God's RPG and Satan's Descent into Insanity

      I remember from a Doctor Who episode with the 12th Doctor, there was a book which if anyone read from it, they committed suicide. It turned out that the reason why they did was because the book proved to them they weren't real, but were only a part of a massive computer simulation of the real world. Their committing suicide was an act of rebellion against the system, the only act they felt had any real meaning.

     Prior to creation there was God alone. No empty space. No infinite expanse of nothing. Just God alone. Then, for the sheer pleasure of it, just to amuse Himself, He creates everything else like a software coder writing the most complex, interactive, A.I. RPG with NPCs that have free will and can make their own decisions with Him being the only "player." He is now no longer alone, and He treasures each and every one of those NPCs that keep Him from being alone. 

     And then some of them begin to malfunction and cause problems within the creation. I had the thought today that what drove Satan insane was the realization that he is just an A.I. NPC in a one player RPG, and the only player is God. He couldn't handle the fact that the only Existence that wasn't just programmed information was God, and he was just code. Once he realized what he was, he couldn't handle that thought because then he came to the erroneous conclusion that nothing he said or did mattered, and thus he didn't matter. It was all determined by the conditions of the program which God laid out. Even his insanity "must" have been predetermined. As I chewed on this thought for a bit, it then occurred to me that this is also the argument which was going on between Satan and God in Job.

     God points out Job and how he's obedient and doing very well. Satan's point was, "Of course he's doing well and acting right, you've set up the parameters in such a way that it's been determined that he'll do well and be obedient."

     Rather than argue back, God then says, "Okay, so change the parameters. Change the conditions under which Job is responding. If you're right, then he won't be right or obedient any more." I imagine the look on Satan's face here was something like, "Really?" I don't think he was expecting God's response. When Job didn't respond the way Satan thought he would, he then pushed the issue to really prove his point by causing physical harm to Job.

     In short, Satan was arguing that nothing he or Job did mattered because it was all part of the program, and God was arguing that their choices did matter, that they had the free will to choose in spite of the conditions or parameters to which they were subjected. God thought Satan and his brothers were important enough that this point had to be made, even though it cost Job so dearly (whom He repaid with interest). Through Job, God was trying to get through to Satan and those sympathetic to his view. Through Job, God was demonstrating that they too had the free will to choose Him or not. 

     Determinism is erroneous, because even if the conditions of the program have already been set into motion from our perspective, we still have the free will to choose our responses to those conditions, to choose Him or to rebel and reject Him.