The Issue Of Footholds And Strongholds

In the story “A Little Omniscience Goes a Long Way” neither Satan nor God have free will. God has control over Satan; however, God hints to the idea that there is possibly some higher being above him that may or may not be controlling him. Initially, Satan doesn’t necessarily believe that him and the angels have any type of control, but God points out that nobody is really forcing them to make the choices they make or chaining them down to make those choices, therefore, they do have some type of control albeit not the type they’d prefer. When Satan states that he and a few of the angels want to have control over their lives, God claims that they do have control and, apparently, just as much as God himself has over his own life. Additionally,

’“ You shall open a brokers shop in Boston next month” said the black man.”’ Tom agrees to do what the black man said, but instead of opening the next month, he tells the devil that he is willing to open it the next day. This is just like in todays society where people bargain themselves down to a point with devil which makes them feel trapped in a corner and they feel like they cannot get out of the hands of the devil. Tom let the devil get a hold on him and then Tom said, “ The Devil take me,” ….. “ if I have made a fathering.”’ Just as soon as Tom said that, the Devil took him and rode him off to never be seen again. The people in the world today think that it is okay to let the Devil show up here and there. In the long run, he is going to have a hold on people and before they realize it they are his people and he will have them doing works for him instead of the

Jonathan Edwards, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, uses fear in order to make the people, or the congregation, fear god and to manipulate and control them at all cost.

Influence can cause some behavior in some person for a specific purpose based on a power base.

Satan's pride further constrains him. Because he is able to prove his freedom via dissent, and because he has ignored the fact that his free will comes from God, Satan thinks (or at least tells the angels before his own fall) that all heavenly beings including God are "Equally free" (5.792). Focused on his own freedom, Satan cannot understand that God has even more freedom than he. When confronted with the hegemonic power of the Son, then, Satan believes that "new Laws" have been imposed, that God has changed the rules (5.679-80). But this is not a new constraint; it is merely a new formulation of the Godhead.

by this and explains, “…if you do not do well, sin is lurking at your

Milton, through Satan's soliloquies in Book 4, shows that Satan's idea of free will is a facade, and God carefully manipulates him to fulfill his plan of Adam and Eve's fall. While speaking, Satan inadvertently places doubts in the reader's mind that his will is free. Satan proves through his actions that God created him to act in a very narrow range, even though he himself does not realize this. The combination of pride, ambition, abhorrence of subordination, and ignorance of his own state as a puppet lead to perpetually diminishing stature and divinity.

hrough the spirit of lust, Satan’s attempt to distort God’s sacred sexual presence within humanity had managed to monopolize a multitude of sexual venues. Distinctly the most powerful opponent of Jesus was the evil spirit of lust and its ability to possess and control the majority of people. Yet, due to Christ’s intervention a new found revelation caught fire, awakening God’s sexual presence once again. The battle that Jesus Christ undertook with Satan and his numerous advocates gave those who believed, a new dawn of understanding that God’s spirit would protect and save them. Trusting that, unlike pagan superstitions and beliefs, Christians would obtain a new found spiritual possession of strength and endurance through the spirit of Christ;

The author helps us to understand exactly who our enemy is and who our enemy is not. Our enemy is not flesh and blood but, “principalities, and spiritual wickedness in high places”. People are often used by demonic spirits to act in adverse ways. We must never target people as our foes. The enemy would love to have us overlook him and turn on one another. Our brothers and sisters are not who we should fight. It is the spirit behind them using them to distract us into doing something we will later regret.

Anger is the sixth out of the seven deadly sins that are recognizable throughout Masque of the Red Death. In fact, it is one of the most common transgressions that humans make.

The film The Other Conquest is a drama about the aftermath of the 1520’s Spanish Conquest of Mexico told from the perspective of the indigenous Aztec people. It explores social, religious, and psychological changes that brought the historical process of colonization that both defined the South American continent and highly reminds us of today’s neocolonialism.

In addition, here, as throughout much the poem, Satan continues to hedge the other side of the argument, insisting that he isn't forced to do evil by opposing God, but that "to do ill our sole delight" (160). This belief that he has a choice in the matter is tied up in the misconception that he was, and continues to be, equal to God, as "reason hath equall'd" (248) them.  Quite to the contrary, Milton makes it clear that "the will And high permission of all-ruling Heaven Left him at large to his own dark designs" (211-3).  And it is only Satan's perverted sense of reason that convinces him that "The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n" (254-5).  He believes that his reason and contemplation will help him discover "How overcome this dire Calamity" (189), or failing that, change his will such that it fits his current circumstance.  This is the classic method of the delusional and disenfranchised, holding out hope for change, but at the same time putting forth the belief that the current situation can actually be beneficial.  The sophistry has shown through Satan's speech, as he declares that there is no way for God to beat him, in his mind, when we know he is already defeated.

Satan comes to man with his temptations as an angel of light, as he came to Christ. He has been working to bring man into a condition of physical and moral weakness, that he may overcome him with his temptations, and then triumph over his ruin. ...He well knows that it is impossible for man to discharge his obligations to God and to his fellow-men, while he impairs the faculties God has given him. The brain is the capital of the body... pg. 236

Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, to you have I given it, as I spake

Aside from his ability to reason, and also to bring others to think for themselves, Satan is also highly independent and refuses to let himself be controlled by someone who he does not think to be worthy of