Thursday, July 16, 2015
Youcat commented through CCC - Question n. 51 - Part V.
(Youcat answer - repeated) “God allows evil only so as to
make something better result from it” (St. Thomas Aquinas).
A deepening through
CCC
(CCC 385) God is infinitely good and all his works are good.
Yet no one can escape the experience of suffering or the evils in nature which
seem to be linked to the limitations proper to creatures: and above all to the
question of moral evil. Where does evil come from? "I sought whence evil
comes and there was no solution", said St. Augustine (St. Augustine, Conf. 7, 7, 11: PL 32, 739), and his own
painful quest would only be resolved by his conversion to the living God. For
"the mystery of lawlessness" is clarified only in the light of the
"mystery of our religion" (2 Thess 2:7; 1 Tim 3:16). The revelation
of divine love in Christ manifested at the same time the extent of evil and the
superabundance of grace (Cf. Rom 5:20). We must therefore approach the question
of the origin of evil by fixing the eyes of our faith on him who alone is its
conqueror (Cf. Lk 11:21-22; Jn 16:11; 1 Jn 3:8).
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 287) The truth about creation is so important for all
of human life that God in his tenderness wanted to reveal to his People
everything that is salutary to know on the subject. Beyond the natural
knowledge that every man can have of the Creator (Cf. Acts 17:24-29; Rom
1:19-20), God progressively revealed to Israel the mystery of creation. He who
chose the patriarchs, who brought Israel out of Egypt, and who by choosing
Israel created and formed it, this same God reveals himself as the One to whom
belong all the peoples of the earth, and the whole earth itself; he is the One
who alone "made heaven and earth" (Cf. Isa 43:1; Pss 115:15; 124:8;
134:3).
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