If God is absolutely good, infinite, and eternal in His goodness, then it is clear that Satan cannot be inherently a creature and possess absolute evil, no matter how much he would like to. This is simply not given to him: everything absolute belongs only to God. No matter how much Satan tries to appear to be a perfect god with a minus sign, to carry away this idea to indiscriminate angels, as it was at the beginning of creation, or to people who are capable of believing in such madness, his claims will still remain groundless, because such a thing simply cannot be.

Satan does not possess his own power, and therefore all that the fallen spirit parasitizes on is the energy and power of good, which were originally given to him as the greatest Divine gift. And that which is a gift of God, which the Lord created as good, in spite of everything remains a gift of God, although sometimes it can be distorted to such a terrible state from which, it seems, there is no return. The non-existence of evil deprives him of the opportunity to distort man in such a way that he completely loses the image of God. Even in his most extreme resistance to God and demonimonial, man still remains the image of God, capable of salvation.

With such blessings, what evil hast thou chosen! After such glory, what shame you bear! Why are you now so darkened, so disfigured, so perishable? After such a light, what darkness has covered you.

Pdp. Macarius the Great

The first man was created to have in himself both the possibility of becoming immortal and the possibility of dying. Being a Divine gift, and not the nature of man, the pledge of immortality gave him the opportunity, through self-perfection, through obedience to God, to grow spiritually to become his nature.

The gift of immortality is communion with God, with the very Source of life. But man did not join life in paradise. In paradise he partook of death. Man wanted to live without God, and life without God is death. It sounds terrible: you have joined death where you should have joined life. Man joined sin with all his being, and sin terribly distorted his nature. Creation has fallen away from its Creator. Sin opened the way to death. A person who had such an opportunity not to die became mortal and was expelled from the place of life, where everything that exists has eternal existence. Adam's sin, his falling away from God, could have become the eternal lot of all mankind, if God in His mercy had not expelled Adam from paradise to the temporary world, so that death would not become his eternal state, so that Satan would not defeat him to the end.

We are all involved in death through original sin, and although it is forgiven in Holy Baptism, the consequences of sin, unfortunately, remain. Damaged human nature must be healed by man himself, who is destined to overcome the consequences of the fall of Adam with his life, to go in the opposite direction, not eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but partaking only of good.

The action of evil in the world continues, man again partakes of sin, eats the forbidden fruit, and evil distorts it again and again. World history repeats itself in the history of every person.

As by the disobedience of one many have become sinners, so by the obedience of one many shall be made righteous.

Rome. 5, 19

You are free; and if you want to perish, then your nature is changeable.

St. Macarius the Great

Satan, a creature endowed with free will, could be defeated only by a free creature, and this victory had to be won by Adam to defeat evil in paradise, as a man, and thus to realize his God-manhood. But he didn't. The Lord could, as He can, by His omnipotence, forbid evil to be present in the world, and simply destroy it by His perfect word. But He acted differently, because He gave free will to the living thing that He created, both to angels and to man. And once God has given a person freedom, He never takes it away.

God saves man in a different way: He Himself becomes Man in this world, takes upon Himself human nature in its entirety, in order to conquer evil not as God, but precisely as Man, and then to give each person the opportunity to commune with God again in order to win again. John defeats Satan in all the power of His human nature, in all the fullness of its communion with God, so that each of us too may be given the opportunity to overcome evil again and again by our free will, partaking of good.