So I was thinking about this topic today, and I noticed that anytime someone said anything like: “Satan did such and so;” I always seemed to brush it off by thinking: “Well Satan didn’t really do anything because God is the one who controls Satan, so really God is the one who did it.” I have come to the realization that my reasoning was false.
For consider, if Satan is a free agent, that is, minimally, his actions are not caused or determined by God, then Satan is free to choose to do something or not. If he is, then God isn’t controlling him. But since God is the master of the universe, he is sovereign, which means nothing comes to pass except either through God determining it to happen or God allowing it to happen. I have already supposed that God doesn’t determine Satan’s actions, so God must allow Satan to do what he wishes. If this is true, I can now find reason to say that Satan really does have power in the world. For consider some action that Satan does, say possessing some pigs and making them drown in the river. God allowed that action to happen. But what if Satan would not have existed? That directly implies that the pigs then wouldn’t be drowned in the river. So there is at least one action that would not have occurred if Satan didn’t exist. God allowed Satan’s action, but didn’t determine that he do it.
Now I can see why Satan has causal power in the world, when before I most likely would have dismissed such talk as nonsense.
