So I get that Lucifer has emotional and self worth issues to the end of the universe and back, but why did he think he needed to become God to be worthy of Chloe and her love? Even for him it seems over the top.
He thought it precisely because it was over the top. Even if, all other things being equal, he had succeeded in becoming God to prove himself worthy of Chloe (which would've been impossible), it wouldn't have been enough.
Because it's not about Chloe, it's not about God, it's not about any of that. It's about Lucifer and his fear that he's unworthy.
One of the most important--if not THE most important--through-lines of the entire series is the idea of therapy. Often, a goal of therapy is to name fears and address them. Again and again, Lucifer returns to this fear of unworthiness. And this fear goes back ... well, forever.
So, Lucifer's been trapped in an ever-escalating cycle where his fears of failure and unworthiness fester. Psychologically, this leads to all sorts of traits we're familiar with--complete hedonism, denial, depression, perfectionism, anger, self-harm, blaming others, avoiding attachments that might hurt him more. Even when he succeeds at something important, the buoyant effect it has on him is temporary because he's never addressing the deeper issues. He's putting band-aids on a mortal wound. Every time, the success needs to be bigger to get the same effect. It's like chasing a high. And then the low that follows? Gets lower and lower and lower.
Michael didn't make Lucifer afraid of being unworthy. He just reflected back the fear that already existed (and then he used it against his brother 'cause he's a dick that way). Lucifer is still fixating on the external, though. Blaming God, then blaming Michael, then setting himself an all-but-impossible goal of proving himself worthy to someone who has (as she says so pointedly) already made her feelings perfectly clear.
The issue is that when Lucifer looks inside himself, he still sees this failure. So he projects all over the place. He convinces himself that Chloe may say she cares about him now, but it's only because she hasn't seen what a cowering, unworthy, useless failure he actually is. And, in Lucifer's mind, it's inevitable that she'll find out. Then she'll leave him. He'll disappoint her. Just like he disappoints everyone, eventually. He'll be metaphorically cast into an even worse, even darker, even lonelier hell. I don't think Lucifer subscribes to the idea that "it's better to have loved and lost than never have loved at all."
The cycle means that Lucifer's fears are also self-fulfilling prophecies--because that happens a lot with fear.
Lucifer couldn't "become God" until he found a reason to do so that wasn't tied to his own sickly, stunted self-worth. That wasn't tied to proving himself to something external. Instead, it's tied to something that's even more a part of Lucifer than his fear of unworthiness: his belief in fairness, in justice. Desire not in the material sense, but in the spiritual.
From a place of love, he looks at the system as it exists and says, "This is not fair. This is not just. It needs to change. I need to change it."
Not for power, not for personal gain, not to "win." (I maintain there's still some hubris in thinking he's the one who has to do it, but I suspect that we'll get some fallout from that in S6--I'm going to write about that more in a later speculation post, though.)
And we do know that above all things, Lucifer is an expert in fair. And once he finally stops living his own hell loop of endless self-torture (unworthiness) over and over, he can walk through the door and be free. Actually heal. Like Mr. Said Out Bitch. Like punishing Michael but not killing him.
Linda says, "Maybe you should be a therapist."
And the truth is, I suspect that's what--as God--he'll become. Not distant and unknowable and mysterious ways. The guide who can't fix things for you, but who can concoct the perfect plan to show you how to get out by yourself. Maybe he'll answer questions with questions, but the goal will be freedom--not endless self-recrimination.
And a final quick thing I want to mention (even though the heaven/hell thing is something I want to write an entirely different essay about) ... it's not just hell that needs fixing. In heaven, Chloe didn't remember the things that made her sad. To be content in heaven, she had to forget Trixie, Lucifer, Dan. Is it really eternal bliss if, to be there, you have to forget the people you loved?
I don't think Lucifer will think so.
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