Satan Was Temped In Heaven?

[ithinkjesusiscool]

Laudetur Jesus Christus!
When the Church speaks about Adam and Eve it seems that they were two human beings, i.e. the story being more than just a myth. One other really scary thing about this story is Satan who rejected God in Heaven. Adam and Eve were tempted by Satan but who was he tempted by in Heaven. Something evil in Heaven? What is the Church's teaching on this?

[cappie]

All that God creates is good, but all rational, intelligent beings have been created with the possibility of falling away from the will of God through pride and desire. God provides all that we need to live a life of grace and holiness, but we ourselves, and the spiritual beings who have fallen away from God, have chosen not to rely on the grace God gives and so are left graceless and in a state of death.

 

This is what happened with Satan. He deceived himself.

 

The Desert Fathers teach us that it is in the nature of all created beings (including angels) to be corruptible, and tending towards a state of dissolution. It is only the gift of union with the Holy Trinity which allows created beings to enter into a state of incorruptibility.

 

Just as there was the possibility of Adam and Eve falling into sin, even though there was no necessity that this occur, so there was always the possibility of the angelic beings falling away from life and light, and in the case of some of the angelic host this certainly took place.

 

The fall of Satan was not a necessity, but it is in the nature of created beings to lack stability apart from union with God, and God allows us space, both mankind and the angelic host, to make choices, to grow into union. Many of the angels never fell away and have been rewarded with incorruptibility and stability in God, but the possibility was there for all of the angelic host to fall, and it is to their credit that they chose God. We should remember that our guardian angel could have fallen into sin and yet chose not to, and we should seek their aid to sustain us in our efforts to resist the temptation to fall into greater sin.

Edited December 26, 2012 by cappie