Weekly Knox: The Devil

"It isn't true that there had to be a devil.  According to Catholic theology, the devils were created good and were meant by God to be good; only he determined to create them as beings having a moral power of choice; and it is not possible, not conceivable, I mean, to give a person the power of choice without making it possible for him to choose wrong.  God didn't create a "state of bad and good"; he created,...a possibility of bad and good, by placing some of his creatures, whether angels or men doesn't matter, in a condition in which they could choose for themselves.  There is a particular kind of thing, namely right-choosing, which God himself couldn't have put into the world he was creating without introducing the possibility of evil." -Off the Record