Okay, roll with me here, I'm going with something a little different today.I read science fiction. In the last few years, I've come to favor expansive space opera novels, everything from the classic Dune and its progeny to the Reality Dysfunction and the Gap series. I like novels of the Culture like Prador Moon and most of Neal Asher's other stuff. Had a great time with a book called The Risen Empire and its sequel, the Killing of Worlds.
Reading and enjoying these stories really requires you to have an imagination that can get its head around really large concepts, such as a whole universe running on social norms and with technologies quite different from our own. Also note, like many other people, when I read a book, its not just words on a page, but more like a running movie in my head. I'm there.
An imagination like that is very handy when one is contemplating things related to the Almighty as told in the Bible. Remember the Keanu Reeves flick Constantine? Reeves played a guy who went to Hell, but cut a deal to get out if he went to work sending AWOL demons back home. In theory, if he did a good job, God might cut him some slack and let his sorry behind into Heaven. Like most films that want to play around with biblical or religion inspired story lines, the theology was all over the place, inconsistent, inaccurate or just plain wrong. You never knew what rule book they were playing out of for these characters. I'm convinced that if you actually took the time to sit down and really tease out the real characteristics of angels and demons from the Bible and the conflict for the souls of humanity, you could build an awesome action packed flick around that, without all this added stuff that is inaccurate. But I digress.
In the movie, Reeves is buddies with the arch angel Gabriel as he races to prevent the unleashing of Hell on earth, only to find out in the end that Gabriel is behind the entire plot. At the moment of revelation, he has a flash of insight and realizes that Gabriel is insane. (follow the link to the see the scene, its an awesome imagining of an insane angel's perspective)
It got me to thinking that perhaps this is the explanation for Lucifer, now Satan, the adversary of mankind. I mean, you ask yourself, why did he do it? Given what he knew? The Bible says it was his pride that caused him to rebel. I think his pride must have drove him insane. He was perfect, so his logical facilities were in great shape, but clearly went off line.
I mean, think about it, how else can we understand Lucifer's actions here? According to the Bible (Ezekiel 28: 15), Lucifer was created in a perfect state. He was domiciled with God in Heaven, meaning he had direct access to the Almighty. Unlike us humans, Lucifer could perceive God directly, had up front and personal contact with Jehovah. He existed in Heaven, surrounded by all of God's works, created from His hand. Lucifer not only perceived God in His glory directly, but he had a favored relationship with God (Ezekiel 28:14). The Bible says he was an anointed cherub. That is significant. I mean, look at us. Humans have no direct experience of Heaven, and perhaps only a small handful of humans throughout history have ever perceived the Lord directly in anything approaching even a measure of His full glory. Lucifer had no such handicaps, which makes it even more bizarre to me, because Lucifer would have been CRYSTAL CLEAR about a couple of key points about God, namely, that He was omnipotent and omniscient and that there wasn't jack going down anywhere in Creation that He didn't know about or couldn't handle.
So the guy was living in Heaven, had direct access to the Father and most favored angel status to boot, and knew God was all powerful, unbeatable and unstoppable point blank. But notwithstanding ALL THAT, Lucifer CHOSE to basically spit in God's face. The only explanation for it I can fathom was that he was literally insane. Moreover, he made a decision to be insane (Isaiah 14:12) by declaring that he would be like God, when he knew this was flat impossible. Even more incredible is the fact that this insanity was catching, since when he got thrown out of Heaven, a significant number of angels who followed him in his lunatic assault on Heaven (Revelation 12:7-9) got tossed out on their butts with him.
Given what Lucifer knew going in, pride induced insanity offers the only explanation for his behavior recorded in the Bible. He was nuts.
