As Steelers Wheel said in 1972:
“Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle……..”
Today, it’s: “Calvinists to the left of me, Open Theists to the right, here I am stuck in the middle….”
The greatest attacks Satan has made against God were made before man came into the picture. Satan is a super genius; he is smarter than any created being who ever lived. Before anyone existed on this earth, he had his back to the wall with a divine judgment upon himself and millions of angelic creatures who followed him. Obviously, Satan did not like the judgment, and in seeking to do something about it, made a very strong objection. An objection that was, in effect, some sort of appeal which demanded a new trial, or a new case, or something to that nature.
Based upon a knowledge and understanding of Matthew 25:41 and Revelation 20, his objection can be deduced very simply: “How can a loving God cast His creatures (fallen angels in this case) into the lake of fire?” The answer is interesting to us, because as human beings, we have become involved in the same objection from many different individuals. This, of course, originates from Satan himself, and the answer has to do with man’s free will and God’s grace.
Angelic free will had an opportunity under grace and rejected it. Therefore, while the fallen angels were saying, “Not fair!” God created man in order to demonstrate to them that His position in grace was valid, that love can only express itself through grace, and that God cannot change His character to accommodate any creature, whether angel or human being.
God’s perfect character included love for the angels; but God cannot love in a way that is inconsistent with His other characteristics. When Satan went negative and said, “I will be like the most High” (Isa. 14:13-14), God had to make a decision, one that was compatible with His righteousness and justice, as well as with His love. So God created man with a free will to show Satan how a loving God can SAVE a creature with a free will and maintain His righteousness. Since Satan had implied that God would lose His righteousness if even one of the fallen angels goes to the lake of fire, Satan concluded that God was no longer God, but that he (Satan) was.
The great underlying issue in history is always the character of God, of which love and righteousness and justice are a part. When one understands reconciliation and propitiation, one can see that God has done some of the most astounding things and yet never lost or compromised one bit of His character.
There is no way the Devil can win. He couldn’t change God, and we can’t change God, nor can any other human being. In fact, our security is in the fact that He cannot change. That’s why we have the assurance, “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today and forever” (Heb. 13:8). "Yesterday”= the angelic conflict;
“today” = human history and the extension of the angelic conflict; “forever” = eternity.
Man’s free will and God’s grace proves Calvinism and Open Theism to be both wrong.
). I would say your view is not common because the evidence does not necessitate it.
