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In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
We saw in our last lesson that the Creation is a permanent act.
God didn't create the world and put it aside
as a man who makes a machine and then dissociates himself from it.
The world owes every moment of its existence to God's being.
Thus, the care that God takes of created cosmos is called Providence.
What is Providence?
Literally it means "taking care of, ahead of time."
In Christian doctrine, Divine Providence is the name given to
God's taking care of this world.
God Who is Almighty, also knows the future
as He knows the past as He knows the present.
However, this shouldn't lead us to believe that God knows the future things the way we do.
We, human beings, don't have total control over what we know of the future,
and often we don't have any control at all.
For instance, we know that the sun will be rising at a certain time on a particular day
and there is nothing we can do about it.
We stand at a particular point in time and try to guess the future;
it's like standing on an endless rope and trying to figure out what lies at distance beyond our field of vision.
God, as it were, stands at what we might call the center of time
and see all the moments of time and their contents at once.
And we mustn't forget that for Him to know and to will and to do are the self-same action.
Only men use a calendar
and in the world, only they can tell the difference between one day and the next day.
Each day they do things;
and the sum total of their doings constitutes what goes under the name of the history.
He who directs history is God.
In this massive movement toward a goal set by God, at the best, all that men do is to help God.
Those whose consciences are blinded work against God and help the Devil.
But God is good and almighty, His will is bound to prevent in the end.
It's impossible to believe in God seriously without, at the same time, siding with Him in all conflicts wherein either His
or the Devil's will is to prevail, temporarily.
Belief in God as Father is a commitment.
Some people avoid real commitment in what they say
and in what they do, by professing belief in a thing that they call "Supreme Power"
This is total nonsense for it makes no difference to anybody - including those who profess belie "in" this "Supreme Power" -
whether such a thing, even if it exists, is believed or not.
Belief in a "Supreme Power" is a cowardly attitude of non-commitment and self-deception.
It's a waste of one's freedom.
Christians believe not in a nondescript "Supreme Power",
but in God who requires that we live according to a set of values
and Who has ways of realizing His Purpose in history whether or not this man or that woman chooses to live according to His will.
The certain goodness of the world's destiny is the only valid ground for
optimism.
This belief is a real incentive toward acts of goodness in spite of the difficulty that often accompanies the performance of such acts.
In other words, we will be meaningfully inclined to do good if and when we are sure that in the end good, and not evil, will prevail.
Belief in God the Father gives us this surety.
Moreover, the certainty of goodness of this world's final destiny provides grounds for the conversion of evildoers.
They will renounce their evil ways because they will see that to do is to side with the truth.
But, the question has been insistently asked, if God is good and if He is almighty,
how is evil possible?
Before answering this question,
we must observe that an occurrence is evil only when it harms senselessly people or animals,
when these are being harmed for somebody else's selfish reasons.
Then there are two questions to be answered:
Of these two questions the first is the more important and the answer to it is simple enough.
There are evil people because men are made free and some people use their freedom to serve the Devil.
The problem of freedom is treated elsewhere in this volume.
Let us note here in passing that much more evil is due to the insensitivity of people than is commonly realized.
Wars, ***, cruelty, rackets, broken families, accidents
are far from completing the list of evils due to human wickedness.
Many sicknesses, disasters resulting from fires and floods and earthquakes
are sometimes themselves due to human wickedness
and to lack of sensitivity, alertness and brotherly love,
it's a sign of nearsightedness to blame God for what men do in their freedom.
As to the second question - why do the righteous suffer? -
only God knows who is righteous and who is not.
Righteousness is a path to be followed over upward.
Not all people who think they are (thought to be) righteous are righteous.
Besides, things that look bad at a given time may turn out to be good in the long run.
In order to be able to judge the value (that's the goodness or badness) of a happening in a final way,
we ought to be able to see that happening as God does.
We ought to be able to see it as it stands in the midst of all the happenings in the universe
and as it's related to everything that taken place in the past, that takes place in the present and that will take place in the future.
But clearly, that's impossible for us to do.
The question of the suffering of the righteous ought to be taken by itself.
It must be considered in conjunction with the Christian faith in the risen life.
Through belief in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of men,
we can "feel for" our neighbor, be sensitive to his suffering and help him all we can.
And when it;s utterly impossible to remove suffering,
we offer it to God; when we must suffer, we suffer for His sake.
There is no other adequate way of either understanding or removing evil.
All valid theories about suffering and all efforts to remove it are an application of,
or a comment upon, the Christian doctrine on suffering.
In other words, suffering can neither be understood nor removed independently of the Cross of Jesus Christ.
Over and above our efforts directed at understanding evil,
we should try to remove it; and where it cannot be removed, we must share it.
But then sharing evil is really a way of removing it.
For example, charity is a way of sharing somebody else's poverty,
inasmuch as by giving five of your ten dollars
to an unfortunate neighbor you make yourself poorer for his sake.
You voluntarily reduced yourself to his condition, and his condition improves.
Or consider the case of a mother who has only her only child.
If you suffer with her, she will feel your compassion in the depths of her heart and she will feel considerably relived.
The practical problem with evil is not so much its existence as its distribution.
We accept, more or less indifferently, the fact that some teeth ache.
But we rebel against the world's imperfection when the teeth that ache are ours.
But no rebellion is a final solution.
We must have an overwhelming desire to remove all evil,
and then remove it by finding patiently the causes of things.
God is our heavenly Father
who cares for us should give us joy,
make us fearless in the face of adversity,
and eager to remove all evil.