When I was studying literature at university, I came across writers like Lewis Carroll who, in his book Alice in Wonderland, depicts our life as a chess game between our creator and our adversary, and we humans are their pawns. Is this the case? Satan must have challenged God's verdict in regard to his sentence to eternal condemnation. To satisfy him, God has allowed him to test and delude man and to prove to him that God's created beings can choose to obey and trust Him though they are much less. It seemed like a deal Lucifer has made with God. But with that pact come also the horrific events of humanity including World Wars I and II and the Holocaust. Am I right in saying so? What's your view on all this? --Andy Lu

I think the way you put it is very close to the truth. When Satan goes into hell, he will be burned as the picture in Revelation suggests. But yes, God is demonstrating to his one-time friend the superiority of his system. And a concomitant of free will--the alternative to coercion--is evil.

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