I firmly believe that Satan's expulsion and that of 'his' angels was the direct result of an argument. By that I mean that Satan is a wayward logician, an irrational philosopher. I have often wondered what was said. Lately, I've been thinking on the question again, and I think I just might have it. Of course, this is complete assumption, but I imagine that you might agree.
I believe that Satan was in heaven the opposite of what Socrates was on earth. Socrates went about perpetually asking," What [IS] virtue?" When no one could answer, a lot of people assumed that he knew the answer to his own question, since he was so skilled at asking the question. Others hated him, because they pretended to knowledge they did not have and Socrates possessed a profound ability to reveal just how empty headed sophists are by doing nothing other than asking the right questions. Socrates did a great service to the world by his pursuit of philosophy, and made other humans better.
Satan, I think went around in similar fashion, asking," What is evil?" The answer being," Evil is nothing, but rather the lack of something." To which he would say," If evil is nothing, then nothing is evil! I can do no evil because I do not know what it is, because I cannot know nothing." Or something such to that effect. Just rough ideas. So, he may have fashioned himself into a proliferator of false enlightenment, a fake abolitionist from the chains of "what may and may not be done." He pretended to give a greater freedom than the Creator gave when He bestowed freewill. He pretended to reveal something more dazzling than the truth itself. And who knows, perhaps Satan believed his own philosophy if only for a moment. We can be certain though that he knows his error, now, having been ejected from heaven's height. He lost the argument.
When Satan lost the argument, it's because he controverted the incontrovertible God. Christian theology agrees with Jewish theology that the angels were created on the first day, when light was created. And this belief is very interesting in itself and would take a long time to talk about, but I'm going to assume that everyone understands intuitively why this belief is held... intellect and light are predicated of each other, "angel of light"... so on. Man was finally made and when he was created God said," Let us make man in Our own image and likeness." When God did that, Satan is not far off.
Suddenly, Satan had the opportunity to take vengeance on the image of God. Satan, out of his bitterness for losing that argument, attacks mankind, on God's account. Look also at what the Serpent said to Eve," Eat, and your eyes shall be opened and you will be as God." She ate from the Tree of the "Knowledge of Good and Evil." There is something to this concept of 'knowledge of evil.' It's almost as if Satan venomously states to God in all of this," Oh I know what evil is, huh? Well, fine, so... do... they!" Satan consigns man to his same fate, through deception, calculating against man's freewill.
Anyway, obviously, we could go on forever on this subject, but I'm interested to hear what you think about these ideas. These ideas, give way to many other ideas, and well... that's exiting.
"Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim." ~Aristotle~
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