Fr. Yves le Roux is rector of the “new” SSPX’s U.S. seminary. However, he is not content with teaching errors against the Catholic Faith only to seminarians. He attempts to spread his errors more broadly by casting them widely in his letters to friends and benefactors. For example, Fr. le Roux:

Recently, Fr. le Roux added another “deity” to his pantheon of errors.

In his March 1, 2018 letter to friends and benefactors, Fr. le Roux falsely declares that:

[The Devil] believed that he could do without God and refuse His plan.

Fr. le Roux’s longer quote is:

Lucifer has retained the use of his natural gifts after his fall, a fall due to the fascination with the power of his intelligence. In his foolish pride, he believed that he could do without God and refuse His plan.

Was the Devil that stupid? Was he really mistaken and did he really suppose that he did not need God?

Let us contrast Fr. le Roux’s novel theology here, to the truth taught by basic Catholic catechisms, and confirmed by the explanations of St. Thomas Aquinas, greatest Doctor of the Catholic Church.

We know that Lucifer had a very high intellect, that he sinned

“How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, who didst rise in the morning?” Isaiah 14:12.

and lost eternal beatitude.

Here is the admirable way St. Thomas Aquinas expresses this truth, quoting St. Gregory the Great:

Satan is not described as having assisted, but as present among the assistants; for, as Gregory says (Moral. ii), “though he has lost beatitude, still he has retained a nature like to the angels.”

Summa, Ia, Q 112, a.3, ad 3 (emphasis added).

We know that, despite his sin, the Devil did not lose the natural perfection of his angelic intellect. Id.

We know that the Devil’s natural knowledge was undiminished by his sin.

Here is St. Thomas Aquinas’s clear explanation of this truth:

Of these three kinds of knowledge the first was neither taken away nor lessened in the demons. For it follows from the very nature of the angel, who, according to his nature, is an intellect or mind: since on account of the simplicity of his substance, nothing can be withdrawn from his nature, so as to punish him by subtracting from his natural powers, as a man is punished by being deprived of a hand or a foot or of something else. Therefore, Dionysius says (Div. Nom. iv) that the natural gifts remain entire in them. Consequently, their natural knowledge was not diminished.

Summa, Ia Q.64, a.1, respondeo, (emphasis added).

We know the Devil’s natural knowledge is greater than any man’s natural knowledge.

Here is St. Thomas Aquinas’s clear explanation of this truth:

[An angel] on account of the perfection of his intellect he can of his nature have a higher knowledge of God than man can have. Such knowledge of God remains also in the demons. Although they do not possess the purity which comes with grace, nevertheless they have purity of nature; and this suffices for the knowledge of God which belongs to them from their nature.

Summa, Ia Q.64, a.1, ad 2.

We know that man is capable of understanding that he cannot do without God. Man is capable of understanding that he depends on God’s power to keep him in existence.

St. Thomas himself gives five proofs for this truth, using natural reason (not Divine Revelation), thereby showing man is capable of this knowledge. Summa, Ia, Q.2, a.3.

Because man is capable of knowing by natural knowledge that he needs God, and because the Devil knows more than any man does by natural knowledge, the Devil also knows that he needs God and cannot do without God.

St. Thomas Aquinas explains that the Devil knew he was a creature and also that he knew no creature can exist except from God. Here is St. Thomas’s words:

Not that he [the Devil] desired to resemble God by being subject to no one else absolutely; for so he would be desiring his own ‘not-being’; since no creature can exist except by holding its existence under God.

Summa, Ia Q.63, a.3 respondeo.

Conclusion

Better than any man, the Devil knows he cannot exist without God. Fr. le Roux is wrong that “[The Devil] believed that he could do without God”.