The legend has it that Lucifer* was the "brightest" of angels, and/yet the first to "fall"... What does this mean?
It might mean that - of the pre-mortal spiritual Beings - Lucifer was the "highest". But highest in what? I would say consciousness. And higher meaning most God-like, most like The Creator.
The legend would then mean that the Being with most God-like consciousness (i.e. Lucifer) was the first Being to oppose God's creative plans.
Consciousness, awareness, agency, freedom... These are divine attributes; but do not bring with them a commitment to Good - Good being a commitment to Love, to divine creation based upon love.
Men of the modern world are on the one hand higher in consciousness than Men of the past - capable of greater agency and freedom; on the other hand Men are more evil Now than they were.
An analogy is children and adults - adults are (on average) higher in consciousness than children, and also adults are (on average) more evil than children.
Goodness is a choice, and those Beings higher in consciousness must choose evil - but the point is that they must choose; which is why they so often choose wrong. Children, on the other hand, are born with considerable innate goodness (spiritual connections, realism, common sense) and this makes them more spontaneously, passively, unconsciously good.
So perhaps Lucifer was the first angel who was capable of conscious and active choice, and needed to decide whether to commit to love and join-with the divine plan of salvation - but as a matter of fact chose to reject and oppose it.
Modern Men are similar to this primal situation in that (probably due to our pre-mortal natures) we seem to have been incarnated wit the tendency to attain higher (literally more God-lie) consciousness than Men of the past; and/but this brings with it the necessity of conscious, active and personal choice with respect to fundamental matters that less-conscious Men of the past simply accepted without awareness.
The majority of Modern men seem to have replicated the basic choice of Lucifer; but they could have done otherwise, just as Lucifer could have done otherwise.
Our world is full of Men who are "higher" in terms of awareness, agency, freedom and other divine attributes; yet choose to use these divine attributes to reject God's creative project.
Higher consciousness is intrinsically Good - it is growing-up, it is God-like - it is a direction God desires than Men should move.
We are more adult, grown-up in terms of consciousness; but like most adults this does not make us "better" morally (and in terms of values generally) than the less-conscious children we once were.
Our situation is that (in essence) we need consciously and freely to choose what (less conscious, less free) young children are born with innately and "automatically".
The adult is potentially better (i.e. more God-like) than a child, exactly because he is able to choose, indeed must choose - and is more responsible.
This could be expressed that God wants "colleagues" in divine creation, co-creators, or grown-up brothers and sisters - because thus may creation best be expanded and enriched. And creation "works" by Love - it is Love that harmonizes creation, and Love that ensures the direction of creation is Good.
So there is consciousness and there is Love - and the challenge (which seems most to have been failed) is for Men (as many Men as possible) to choose Love as the fundamental principle, to choose divine creation, to choose to ally with God.
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*"Lucifer" was probably the original Devil, the first leader of the anti-God faction; but I suspect he no longer holds that position. That "job" is perpetually contested, and has perhaps had several or many occupants.
