Does God need Satan?

Once upon a time... No, that's our story. As we learned earlier, time was created for our physical universe, but God does not exist in time, but beyond time. That is to say that time for God would likely be multi-dimensional as we can understand it. Similar to our physics having 3 dimensions of movement plus time, God exists where time is not only linear, but overlapped, stacked, and both forward and backward.

This digression of time helps set the stage for an interesting creation- Angels. The Bible does not place a time when God created Angels, we only know that God possibly created them before building our universe. (Job 38: 4-7) We also know God had Satan, AKA Lucifer (a fallen angel) roaming around in the Garden of Eden. (Gen 3:1)

Now, with all the entire physical universe to dwell, Satan resides about Earth, or as an influence on mankind, where ever mankind exists. An interesting coincidence that Satan would be influencing mankind? It doesn't appear coincidental, but planned to give mankind some options. God's plan is no doubt perfect, and God picked the perfect candidate (Satan) to drive mankind through this physical journey.

God created mankind with an interesting brain that operates with millions of neural synapses, creating memories, adapting to environments, and processing decisions based on previous synaptic stored experience. Our brains are also difference engines that requires a balance of both positive and negative reactions to keep its neurons from saturating. Saturation comes when the neurons are overloaded with one charge and cannot process regular brain functions until the overload is cleared. This is precisely why we sleep, to discharge all the activity processed while awake. Wine tasters or food critics will routinely cleanse their pallets in order to remove the influence built up from their previous tasting. If we stare at anything too long without moving our eyes or blinking, blackness will start to creep in as our retina and its neurons become saturated within minutes.

Our healthy existence requires change and our mentality requires choices. Before Satan's influence, Adam and Eve were the equivalent of infants in a nursery. They didn't have knowledge of right or wrong, love or apathy, they simply existed to work the garden. (Gen 2:15) It was necessary for Satan to coerce Adam & Eve to choose to partake in the tree of knowledge, otherwise God's plan of salvation for humanity would occupy some different reality. However, God knew perfectly well Satan's mission would succeed and instead of banishing Satan to the dark side of the moon, Moses tells us that God cursed Satan and turned him into a snake. (Gen 3:14) Apparently, God and Satan made some revisions to the account of Moses, because in Job 1:6, Satan is clearly no longer a snake. And once again God uses Satan to help Job learn to love God for who God is, not what he can do for/to you.

We learned that Christ Jesus was also the subject of Satan's attempted influence. (Mat 4:3-11) Jesus was indeed fully divine, however he was fully human and while Satan knew who Jesus was, Satan was obligated to put the human Christ to the test.

The book of Revelation has a very interesting account of Satan and his ultimate defeat. Satan, referred to as a dragon (Rev 12:7), was back to his usual tricks and influencing and tempting all of mankind. (Rev 13:5)

What have we learned in all this? Does God need Satan? It is very clear that Satan has a purpose for mankind. God likes opposites: Light/Dark, Land/Sea, Earth/Sky... (Gen 1:3-10) It's not too far out to think that God planned the notion of Good and Bad and how it keeps mankind diverse in thought and actions. Consider, a dog loves his master, that's what dogs do, however, a person chooses to love freely and openly. How much more meaningful is our love for God when we freely choose to love him?

God does not need Satan for his being, however mankind needs Satan to ultimately bring us closer to God!