Date Written: 1/18/2021
Question: After Satan’s rebellion, Satan was motivated more by his envy of God than his jealousy of God: true or false?
Paradise Lost is an epic poem that follows the story of Satan following his rebellion against God. It describes Satan’s many futile attempts to destroy God. Satan was definitively a slow learner he and his followers would attack God again and again to no avail. He was certainly motivated by envy. He deliberately chose plans that simply caused God harm rather than a plan that would put him in God’s place.
Satan’s greatest most foul deed was a direct portrayal of his envy for God. In the poem this plan is proposed in one of Satan’s meetings with his top lieutenants. At the meeting four plans are proposed. A suicidal frontal assault proposed by Moloch. A plan to sit tight and do nothing proposed by Belial. A plan to try to build an independent demonic kingdom proposed by Mammon. Finally, a strategy of envy proposed by Beelzebub.
Satan chose Beelzebub’s plan which took him into the Garden of Eden. Where he lured man into sin. There was no direct benefit for Satan in doing this. Only that by tainting God’s favorite creation (man) Satan was showing his envy for God. Satan’s worst act was luring man into sin. This act and many others show that the Satan in Paradise Lost was motivated by envy.
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