If God can destroy Satan in an instant, why does He still allow him to act?

Eliam had asked the question angrily.

Not with the curiosity of a student.

Not with the calm of a man who came to discuss theology.

He had almost shouted it.

— If God is truly all-powerful, why doesn’t He destroy Satan now?

The old man sitting in front of him did not respond immediately.

His name was Nathan.

He had spent almost his entire life studying the Scriptures. His hair was white, his hands trembled slightly when he unrolled a scroll, but his gaze remained remarkably sharp.

Eliam, for his part, was twenty-nine years old.

Three weeks earlier, his brother had died in an attack that ravaged a neighboring village.

Since then, he had been sleeping poorly.

Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the bodies again.

The burned houses.

The families who were running.

And above all, this question.

If God could stop evil, why did He let it continue?

Nathan slowly put down the roll he was holding.

— You’re not really asking why Satan still exists.

Eliam frowned.

— That’s exactly what I’m asking.

— No. You are asking why God allows history to continue when He could end it.

Eliam remained silent.

Nathan continued:

— And this question is much deeper.

He stood up with difficulty.

— Come.

– Or ?

— If you want a short answer, I can give you one in a single sentence.

— And what if I want the real answer?

Nathan looked at him.

— So we must return before Eden.

Night had already fallen when Nathan led Eliam into a small room filled with scrolls.

An oil lamp illuminated the walls.

Nathan first opened the book of Ezekiel.

“We must begin with a precaution,” he said. “Certain passages that Christians have used for centuries to talk about the fall of Satan referred, in their immediate context, to human kings.”

Eliam seemed surprised.

— Kings?

— Yes. Here, Ezekiel speaks of the king of Tyre. And in Isaiah, the famous passage about the bright star directly concerns the king of Babylon.

— So why do we use them to talk about Satan?

Nathan smiled slightly.

— Because language sometimes goes so far that a large part of the Christian tradition has seen behind these earthly rulers the shadow of an older spiritual rebellion.

He slowly read the words describing a splendid figure, associated with Eden, beauty, wisdom, and pride.

Then he closed the roll.

The Bible doesn’t give us a complete biography of Satan before his fall. It gives us fragments. So we must be honest about what is written and what is a matter of interpretation.

Eliam nodded.

Nathan continued:

— But the image that emerges from these fragments is coherent. A being created with splendor. A creature close to divine glory. Then a change.

— Sin?

— Before visible sin, there was a thought.

Nathan took the scroll of Isaiah.

– Listen.

He read the declarations of pride:

“I will go up.”

“I will raise my throne.”

“I will sit down.”

“I will ascend above the clouds.”

“I will be like the Most High.”

Nathan looked up.

— That’s the root.

— Wanting to become God?

— To want to occupy a place that belongs only to God.

Eliam lowered his head.

Nathan continued:

— The rebellion probably didn’t begin with a spectacular battle. It began when a creature stopped receiving its beauty as a gift and started to regard it as a right.

He placed a finger on the parchment.

— Ezekiel says that his heart was lifted up because of her beauty.

Eliam murmured:

— So the gift became the trap.

– Exactly.

Nathan then recounted the great celestial fracture as understood by Christian tradition through several passages.

The Book of Revelation spoke of a dragon and stars caught up in its fall.

Nathan insisted again:

— This passage belongs primarily to a complex prophetic vision. It should not be too easily transformed into a chronological account of the origin of evil.

— Yet many say that a third of the angels followed Satan.

— Yes. That’s a traditional interpretation of the image. But the essential point is more certain: the spiritual rebellion did not remain isolated.

Nathan looked at Eliam.

— Evil always seeks to ensnare.

Then he quoted the words of Jesus:

“I saw Satan fall from the sky like lightning.”

“A fall,” said Nathan. “Not a victory.”

Eliam leaned forward.

— So here’s my question. If he had already been defeated, why didn’t God destroy him?

Nathan did not reply.

He unrolled another text.

– Not yet.

– For what ?

— Because if you ask the question too soon, you’ll think that God simply let the problem get worse for no reason.

He pointed to a line from the book of Genesis.

— We must go to Eden.

Nathan described the garden.

Not as a naive place filled with decorative trees, but as a space where man and woman lived in a direct relationship with their Creator.

— Genesis says that they were made in the image of God.

Eliam knew the passage.

But Nathan insisted:

— Consider what this means in the biblical narrative. Human beings are not presented as simply more intelligent beasts. They are given a special dignity, a mission of representation.

— And Satan was jealous of them?

Nathan shrugged slightly.

— The Bible does not explicitly tell us about Satan’s inner emotions at that moment. But tradition has often seen in his strategy a continuation of his own pride.

He continued:

— Pay particular attention to how he attacks.

Not with an army.

Not with fire.

With a question.

“Did God really say…?”

Eliam felt the sentence hit him.

Nathan saw his expression.

— It’s always a formidable attack. The snake doesn’t start by saying, “God doesn’t exist.” It starts by suggesting, “God may not be as good as you think.”

“That’s what I’m thinking,” Eliam murmured.

Nathan does not contradict him.

– I know.

The silence became heavy.

“After what happened to my brother,” Eliam continued, “I don’t ask myself if God exists. I ask myself if He could have intervened.”

– Yes.

— And if He could have, why didn’t He do it?

Nathan closed his eyes for a moment.

— This is a question that no theological answer should disregard.

Then he continued:

— But listen to the rest of Eden. The man and the woman disobey. The relationship breaks down. Death enters human history. Yet, immediately, God already announces that one day the offspring of the woman will crush the serpent’s head.

Eliam raised his head.

— So the answer starts right there?

— The final answer is yes.

In the following days, Eliam returned to Nathan’s house.

Each evening, the old man added a piece to the picture.

He told him about Job.

Of this righteous man confronted with a series of catastrophes.

Nathan emphasized a detail that always fascinated his students.

— In the story, Satan never acts with absolute authority.

— Yet it destroys a lot.

— Yes. But look at the text. It asks. God sets a limit.

First of all :

You can touch his property, but not him.

Then :

You can touch his body, but you cannot take his life.

Nathan raised his hand.

— This does not make Job’s suffering any less painful. It is terrible. But the story affirms something essential: Satan is never a second God.

Eliam thought about it.

— So there aren’t two equal powers fighting?

— No. Never.

— But then God remains responsible for having allowed it.

Nathan did not dodge the question.

— Divine permission is one of the most difficult mysteries of the Bible. And the book of Job itself does not give Job all the hidden reasons for his suffering.

— So sometimes we don’t know?

– Yes.

Nathan smiled sadly.

— Biblical faith is not a machine that produces a detailed explanation for every tragedy.

Then he added:

— But she argues that evil operates within limits that it does not control.

Another night, Nathan opened Daniel’s book.

He recounted the strange episode from the tenth chapter.

Daniel had prayed.

The response seemed to be delayed.

Then a heavenly messenger explained that he had been held for twenty-one days by the one whom the text called “the prince of the kingdom of Persia”, until Michael came to help him.

Eliam frowned.

— Do you think it’s a spiritual being?

— Many understand it that way. Language seems to go beyond a simple human functionary.

— So there really are invisible conflicts behind some visible realities?

— The text at least opens up this possibility with great force.

Nathan leaned against the table.

— But be careful. This passage does not allow us to explain every delay, every illness, or every war by a specific demon.

— Yet the conflict is real.

– Yes.

Nathan repeated:

— Real does not mean that we have to invent what the text does not say.

Eliam was beginning to understand the old man’s method.

Each time the mystery became fascinating, Nathan set a limit.

As if humility should accompany any exploration of the invisible.

One evening, Eliam asked the question directly:

— You showed me that Satan is a creature. That he acts within limits. That he has been defeated. But you still haven’t told me why God doesn’t destroy him.

Nathan smiled.

— Now you are ready to listen.

He placed four small pebbles on the table.

— Four reasons can be drawn or deduced from the framework presented by Scripture and Christian theology. They may not answer all questions, but they form a coherent whole.

He pointed to the first pebble.

— First: God is not incapable.

Eliam made a gesture of impatience.

— I knew that.

— Yet this is the essential starting point. The question is never: “Can God destroy Satan?” The biblical answer is yes.

He pointed to the second one.

— Then comes justice.

Why does justice require waiting?

— Because the Bible presents a future, public, ordained judgment. Paul even goes so far as to write that believers will participate in the judgment of angels.

Nathan added:

— The idea is not that God lacks evidence today. He already knows everything. But biblical history emphasizes a justice manifested before creation.

— So that no one can say that the judgment is arbitrary?

– So.

Nathan pointed to the third pebble.

— Freedom.

Eliam frowned.

— Are you going to tell me that God allows evil because we are free?

— Let me be more specific. In the vision presented by the source we are studying, true love implies a response that is not purely mechanical. God does not create beings programmed to love Him.

— But why not destroy only those who rebel?

— If all disobedience immediately led to annihilation, what place would remain for a choice lived in a real history?

Eliam replied sharply:

— At least innocent people wouldn’t suffer!

Nathan remained silent for a long time.

— That’s the most painful objection.

He looked at Eliam.

— And I’m not going to answer you as if your brother’s death was a small but necessary piece in an equation.

Eliam clenched his jaw.

— So what?

— The Bible never says that evil is good because God can use it. It says that God can take what is truly evil and integrate it into a result that evil never intended.

Nathan told the story of Joseph.

Sold by his brothers.

Betrayed.

Torn from his home.

Unjustly imprisoned.

Then, years later, he became the man capable of saving populations from famine.

When his brothers came before him, Joseph said to them, in essence:

“You intended evil against me, but God transformed it into good.”

Nathan leaned towards Eliam.

— Note the precision. Joseph does not say: “What you did was good.”

— He always calls it evil.

– Exactly.

Then Nathan opened another scroll.

— And now look at the cross.

Jerusalem.

A traitor.

Jealous leaders.

A politically hesitant governor.

Brutal soldiers.

A manipulated crowd.

Nails.

Death.

Nathan looked at Eliam.

— If you had only observed on Friday, what would you have concluded?

— That evil had won.

— And yet Paul affirms that it was precisely on the cross that Christ disarmed principalities and powers.

Eliam remained motionless.

Nathan continued:

— Imagine the paradox. If Satan wanted to prevent Jesus’ work, the crucifixion might have seemed to be his greatest achievement.

— But it becomes her defeat.

– Yes.

Nathan gently tapped the table.

— This is one of the most powerful themes of the biblical narrative: God does not simply block evil. He can turn its own strategies against it.

Eliam murmured:

— As if the enemy were building the weapon of his own defeat.

— A powerful image, yes.

Nathan placed the fourth pebble in front of Eliam.

— And here is the reason that directly affects the time in which we live: patience.

He quoted from Peter’s second letter.

God is not slow, as some people think.

He is patient.

Not wanting people to perish, but wanting them to have the opportunity to come to repentance.

Nathan spoke more softly.

— Every day that history continues is also a day that someone can still come back.

Eliam looked at the pebble.

— So, delaying judgment is also a form of mercy?

— That’s the idea.

— But meanwhile, others are suffering.

– Yes.

Nathan made no attempt to ease the tension.

God’s patience with sinners actually creates a historical space in which evil continues to have consequences. That is why the Bible never presents this waiting as something trivial.

— So God prefers to save more people before closing the story for good?

— That’s one of Pierre’s main arguments.

Eliam ran a hand over his face.

— I understand the logic.

Then he added:

— But my heart is not yet convinced.

Nathan nodded slowly.

— The heart sometimes takes longer than the intellect.

Several months passed.

Eliam began to help Nathan copy some texts.

He discovered Paul’s letters with a new attention.

One passage from Ephesians particularly struck him.

Paul wrote that the believer’s struggle was not only against “flesh and blood,” but against principalities, powers, and spiritual forces of evil.

Eliam asked:

— If all this really exists, how can one live without fear?

Nathan continued.

— Look at what Paul recommends.

The belt of truth.

The armor of justice.

Shoes linked to the Gospel of peace.

The shield of faith.

The helmet of salvation.

The sword of the Spirit, identified with the word of God.

Then the prayer.

Eliam noticed something.

— He doesn’t say to go and hunt down the principalities.

– No.

— He mainly said to stand firm.

Nathan smiled.

– Exactly.

— So the goal is not to become obsessed with Satan.

— Definitely not.

Nathan added:

— James is even simpler: submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

— First, submit to God.

– Always.

— Then resist.

– Yes.

Nathan leaned forward.

— Many want to reverse the order. They want to fight the darkness without first remaining in the light.

Eliam finally asked:

— If the cross is truly the defeat of Satan, why does the Book of Revelation still speak of a future judgment?

Nathan gave a slight smile.

— Because we live between victory and its final execution.

– Explain.

Nathan looked for an example.

— Imagine a rebel king whose defeat has been legally and militarily assured. His decisive power is broken. Yet, a few units continue to fight for a time before the total end.

— So victory has been achieved, but not yet fully manifested.

— Yes. Some theologians speak of the “already” and the “not yet”.

Already :

Christ has triumphed.

Already :

The cross condemned the powers.

Already :

The resurrection showed that death does not have the last word.

But not yet:

Satan did not receive the final execution of his judgment.

Not yet :

Evil has not disappeared from creation.

Not yet :

Suffering and death are not abolished.

Eliam thought of his brother.

For the first time in months, this thought did not only produce anger.

It also produced a strange expectation.

Nathan then opened the Book of Revelation.

He spoke of the day when the adversary would finally be thrown into the lake of fire.

He spoke of the great white throne.

Of the judgment.

On the definitive end of evil.

— So God’s patience is not infinite in the sense that the history of evil would continue eternally, said Nathan.

— There will be an end.

– Yes.

— A true ending.

— Definitive.

Eliam breathed slowly.

— So why not move it forward?

Nathan looked at the young man with compassion.

— Because you and I have been looking at history for a few decades. God looks at it in its entirety.

Eliam did not reply.

Nathan added:

This does not mean that we should pretend to understand every divine decision. It only means that the Bible gives us sufficient reasons not to interpret His delay as weakness.

A few years later, Nathan died.

Peacefully.

Eliam stayed with him until the end.

The old man opened his eyes one last time.

— Do you remember your first question?

Eliam smiled sadly.

Why doesn’t God destroy Satan now?

Nathan nodded.

— What is your answer?

Eliam thought about it.

— Because He is not lacking in power.

Nathan waited.

— Because the final judgment will come in its own time.

— Continue.

— Because God chose to create beings capable of a real response.

Nathan smiled.

– And ?

Eliam took her hand.

— Because His patience still leaves the door open to those who can return.

The old man closed his eyes.

Then he whispered:

— And never forget the cross.

Eliam felt tears welling up.

— Because what appears to be a victory for evil can become its defeat.

Nathan stopped responding.

More years passed.

Eliam himself became a teacher.

One evening, a young man entered his house.

His eyes were red.

His wife had just died.

He sat down without even greeting him.

Then he bluntly asked the same question that Eliam had asked before:

— If God is all-powerful, why does He allow Satan to continue?

Eliam felt time fold back on itself.

For a moment, he saw Nathan again.

The lamp.

The rollers.

The four pebbles.

He could have given a quick answer.

He could have said:

“God has a plan.”

But that sentence would have been too small for the grief sitting before him.

Then Eliam simply said:

— I’m not going to ask you to like the answer immediately.

The young man looked at him.

— But there is an answer?

— There is at least one way through the issue.

Eliam stood up.

He took a roll.

— Come.

– Or ?

Eliam smiled sadly.

— We must return before Eden.

And while the lamp burned in the night, he began to tell the old story.

The story of a creature that wanted to rise.

Of a humanity seduced by doubt.

From a powerful but never sovereign adversary.

Of a Job who suffered without receiving all the explanations.

From a Daniel who discovered that an invisible battle could exist behind a visible delay.

From a Joseph who called evil “evil”, while discovering that God could turn it around.

From a cross that resembled a defeat.

From a tomb that was found empty.

Of a judgment yet to come.

And of a God whose patience was not the absence of justice, but the delay before its fulfillment.

Then Eliam uttered the phrase that Nathan had once repeated to him:

— Satan is not a rival god.

The young man looked up.

— So what is it?

— A creature.

— Dangerous?

– Yes.

— Free?

Eliam thought about it.

— Active, but not unlimited.

— Already defeated?

— According to the Gospel, Christ’s decisive victory has already taken place.

— But still present.

— For a while.

The young man clenched his fists.

— And one day?

Eliam looked at the flame of the lamp.

— One day, patience will end.

— So what?

Eliam opened the Book of Revelation.

— Then evil will have no more history to write.

Silence filled the room.

Outside, the world went on.

Wars still existed.

Families were still crying.

Men were betraying each other.

Kingdoms were rising.

Others were falling.

Nothing, at first glance, seemed to have changed.

However, Eliam now knew how to look at history differently.

Not like a battle between two equal gods.

Not like a universe abandoned to an uncontrolled power.

But like a story whose final judgment had not yet been carried out.

A story in which the enemy could act, but not decide the outcome.

A story in which God could allow without approving, wait without forgetting, judge without injustice, and transform what evil had wanted to use to destroy.

And above all, a story in which Satan’s greatest apparent victory — a cross erected on a hill — had become the very place where his defeat had been proclaimed.

Eliam slowly closed the roll.

Then he looked at the young man.

— You wanted to know why God isn’t destroying Satan today.

– Yes.

— Perhaps the real question is different.

– Which ?

Eliam replied:

— Since his judgment has already been announced, what will we do with the time God gives us before the end?

The young man did not reply.

And that night, for the first time since his wife’s death, he remained silent for a long time without being merely angry.

Because he had just discovered that God’s delay could resemble an absence when one only saw a single day…

but that on the scale of all history, this same delay could be the last space left for mercy before justice definitively closes the door.