Why didn’t God destroy the devil. If He did so, there would have been no temptation. God gave a second chance to humans through Jesus. Why not the devil?

Good questions. Let’s break them down step-by-step.

Why didn’t God destroy the devil? God never wants the destruction of his creation. The Book of Wisdom tells us: “God did not make death, nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living. For he fashioned all things that they might have being” (1:13-14). Death and destruction are actually the consequences of sin.

Another important thing to note is that angels and human beings have an immortal nature (angels in their entirety, we human beings only in our immortal souls until the resurrection). God has created the angels in such a way that their existence will go on forever, like our souls. God, in his goodness and generosity, will not revoke this gift from any of his creatures, not even the devil. In short, God will not take away the existence of the devil.

If God destroyed the devil, there would have been no more temptation. Well… sort of. Recall that there are three enemies of our human nature which lead us to sin: the world, the flesh, and the devil. Removing the devil from the picture would not mean “no more sin.” The flesh (our fallen, concupiscent nature) and the world (the sinfulness and darkness of the world) could still lead us to sin–maybe not in the same manner as the evil spirits do, but the possibility is still there.

Think also about the lesson of the Cross. God does not always remove evil because he receives even greater glory by using evil to achieve a greater good. For instance, the Roman liturgy speaks of how God “even fashioned for us a remedy out of mortality itself.” By his death, he freed us from death. Think of the utter defeat God deals to the devil by humbling himself for our sake and turning all of his schemes (temptations) into a means to make us saints!

Why didn’t God give the devil a second chance? Before rebelling against God, the devil was an angel–one of the highest. Angels have a pure spiritual nature and they are infused with perfect (though still limited) knowledge from the moment of their creation. They also have total mastery over their will. This means that whatever an angel does, it does with 100% knowledge and 100% intent, very different from us poor human beings, who often do things unaware and unintentionally!

When the devil chose to rebel against God, he chose to separate himself from God forever, knowing fully what such a decision meant. He preferred to be apart from God forever rather than to serve him. Many speculate that it was the Incarnation in particular–God becoming man–that made the devil rebel against God. The thought of bowing to a man was too much for the devil’s pride. Anyway, the devil knew that he was making an irreversible choice–but he still chose it. What a terrible decision! That is why the devil doesn’t have a “second chance.” He made his decision knowing he wouldn’t receive one. He made a complete rejection of God’s love and mercy. For us human beings, the story is much different. We are imperfect and limited. We grow and change. We have opportunities to learn from our mistakes and to repent (at least until we die). God’s mercy is open wide to us, as often as we go to him!