Did Satan himself need a satan?

There are those conversations that stay with me for a long time. Someone is sitting across from me, wants to change, wants to repent of something that has been dragging on for a long time — and then says, half-apologetically: 'I just can't fight it. He is too strong.' As if Satan is an opponent with whom we are in a fair fight, and we just happen to be the weakest in the ring. I always felt that image was wrong. Recently, I found words for it.

I scrolled through Instagram and got stuck on a reel about freedom of choice. Below the video was a comment that made me stop: someone referred to an article by Grant Arnold, an army chaplain who also publishes theological works via Brigham Young University. His proposition: Satan was never necessary for the plan of salvation. My first reaction was: wait, what? Have I misunderstood that all these years? I read the article. And it ultimately led me to a question that wasn't explicitly stated there, but which I believe gets to the heart of the matter. Aquestion that immediately brought me back to all those conversations where someone says: 'He is too strong.'

A verse, not a simple proof

Doctrine and Covenants 29:39 is the text on which the classical reading usually relies: the devil must tempt people, 'otherwise they would not be able to act according to their own will.' The reasoning seems simple: no temptation, no real choice; no real choice, no freedom of choice; so Satan is a necessary part of God's plan. Sounds logical. I once taught it this way myself.

But there is an important distinction that I previously did not make sufficiently. That there is opposition is needed to truly be able to choose, does not necessarily mean that a person Satan must exist. The former is firmly anchored in our scriptures. Lehi states very explicitly that there must be 'an opposition in all things' (2 Nephi 2:11). Freedom without alternatives is ultimately not true freedom. To be able to choose good, something else must also be possible. But 'there must be opposition' is not the same as 'one of God's children had to become Satan.' That distinction changes a lot for me.

Doctrine and Covenants 29:39 can also be read from that broader necessity of trial and opposition. The word 'tempt' does not necessarily mean that the person Satan is the origin of our agency. The decisive question then is not: do we need opposition? Little discussion seems possible on that. The question becomes: did we need Satan? And that's where it starts to get interesting for me.

A plan dependent on Satan's fall?

Suppose Satan is truly necessary. Not just opposition, not just the possibility to choose wrong, but Satan himself. Then that means that the plan of salvation can only function when one of God's children actually rebels and becomes an adversary of God. That raises at least an uncomfortable question: can a plan that originates from perfect love truly be dependent on the fall and ultimate destruction of one of God's children?

I would like to be careful with that. It is, of course, possible that God, in His foreknowledge, knew what choices Lucifer would make and subsequently could even use his rebellion within His greater plan. God can bring good out of evil without the evil thereby becoming good. We see that in various places in salvation history. But that is something different from saying that Lucifer *had* to fall because otherwise the plan could not work. Perhaps we sometimes use two ideas here as if they are the same: that God can use Satan's oppositioncan use, and that God necessarily needs Satan's opposition. The first seems obvious to me. The second much less so.

The Millennium makes that distinction even more interesting. During that period, Satan is bound and has no power to tempt people (D&C 88:110). Nevertheless, children are born. They grow up, learn, act, and remain individuals with their own free will. The scriptures even state that they will grow up 'without sin' (D&C 45:58). Therefore, free agency does not disappear when Satan's power to tempt disappears. That does not mean that all opposition has vanished or that we therefore know exactly how choice and development during theMillennium will function, but one thing seems difficult for me to maintain: that the personal activity of Satan would be necessary to make free agency possible at all. This is precisely where the difference between 'used' and 'needed' becomes concrete: the Millennium is the case where the plan actually functions without Satan. If it can then, it was never a logical prerequisite — at most a given that God, in His foreknowledge, took into account.

And then we come to the question that is ultimately much simpler for me.

Who taught Satan to choose?

If free will only arises through Satan's temptation, how could Satan himself ever choose to tempt? Think it through completely. Before the rebellion in heaven, there was no Satan as we know him now. There was Lucifer, a spirit child of God. During the great heavenly council, he faced a real choice: accept the Father's plan, with Christ as Redeemer, or oppose it.

Lucifer came forward with another proposal. He would redeem all mankind so that no one would be lost, but for that, he desired God's glory (Moses 4:1). God subsequently says of him that he 'sought to destroy the agency of man' (Moses 4:3). But precisely therein lies the paradox for me: Lucifer chose to want to take away the free will of others. No one tempted Lucifer to become Lucifer. No one had to first play the role of 'Satan for Satan' so that he could choose between obedience and rebellion. He made a decision himself, with a free will that he apparently already possessed before he became the adversary.

And he was not the only one. Other spirit children chose to follow Christ or chose to follow Lucifer. Agency therefore already functioned in the premortal existence. That makes the reasoning exceptionally simple for me: the choice that made Lucifer Satan was itself made with an agency that existed before there was a Satan who could tempt anyone. So Satan cannot possibly be the source of our agency. You can hardly be necessary for the creation of something you yourself already needed to become who you are. That is forme no subtlety. It is precisely the question that made everything start to fall into place.

Opposition is not the same as Satan

Perhaps therein also lies the solution for the apparent contradiction between different texts. Yes, freedom of choice requires real possibilities. Lehi is right when he teaches that there must be opposition. Good means little when evil is principally impossible. Obedience without the possibility of disobedience is not obedience but programming. But that doesn't mean we have to make Satan a necessary pillar of God's plan.

The possibility of evil is not the same as Satan. Opposition is not the same as Satan. Temptation is not the same as Satan. And free will does not originate from Satan at all. Satan has not added any fundamental part to God's plan that God himself could not foresee. He has made use of a freedom that already existed. He chose to turn against God and has since tried to convince others to do the same. That makes him an adversary. It does not make him a necessary co-architect ofthe plan of salvation.

It is telling, by the way, that whenever church leaders have taught that 'opposition' or 'temptation' is necessary, they always refer to that concept itself — never to Satan as a person who would be indispensable for it. They, too, apparently naturally, made the same distinction.

Where, then, does our freedom come from?

For me, the answer is ultimately much more beautiful: from God himself. Both Christ and Lucifer could answer in the heavenly council because God had apparently truly enabled His children to choose. Christ answered: 'Father, thy will be done, and the glory be thine forever' (Moses 4:2). Lucifer chose differently. Freedom was there for both of them before either of them chose their ultimate role.

And perhaps that says something very fundamental about God. He didn't want puppets. He wanted children. Beings who could truly love, and therefore could also truly refuse to love. Who could obey, and therefore could also be disobedient. Who could return to Him, precisely because they could also walk away from Him. That makes freedom of choice risky. For us, but in a sense also for God: whoever truly sets someone free accepts that this freedom can also be used against him. Lucifer did exactly that. But hisrebellion did not create our freedom. It was already there.

‘He is too strong’

And then I return to the conversations I started with, with someone sitting opposite me saying: ‘I just can’t cope. He is too strong.’ Perhaps we sometimes unconsciously give Satan more theological weight than he deserves. As if God is on one side, Satan on the other, and we have to try to stay upright somewhere between these two powers. A kind of cosmic tug-of-war where we can only hope that the good side ultimately pulls a little harder.

But that is not the image I am left with. Satan is not God's equivalent adversary. He is not the co-architect of God's plan. He is not even the one who created our ability to choose. He himself is a child of God who misused his free will. And that, strangely enough, I find extremely hopeful. For his influence is not only countered by our own limited willpower. It is countered by the atonement of Christ. Grace. Repentance. A God who gave us freedom and at the same time a wayprovided so that our wrong choices do not have the final say.

Satan can tempt. He can lie. He can discourage. He can try to convince us that change is futile. But he cannot take away our agency. That was, ironically enough, exactly what he wanted from the beginning.

And now?

This kind of thought exercise doesn't change the assignment I have tomorrow. I still have to try to choose good. I remain susceptible to temptation. I make mistakes. I need repentance and the grace of Christ. But it does change how I look at someone who says he or she can't handle it.

I then think less of a battle between two roughly equal powers, where Satan might be just a little stronger. I think of a plan that already existed before Lucifer rebelled against it. A plan built on the love of God, on true freedom, and on a Savior who willingly said: 'Thy will be done.' And an adversary? He chose to become an adversary himself.

So the next time you think Satan is too strong, you might ask yourself a strange but surprisingly fundamental question: did Satan himself also need a satan?