What could persuade a presumably otherwise-rational Satan to turn on God?

Question

It's said that Satan is a very smart creature.

At the same, Satan, and 1/3 of the other angels, chose what seems to be a very foolish fate. Knowing that God is all-powerful, what would compel Satan - presumably a rational, intelligent being - to choose what would clearly be a bad end for himself? Did he not know that God would win and that he would be punished forever? And what would be so compelling to the heavenly host that a third of them would choose "to reign in hell, rather than serve in heaven?"

Answer 1

The answer here is that Satan (as well as other angels) either did not know that God was indeed all-powerful, or what the meaning of all-powerful implies. As a Christian, I have come into many debates about the idea of Omnipotence, and everyone is familiar with the conundrum, 'If God is all powerful and all knowing, how can he be all good?' Satan is obviously familiar with this (in fact, I would not be surprised if he is its inventor.) The implication of this conundrum is that to make sense of God, you need to drop one of those three attributes.

Some Fathers are of the opinion that neither Satan nor the other angels were, prior to this, fixed in virtue and goodness, and thus were in a state where they could either decide to obey God or not. We must not overestimate the knowledge of angels, nor assume that because we now know something (such as the nature of the Trinity) it was always common knowledge of angels. It is clear in the temptation that Satan doesn't realize that the man Christ is God; so Satan repeatedly misunderstands - possibly willfully - who or what God is. To be fair on this one, pretty much no one knew exactly what was going on, even the demons who knew a bit more than the average person, but as Satan evidences, not a whole lot.

Finally, it seems to be agreed upon in all oral tradition that Satan's pride is the cause of all of this; his misunderstanding of God, (or shall we say, his assuming certain things about God) and his decision to rebel. It seems obvious that if you knew what God is you would never rebel (what would the point be?) but all of us know of people who apostatize - essentially deny what they knew before. Therefore to some extent it is immaterial what knowledge Satan had prior to his rebellion; he rejected it. We see an image of this in the man Judas Iscariot, who despite working miracles and being with the Godman, turns on him anyway. The cause in Judas' case seems to be considered Envy, so we also can't discount envy in Satan's rebellion as well, given its similarity.

There is a story told in our tradition that goes as follows.

A certain saint had love for all creatures, even to the point that he prayed for Satan and the demons that they might repent. At the instant that he prayed this, Satan appeared to him and snarled, 'No, it is God who needs to repent!'

In the end, there is always the 'mystery of iniquity' as Paul says - the choice of the naked and inexorable will, even over and against all sense, all truth, all beauty and all goodness.

Answer 2

Great question! I don't have a definite answer, but the clues from the Bible are that he wanted to be like God. Presumably, this desire drove him to irrational self belief that he could somehow supplant God.

It is possible that the following verses (Isaiah 14:12-15) provide part of the answer:

How you have fallen from heaven,

O morning star, son of the dawn!

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.”

But you are brought down to the grave,

to the depths of the pit.

So, as others have said, it is pride, wanting to be like God ("like the Most High").

It's not just Satan that is irrational, of course. Humans were warned by God that they would die if they ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:17) but they still did it. And they too were tempted to be like God.

My guess is that this is related to human's desire to make a name for themselves, a recurrent them in the Bible.

Answer 3

I have reseach from other books like the lost paradise.

When God created the angels he already had in mind to create man but angels were created first. God told the angels to bow and serve him no one else that was great until God decided to create man. He called all the the angels together and told the angels to bow and serve man. All 2/3 was willing but Lucifer said no, and he took 1/3 of the angels with him. He figured he could be a better ruler than God.

It took place where God and Lucifer were debating and Lucifer reminded God he told the angels not to bow before anything other than God, now you're telling us to bow before man and serve man.

Lucifer accused God of deceiving him and God banished him from heaven and changed his name to Satan.

This is why Satan goes after us like he does he blames us of kicking him out of heaven so he kick us out of the garden of eden to sin. Satan lost his position in heaven so he made sure man lost his spiritual closest to God and sworn by an oath to destroy mans soul and spirit and take us all to hell to rule us there as god.