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[Marty Buble]

In Christianity Satan is the enemy of G-d and a fallen angel but if an angel can fall, doesn’t that imply that an angel has free will? In Job Satan’s role is adversarial but ultimately he’s an agent of G-d and doing his bidding by testing Job.

I am interested in how this incongruity, both between the status of angels as agents versus free actors and between satan as the Lord’s prosecutor and Satan as the Lord’s enemy is dealt with by Christians.

[jimwalton]

> Satan is the enemy of G-d

Correct.

> and a fallen angel

Incorrect. We don't know what sort of spirit being he is. We know of several kinds (cherubim, seraphim, archangels, angels), but there may be others. We have no idea what type Satan is, but he's probably not an angel. They seem to be the lowest on the hierarchy.

> if an angel can fall, doesn’t that imply that an angel has free will?

Angels do have free will. Jude 1.6 uses the active voice to express a choice to not keep and a choice to abandon.

> In Job Satan’s role is adversarial but ultimately he’s an agent of G-d and doing his bidding by testing Job.

I find no reason to believe that the adversary in Job is the character we know as Satan. In Job, the author always uses the definite article, "The satan," as if to express "the adversary," but not to express a personal name. In Job, the adversary does function as an agent of G-d, but this character is not the one whom we call Satan.

> I am interested in how this incongruity...

Therefore I see no incongruity.

[Grosser]

> I don't think it's false equivalence, though you are correct that Satan's evidence for God is solid, whereby the evidence for God in our world is only "quite strong." That doesn't make the equivalency false, it just makes his lack of repentance more culpable. That's why he will suffer a greater punishment. All will be held accountable for what they knew and what they did with it.

I don't think the evidence is as strong as you say it is, because if it was I don't think there would be as many atheists as there are. Remember that we don't choose what we believe, we are either convinced by the evidence we've seen or we aren't. If there are many millions and millions of people unconvinced, evidence must not be very good. If we were alive during the time of Jesus and saw him performing miracles I would agree that evidence for God is quite strong, but today I would probably say it's mediocre at best.

> I've heard this many times, but I find it disingenuous. I've had many hundreds of conversations with atheists who often finally admit that even if the evidence were convincing, they wouldn't become theists. I've said to atheists, "Suppose God appeared to you—I mean, really appeared, and you KNEW it was God. And suppose He did a miracle for you of your request, whatever it was, and proved it to you that it was a miracle and it was real. And suppose He confirmed His reality to you in undeniable terms. Would you believe it?" Almost all say, "Nah, I would think I was hallucinating or having a wacko dream." But, I counter, suppose you KNEW it was real? They say, "I still wouldn't believe it."

I can't speak for them but personally I would be convinced. At the end of the day God should know exactly what each person would take to be convinced and that different people will require more or less evidence. Creating all sorts of different people from different backgrounds and with different intellects but expecting them to believe the same level of evidence is problematic to me.

[jimwalton]

> I don't think the evidence is as strong as you say it is

Of course you don't. No surprise.

> because if it was I don't think there would be as many atheists as there are

As I said, and have had many many conversations, it's not evidence that convinces.

> Remember that we don't choose what we believe

I've heard this 100 times, too. It's garbage. There are things we don't choose to believe, such as the existence of the sun, but there are many things we choose to believe, such as what kind of president Donald Trump was, or whether the Jan. 6 riot was his fault or not. We evaluate the evidence and choose what we believe. Theism is that way: We evaluate the evidence and choose what we believe.

> If there are many millions and millions of people unconvinced, evidence must not be very good

This is not true, either. Most people make decisions from their guts, not from their heads. We follow our intuitions more than we follow the evidence. Our intuitions tell us what evidence to accept and which to reject.

> If we were alive during the time of Jesus and saw him performing miracles I would agree that evidence for God is quite strong

Thousands of people watched Jesus perform miracles, but at the end of His life He had very few followers. Miracles didn't convince most people. In a similar way, the miracles didn't convince Pharaoh to let the Israelites go. Even now, if you were to see a miracle right in front of your eyes, your worldview would motivate you to come up with an alternate explanation, and even if you couldn't do that, you'd probably say, "Well, I don't know how to explain it, but there must be an explanation other than a miracle."

> At the end of the day God should know exactly what each person would take to be convinced and that different people will require more or less evidence

He does know. That's why Jesus said, "Even if someone came back from the dead, they won't believe." No matter what the evidence, and right in front of their eyes, evidence doesn't convince. Nothing can penetrate a closed mind.

> Creating all sorts of different people from different backgrounds and with different intellects but expecting them to believe the same level of evidence is problematic to me.

Different people see different levels of evidence. The people in Jerusalem of Jesus's day got to see him risen in the flesh. I don't get that. Some people get visions; I don't get that. People are doing miracles today; I've never seen that. People do get different levels of evidence. What's problematic to me is that some people, no matter what evidence they get, still won't believe. And, I presume, that's you, since you said "I don't think the evidence is as strong as you say it is." I know the evidence FOR is far stronger than the evidence AGAINST. But that doesn't carry weight with someone who doesn't want to believe.