Monday, July 13, 2015
Youcat commented through CCC - Question n. 51 - Part II.
(Youcat answer - repeated) “God allows evil only so as to
make something better result from it” (St. Thomas Aquinas).
A deepening through
CCC
(CCC 40) Since our knowledge of God is limited, our language
about him is equally so. We can name God only by taking creatures as our
starting point, and in accordance with our limited human ways of knowing and
thinking. (CCC 310) But why did God not create a world so perfect that no evil
could exist in it? With infinite power God could always create something better
(Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, STh I, 25,
6). But with infinite wisdom and goodness God freely willed to create a world
"in a state of journeying" towards its ultimate perfection. In God's
plan this process of becoming involves the appearance of certain beings and the
disappearance of others, the existence of the more perfect alongside the less
perfect, both constructive and destructive forces of nature. With physical good
there exists also physical evil as
long as creation has not reached perfection (Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, SCG III, 71).
Reflecting and
meditating
(Youcat comment)
Evil in the world is an obscure and
painful mystery. Even the Crucified asked his Father, “My God, why have you
forsaken me?” (Mt 27:46). Much about it is incomprehensible. One thing, though,
we know for sure: God is 100 percent good. He can never be the originator of
something evil. God created the world to be good, but it is not yet complete.
In violent upheavals and painful processes it is being shaped and moved toward
its final perfection. That may be a better way to classify what the Church
calls physical evil, for example, a birth defect, or a natural catastrophe.
Moral evils, in contrast, come about through the misuse of freedom in the
world. “Hell on earth”—child soldiers, suicide bombings, concentration camps—is usually man-made. The
decisive question is therefore not, “How can anyone believe in a good God when
there is so much evil?” but rather, “How could a person with a heart and
understanding endure life in this world if God did not exist?” Christ’s death
and Resurrection show us that evil did not have the first word, nor does it
have the last. God made absolute good result from the worst evil. We believe
that in the Last Judgment God will put an end to all injustice. In the life of
the world to come, evil no longer has any place and suffering ends.
(CCC Comment)
(CCC 311) Angels and men, as intelligent and free creatures,
have to journey toward their ultimate destinies by their free choice and
preferential love. They can therefore go astray. Indeed, they have sinned. Thus
has moral evil, incommensurably more harmful than physical evil, entered the
world. God is in no way, directly or indirectly, the cause of moral evil (Cf.
St. Augustine, De libero arbitrio 1,
1, 2: PL 32, 1223; St. Thomas Aquinas, STh
I-II, 79, 1). He permits it, however, because he respects the freedom of his
creatures and, mysteriously, knows how to derive good from it: For almighty
God…, because he is supremely good, would never allow any evil whatsoever to
exist in his works if he were not so all-powerful and good as to cause good to
emerge from evil itself (St. Augustine, Enchiridion
3, 11: PL 40, 236).
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