan didn't just refuse to obey God any longer, which was bad enough; he actually tried to overthrow God! The attempted coup failed of course, as described by Jesus Christ: "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven." (Luke 10:18). Satan was still on earth during the time of Jesus' ministry and was directly involved in His betrayal by Judas Iscariot. God created the perfectly-righteous Lucifer, by God's choice. Lucifer created the absolutely-wicked Satan, by Lucifer's choice. Lucifer, and all of the millions of angels had the power of choice - to obey, or to rebel. Most chose to obey God, while some followed Satan's rebellion and have become hopelessly corrupt . Here is a great question - Couldn't God have known ahead of time that Satan would rebel?

This is a very deep question and the answers can get to be very controversial. A follow up question could be if God created the devil than isn't he just as bad as the devil? or even that he created evil and is therefore responsible for all evil? I can't say that I entirely understand but here's my answer to the question at hand. God created Lucifer and he was the angel of light and he was above all the rest of the angels. He had alot of potential and God trusted him but also gave him a will of his own. Lucifer decided to disobey God because he wanted authority over everything including God so God had to send him out of heaven. I wouldn't say that God created Satan since it is a result of Lucifer's actions but he did create Lucifer.

god loves sin! he loves it when we make mistakes. thats how we learn and grow.

My friend, I think that you too are blinded by christianity's only mistake! It is true that God created everything, but not Satan.Some people may use the Bible for proof that God did create Satan, but the verses that they use DO NOT REALLY TELL ANYTHING ABOUT SATAN'S ORIGIN. And it is quite funny that they search Satan's origin through other books of the bible while ALL THE ORIGINS OF EVERYTHING THAT GOD HAS MADE CAN ONLY BE FOUND IN THE BOOK OF GENESIS! Surprisingly, there is no mention there that God did create Satan nor did he create something nasty like the devil. In fact, everything that God has made was VERY GOOD... "And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day." - GENESIS 1:31 So where did Satan came from? What about REVELATION 20:2? You may want to ask me these right? So here is the CONCRETE answers... Satan is self existent. He is already there with God while God is creating the world and the universe. God is an energy. And we know that energy is ETERNAL (1ST law of Thermodynamics), no begginning and no end. Both Satan and God are spirits and both of them are energies which is eternal. God is the positive energy, while Satan is the negative energy. Unquestionably, Satan can not create anything good like God can because Satan is VERY NEGATIVE...for instance, can you cook something good when your ingredients are spoiled? Ofcourse not! It is because your ingredients are NEGATIVE. The passage in REVELATION 20:2 uses the ancient serpent in GENESIS just because that negative energy (which is Satan) first used that animal to destroy God's perfect creations.

Satan was not created evil, satan was created good, but fell into hell all on his own. He had a free will same as we do.

i beleive life is like an interveiw? i think? and yah..the devil test you just like god does..and weather you choose to be good or bad is a gift from god...ive heard questions like if gods so powerfull why wouldnt life be perfect..if it were.. we wouldnt apreiciate anything. im not saying i agree with murder of inocent people ahhhhhh you kno what WELL NEVER KNO...just be good..thats what your mother would want!

maybe the devil created himself on the 7th day while God was resting?

God created the devil (lucifer) as a perfect angel. Sin came to be when Lucifer became proud of his own magnificence. God gave everyone free will. It was bound to happen sooner or later, one selfish thought is all it took.

I tend to differ on this in opinion than most. I tend to believe that the entity of Satan is different than that of Lucifer. One is the sole opposition of the entity of God while the other didn't agree with his superior and plotted against God. Satan in my mind could have even been the first entity to exist in our universe. God created light and seperated it from darkness. How do we know that the darkness wasn't inhabited by Satan before God arrived. So in turn, God probably didn't create Satan. As for the angel known as Lucifer. God did create him along with all the life in Heaven and Earth. Who really knows what happened to Lucifer, but at some point in his life, he stopped agreeing with God and opposed him. He plotted to oust God from his throne and was thrown down from Heaven because of it. Maybe Satan was getting into Lucifer's mind. If so, then one could say God didn't create sin, he just created falable creations. For a reason as always. "Follow me and come into light, disobey me and fall into eternal darkness." - that sort of thing.

To delegate that responsibility? ;-)

none of your business :P

He didn't create the devil as the devil now did he? the devil was formerly an angel of the lord. a powerful angel high in the order of Jesus. But the angel took his free will and flew the coop, he left Lord Jesus and went South. meaning he took his powers and went evil...

You can ask them same question about yourself - If God created everthing and God hated sin, why would he create you? We are all (the "devil" included) free will moral agents with a great capacity to love and an equal capacity to sin. With one comes the other - we are wonderfully and fearfully made. I think a better question is why create? And I think the best answer I've heard is the same answer parents give of why they wanted children. Manifest Love.

According to the bible god created satan as the most powerful and beautiful angel, second in command to only god. But lucifer rebelled and was cast out and then was called satan. I have always thought with the things that god allows to go on, maybe satan was correct in rebelling. He may have been defending humans. Some say lucifer is an analogue of prometheus in graeco-roman beliefs.

Duplicate post.

Try this on for size. A God that is perfect, all powerful and all knowing, sans the part about being in all places at all times, has a perfect understanding of causality. In other words while we understand that if you take hammer and thrust it down on top of a glass tube, the tube will break. Now, on a much more cosmic (divine, if you will) level God had to have known the inner weakness of Satan, including the events that would influence Satan to rebel. To deny this fact would be to denounce the previous statement that God all knowing. Also think about the implications that God didn't know that would happen. That would imply a certain amount naivety -- that he creates things without understanding what their capable of, seemingly at a whim. But lets say for the sake of argument that for a moment Satan did manage to somehow 'defy' God's understanding of Satan's being or personality and went forth setting into motion Mankinds corruption. Remember the part about God 'being in all places at all times'? Wouldn't that imply that God's consciousness witnessing the events in the future wrought by Satan and what he started 'then' kind of point out to God that clearly Satan should not be created? In order for God to have not known Satan was in fact corrupt would mean that God would have to be fallible. In that, even if He is loving and purely Good, He is capable of mistakes -- or that he only exists in all places in the *present time* and lacks an accurate understanding of how events will unfold. I have another answer however, that of course, goes 'against the grain' so to speak. God loved humanity and wished to give it free will. Freewill meant having the ability to decide between paths at times. But God realized that you can't have that freewill unless he created those paths to which a person would have to choose to travel. As such to truly be promoting freewill God *had to create sin*, otherwise we truly weren't experiencing freewill, because we'd only have one path to go down, instead of 2 to choose from. If God were to do away with Satan and Sin, man would no longer have freewill, he would no longer have separate paths to which to choose from. To that affect He realized that He had to create something unsightly for the greater good. -- In this answer we recognize that God is still all knowing, all powerful, is in all places at all times. While this would go against that doctrine that God is intolerant of Sin, it doesn't disprove that God hates sin -- it just means that He recognizes that it has to exist to some extent but that He'd still wish us to strive to do good.