By Fr Joseph B Francis –
A frequently asked question
One of the questions frequently asked by many is: why should the innocent suffer? What wrong have they done? Why should God be punishing them if they are innocent? If they are basically good and God too loves them, as obviously he does, then why did not God in his Providence prevent this accident or this fatal disease? After all he is omniscient, all knowing and so could he not have arranged these differently?
In spite of all the prayer why is he silent and not do anything in this situation? He is treating the evil people better; they seem to succeed in all their undertakings and are prosperous because of their corrupt practices but the good man for all his honesty has to live in poverty and misery. Why should this be if, indeed, there is God’s Providence?
In war and in terrorist attack the target may be some specific persons or things but other innocent bystanders are killed. The perpetrators get away with it by saying that it could not be helped or that it is only collateral damage. Some would even blame it on God’s will. The natural calamities such as tsunami, earthquakes, floods, droughts, storms are also laid at the door of God as if it were his responsibility; he is found fault with and faith in a good and loving God is shaken to the core. How do we answer these and similar questions?
Some basic truths which have to be upheld
What should be clear for us are:
I. God is all knowing (omniscient), all powerful (almighty)
II. He is good and wishes good, he cannot but wish good because his nature is good and the object of his willing is always the good
III. His wish is that all find joy, peace and happiness even while on earth and come to enjoy heaven with him in eternity
IV. In his Providence he provides for all, for the lilies of the field and birds of the air as well as the human beings
V. The world that God created is not perfect; it cannot be God and hence there are imperfections; this world need not be the best possible world; all we can say is that it is relatively the best possible world according to God’s choice and it is endowed with God-given laws of nature. Everything goes on with clock like precision and even what appears as exceptions are part of the rule but we do not know the rules fully (we are still discovering them and such discoveries will go on till the very end of the world) and our interference often upsets the balances in nature and we suffer as a consequence
VI. The human being was also created good and in the very image of God; he too is inviolable person endowed with intelligence and free will; using these, instead of acknowledging God his creator he chose to make himself the centre of reality and so sinned; he suffered and still suffers the consequence of his sinful action
VII. God so loved the world i.e., all humans that he gave his only begotten Son (Jn 3. 16-17) that we may be saved and find joy and peace once again.
The distinction between physical evils and moral evils
When we speak of evil we should clearly distinguish between physical evil and moral evil. Physical evil refers to all that appears to us as evil and causing us some physical or psychological supposed harm. But the question is: really speaking, are there physical evils since all that God created is good and so all of physical reality is good?
Nature, as God-given, has its own laws and everything follows these and what to us appears evil has taken place only according to certain physical laws. If there is a tsunami it is because of the earthquakes and if there is an earthquake it is because of the shifting of the tectonic plates. If there are floods or volcanic eruptions they are because of the other physical factors governing the laws of nature.
So what appears as evil is in fact good. If we fall ill, it is due to disease bearing germs or viruses that have attacked us and we on our own had been careless and exposed ourselves to them or happened to contract them. Even a road accident follows certain physical laws of dynamics: objects in motion, trajectory, speed, attention of drivers, quality of vehicles etc. We cannot go against such laws nor is there need for God to be intervening every now and then to set right the world and what happens there, even changing laws if needed.
Even in genuine physical miracles, the laws of nature are not removed or destroyed but suspended temporarily in order to manifest a sign according to God’s will but we cannot expect God to be working miracles always; the daily miracles of life and the wonderful way in which God has ordained the world with its physical laws are sufficient. Similarly even psychological laws that work in human being’s psyche follows certain general observed lines and there are still many laws of psychology that we have not yet discovered nor have we fully understood the human intelligence, free will or the human psyche. Therefore where is the need to blame God for everything?
The real evil
The real evil on the contrary is only moral evil and this is caused by the human beings. They are the authors for it and are responsible. Using the intelligence and free will (which God will never interfere in) we wilfully chose to do evil, go against God, go against the good of nature itself, misusing it in many ways and suffer the consequences!
So we should learn to humble ourselves in front of physical or psychological disasters that we happen to face at some time or other. We are not the creators or masters of these. We just bow down to the inevitable and do what we can to alleviate whatever suffering accrues from these. We ask God’s help to lighten our burdens and that is within good reasoning. God who works in so many ways could indeed soften the blows; help us to tide over the difficulty etc. But of the moral evils such as jealousies, quarrels, divisions, greed, lust, hatred etc (Cf. Gal 5. 19-21), we are the authors. We have to repent for these; ask god’s pardon and with his assistance turn a new leaf in our life.
It is quite obvious that we Catholics do not believe in fate, predestination etc. Our eternity depends on God’s Grace as well as the all important fundamental, free human choice. God will neither pull us into heaven no push us into heaven against our will. It is St. Augustine who says that God who made us without us (i.e., did not ask our permission before creating us; he would have if we had existed before but we did not exist!) will not save us without us (i.e., without our concurrence).