Yet lucifer knew that in his heart he desired evil, power, and dominion over others out of some kind of enmity. Put blankly he was convinced that he was better than Christ and better than even his Father which ultimately showed when he came out in open rebellion. He also knew that if his knowledge was removed by the veil and only the intelligence(ability to recognize and choose truth over error) he had truly internalized would show through, that he would almost assuredly fail at obtaining celestial exaltation because he would not have the knowledge needed to continue in guile. Being fully unmasked during this life test was an unacceptable risk for him. It was unthinkable to lose all he had obtained by guile and veiled piety. So in his mind he had no choice. A tiny possibility of supplanting God and obtaining the dominion he desired was better than a lower kingdom where he would have no eternal increase. He had to go for the long shot.

Whats the long shot? Majority vote aka common consent. A majority vote for something wrong does not make it right. But the Fathers respect for agency allows us to use our agency even to disobey him. He will force no man to heaven. We have many examples in scriptures and modern time where the agency of the people is respected even to their own condemnation. Most notably and easily applicable to this case though would be when samuel was approached by the elders of Israel, the church and peoples representatives, to give them a king.

God warned them that that deposing him for an earthly King was a terrible idea that would ultimately result in their slavery and destruction. They didn’t care. They still wanted a king. So God then directed his prophet to give them what they wanted. He had to honor the agency of the majority of the people even if it was going to bring terrible harm to them. I think this principle is what lucifer secretly or openly hoped to trigger in his favor.

The war in heaven is a term I always thought was confusing. I mean no matter what everybody knew God would win right? No. If that were true in the minds of those in rebellion then why would they simply go to their inevitable defeat? What if there was a very real possibility that if lucifer had swayed a majority to depose Father and install him to rule over them that Father by his very nature and respect for eternal laws including agency, would have be bound to honor it? If thats the case then i can see exactly why this would be called a war in heaven because it would have had very real consequences and risks fraught with very real chances that if a majority was reached lucifers forces would override the agency, by majority vote, of the Fathers remaining children.

There is nothing that tells us the third part that followed lucifer were truly 33.3% of his children. It is only said that it was the third part. They could have been 49.99999%. There could have been a third part of maybe 10% who were truly valiant in the defense if Father. And the remaining third part could have been fence sitters that struggled but eventually threw their lot in with father tipping the scales against lucifer. This the kind of war of ideas with very real consequences that could have engendered the kind of hatred and vitriol that lucifers and his followers harbor towards those who formerly were their brethren and sisters.

If this is true then we should be careful the changes we clamor for. Ultimately God will respect our agency. That is the difference between him and the adversary. The other poster makes good points that the same war continues with essentially the same sides today. But believing either of the major political parties represents good or evil anymore is naive. They are both corrupt to the core. Imho