2 Nephi 2:18

18 And because he had fallen from heaven, and had become miserable forever, he sought also the misery of all mankind. Wherefore, he said unto Eve, yea, even that old serpent, who is the devil, who is the father of all lies, wherefore he said: Partake of the forbidden fruit, and ye shall not die, but ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil.

There is plenty of scriptural evidence that Satan does what he does at least in part because he is simply a sore loser. Of course, there’s more to it than that, but as Lehi says here, if Satan has to be miserable he wants everyone to be miserable. If he can’t get everybody saved on his terms, he wants nobody saved on any other terms. So he provides the opposition we need to exercise our agency. He has no real power over us that we don’t give him, but he is a master deceiver. Remember that his very name means he is a liar (see Bible Dictionary, Devil). His lies and partial truths are carefully crafted to entice us to do things we wouldn’t consider on our own. For example, Adam and Eve partaking the forbidden fruit would never have happened without Satan’s half-truth about the consequences of taking the fruit. I doubt there was any thought to partake of that fruit. God, their Father, had forbidden it. They loved Him, maybe even wanted to emulate and be like Him. So Satan comes in and shows the way. I’ve wondered if he was just thick headed in doing this. After all, if Satan leaves Adam and Eve alone, nobody gains exaltation. He doesn’t really win, but he doesn’t really lose either. He knew the plan, and he could have just refused to play the role of bad guy. But such is not his nature. There is no way after all he had invested that he would compromise this point. So he tells Eve that she could be like her beloved Father if she would eat the fruit. He convinced her that Heavenly Father was the one not telling the truth. “Yes,” he says, “the knowledge of good and evil is what makes you like God, giving you power to act instead of be acted upon, but the dying part won’t really happen. How could a loving Father allow his children to die (or anything bad happen to them, for that matter)?” This is a question he tempts people with to this day. The other thing Satan neglected to tell Eve was that in order to know the difference between good and evil, she would have to break a commandment. Experience with good and evil is the only way to really know the difference. So Eve partook, and then got Adam to join her in her transgression. Whether she made her choice intelligently or not, there was an element of deception involved. And having no experience with evil, Adam and Eve were easily deceived. In their total innocence they did not know to not trust Satan, or anyone else. I think that lying was a concept that was beyond their comprehension.

• Genesis 3:5
• Luke 22:31
• Revelation 13:7
• 2 Nephi 28:8
• 2 Nephi 28:20 (19–23)
• Alma 12:31–32
• Alma 29:5
• 3 Nephi 18:18
• Moroni 7:16 (15–19)
• D&C 10:22 (22–27)
• D&C 50:3
• Moses 4: 4

2 Nephi 2: 17

17 And I, Lehi, according to the things which I have read, must needs suppose that an angel of God, according to that which is written, had fallen from heaven; wherefore, he became a devil, having sought that which was evil before God.

Lehi uses a couple of words or expressions in this verse that I find interesting in this discussion. The first is the reference to “an angel of God.” Isaiah calls this angel of God “Lucifer, son of the morning,” which writing Lehi obviously had on the brass plates (see Isaiah 14: 12 (12–15)). What a name of promise! In the morning we have a fresh start with nothing but potential ahead of us. Such was Lucifer, “who was in authority in the presence of God” (D&C 76: 25). He was respected and loved by the Father so that he had enough authority to bring forward a different plan of salvation in opposition to God’s own, which gave us Jesus Christ as our Savior. So yes, he was an angel of God, and not always considered a devil.

Which brings me to the second term I find interesting, “a devil,” as opposed to “the devil.” According to my dictionary (Webster’s New World College Dictionary, 1997) the term “devil” traces its roots back to a Greek word, diaballein, which means to slander, to literally, “throw across.” Slander is a specific kind of lie intended to damage another person’s character or reputation. We don’t know the details of the War in Heaven, but we know Lucifer sought to usurp God’s glory and position through means that he could not deliver, as discussed in earlier entries. So being one in authority before God, Lucifer had influence and became The Devil, Satan, who leads all the other devils. Thus Lucifer fell from his position of authority and was cast out of Father’s presence for rebellion.

• 2 Nephi 9:8
• D&C 29: 36–38
• D&C 76: 25–27
• Moses 4: 3 (3–4)
• Abraham 3: 28 (27–28)

2 Nephi 2: 16

16 Wherefore, the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself. Wherefore, man could not act for himself save it should be that he was enticed by the one or the other.

Traditionally people have made Satan out to be this monster with horns and a tail, etc. I don’t see it that way. Who in their right mind would follow someone so repulsive as a monster? Instead, I see the devil as being handsome, charismatic, and persuasive. I also see that he mostly tells the truth on most things. There’s just enough truth to allow us to relate to our own experience. Then once he has you hooked, he can tell lies to lead you gradually further away from the truth and light. He appeals to our intellectual logic, which can be very persuasive, especially when put up against the logic presented by the Lord. His logic makes perfect sense as well, but only after you exercise faith to accept some things that don’t make sense in a purely physical world.

For example, it seems farfetched for the purely scientific mind that only gives credence to what can be observed, measured, and proven by observation to accept that a man, such as a prophet, could know of future events. You can’t observe or measure the future, so it isn’t reasonable that there could be prophets who can have that kind of knowledge. But once you make the faith-full step to believe in a God for whom the past, present, and future are all seen at once (see D&C 130: 7), then you believe that God knows of future events, and it is not a stretch at all that He talks to certain men to tell them about what will happen. Then you can believe in prophets, which is what these men are called.

So now we come back to Lehi’s assertion that everything has to have its opposite, including our decision to do what it takes to return to Heavenly Father. There has to be a different choice that looks good enough that it is legitimately enticing. So Satan appeals to the here and now, the natural man, the physical, while Christ appeals to our higher, more long-term and spiritual natures. In Satan’s choice you have the instant gratification of physical pleasures and knowledge, but the long-term disappointment of lesser eternal rewards. In Christ’s choice you have the long-term reward of eternal life with our Heavenly Father and all the joy that comes with it, but the price is rejecting the instant gratifications that are natural to the physical man. That doesn’t mean you reject science and logic, but rather you accept that there are some things that cannot be explained to your satisfaction without accepting a few things that cannot be proven physically (See Hebrews 11: 1). That’s why the natural man is an enemy to God (see Mosiah 3: 19). There is no room in the natural man for that kind of faith. The physical, or natural, is the ultimate reality, and unless we can allow our bodies to be subject to our spirits (or in other words, our reason to be seen in light of our faith, instead of the other way around), we will not accept any other reality. Our unbridled natural desires run counter to God’s work and glory of bringing to pass the immortality and eternal life of man (see Moses 1: 39). By insisting that supernatural or un-measurable facts cannot exist, the natural man hinders mankind from accepting things like the Atonement, and the rest of the plan set in place to bring to pass our immortality and eternal life.

• 2 Nephi 9: 9
• Alma 12: 31
• Moroni 7: 12–19
• D&C 29: 39 (39–40)

2 Nephi 2: 15

15 And to bring about his eternal purposes in the end of man, after he had created our first parents, and the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and in fine, all things which are created, it must needs be that there was an opposition; even the forbidden fruit in opposition to the tree of life; the one being sweet and the other bitter.

One thing about God of which I am completely convinced is that He takes the eternal perspective on everything. He seems to be absolutely focused on “the end of man,” in our case, and not so worried about our day-to-day inconveniences and trials. When I say that, I don’t mean He doesn’t care about them, because he does love and care about us. Otherwise our prayers for daily blessings would be left unanswered. What I mean by the eternal perspective is that these daily concerns are considered in light of how they will prepare us for our eternal reward. That’s why the Lord could tell Joseph Smith that his adversity and affliction would be, “but a small moment,” when he was held in horrible conditions in Liberty Jail for about six months. I’m sure to Joseph and those held with him this did not seem like a “small moment,” but to the Lord, forever more concerned with “his eternal purpose in the end of man,” this was a chance to see if Joseph would “endure it well,” and if so, “God shall exalt thee on high” (D&C 121: 7–8). God’s work and glory is “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man,” not the momentary ease and comfort of man (see Moses 1:39).

So day-to-day trials are only really important if they affect our eternal status. If it were not for this long view of life there would be little real purpose for our lives here on earth. If there is no eternal reward our sufferings are pointless. When we take the long view like God does, then our day-to-day trials and temptations come into perspective, and we see them for what they are: a chance to prove ourselves worthy of exaltation. Paul recognized this when he said, “…the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8: 18). In order for us to make sense of our trials we have to adopt this long view that the end is worth the process of getting there. It is the purpose of opposition.

How could we prove ourselves worthy without opposition? We can’t. It’s a bit like an athlete who wants to produce a highlight film to show he is worthy of getting signed by a team. He won’t include too much of the routine, easy plays he makes, but rather the ones he makes against greater odds. In other words, against greater opposition, when the chances of failure are greater. Sometimes that opposition comes from other players, and most often the opposition comes from himself. Spiritually we are not that different. We are often our own worst enemies. Keeping the long view in mind, the “eternal purposes in the end of man,” helps us deal with the day-to-day setbacks.

Lehi teaches that after all things (plants, animals, etc) had been created God needed to provide opposition, a chance for Adam and Eve to exercise their agency. That seems to be the main purpose for providing the Tree of Life and its opposite, the forbidden fruit. I think the Lord could have given any other commandment and accomplished the same end. For example, he could have just as easily told them to not enter this meadow, or don’t swim in that lake. It still would have provided a commandment to break (although not one that also provided the symbolism of consuming or internalizing the commandments). So I don’t know if there was anything special about the species of tree that would make it provide knowledge of good and evil, but at least the act of breaking a commandment gave that knowledge. So I don’t think it matters whether the trees were literal or figurative. What matters to me is not what form the choice took, but that Adam and Eve were given a choice. The Tree of Life, representing God’s love, is a fitting opposite to the forbidden fruit, symbolically if not literally.

• Genesis 2: 17 (16–17)
• Isaiah 45: 18 (17–18)
• Matthew 5: 48
• Romans 8: 17 (14–21)
• 1 Nephi 15: 36 (22, 28, 36)
• Mosiah 3: 26
• Alma 12: 22 (21–23)
• Alma 12: 26
• Alma 32: 40
• D&C 29: 43 (42–44)
• Moses 1: 31, 39
• Moses 3: 17

2 Nephi 2: 14

14 And now, my sons, I speak unto you these things for your profit and learning; for there is a God, and he hath created all things, both the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are, both things to act and things to be acted upon.

It may seem self-evident that God exists, after Lehi’s explanation that if God did not exist then we did not exist. But it’s important that Lehi testifies to his family that God exists, because couched the way it is, his testimony of God also testifies of creation, and I mean the creation of all things. As discussed in verse 13, raw ingredients or elements, such as intelligence, can’t be created, but they can be organized. There are apparently different orders or levels of intelligence, and agency is given, or maybe inherited, according to what order of intelligence is organized in a creation. In other words, some creations have enough intelligence that they can handle full agency, or the ability to act according to their choices. Man falls into this category. Other organisms without that level of intelligence don‘t have as much, or maybe any agency, and are created to be acted upon according to someone else’s agency. Maybe rocks fall into that category. And following this theory to its logical conclusion, there are levels in between with more or less agency, depending on their intelligence, such as plants, insects and animals. Then maybe there are further breakouts within those classifications. For example, primates have a higher level of agency than slugs do. I don’t know what else would account for a creation’s ability to act or be acted upon, as Lehi describes here, while still living up to the measure of its creation, as commanded in the creation of the world (see D&C 77: 3, D&C 88: 25).

President David O. McKay taught: “Although God has created the universe and all therein, ‘man is the jewel of God.’ This is just another way of saying that the earth was created for man and not man for the earth. God gave man part of his divinity. He gave man the power of choice, and no other creature in the world has it.” (CR October 1969, 6–7. Quoted in Teachings of Presidents of the Church: David O. McKay, 2003, p. 207, my emphasis). So maybe my theory is not so far-fetched after all.