If God the Father Almighty, Creator of the ordered and good world, cares for all His creatures, why does evil exist? To this question as pressing as inevitable, as painful as it is mysterious, no quick answer will suffice. And 'the whole of Christian faith that is the answer to that question, the goodness of creation, the drama of sin, the patient love of God who comes to meet man by his covenants, the redemptive Incarnation of his son with the gift of the Spirit, the gather the Church, with the power of the sacraments and his call to a blessed life to which free creatures are invited to give their consent, but which, by a terrible mystery, can also escape.
There is a point of the Christian message that is not for a certain appearance, an answer to the problem of evil. But because God did not create a world that perfect spot for not being able to be any harm? "In his infinite power, God could always create something better" (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, 25, 6).
However, in his infinite wisdom and goodness God freely willed to create a world "in a state of journeying" towards its ultimate perfection. This process of becoming, in God's plan involves, with the appearance of certain beings and the disappearance of others, the more perfect alongside the less perfect, both constructive and destructive forces of nature. So, along with the physical good there is also physical evil as long as the establishment has reached its perfection (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, 3, 71). The angels and men, intelligent and free creatures, have to walk to their ultimate destiny for a free choice and preferential love. They can then deviate. In fact, they have sinned. It 's so that the world has entered the moral evil, immeasurably more serious than the physical pain. God is not in any way, directly or indirectly, the cause of moral evil. However, respecting the freedom of His creatures, permits, and, mysteriously, knows how to derive good:
"For God Almighty. . ., Being supremely good, would never allow any evil to exist in his works, if it was not powerful enough and good to draw from the same evil well (St. Augustine, Enchiridion de fide, spe et charity, 11, 3).
Thus, over time, we can discover that God in his almighty providence can bring a good from the consequences of an evil, even moral, caused by his creatures: "It was not you," said Joseph to his brothers, "a sent me here, but God. . . if you thought evil against me, God meant it for good. . . to live a great people "(Genesis 45, Genesis 50 8, 20 Tobias 2, 12-18).
From the greatest moral evil ever committed, the rejection and murder of the Son of God, caused by the sins of all men, God, by the superabundance of his grace, drew the greatest of goods: the glorification of Christ and our redemption. With this, however, evil becomes good. "Everything works for good to them that love God" (Romans 8:28). St. Thomas More, shortly before his martyrdom, consoled his daughter by saying:
"Nothing happens that God forbid, and I'm sure that whatever happens, bad as it appears, will in fact always for the better" (St. Thomas More, Letter to Margaret Roper to Alice Alington the conversation with his father in prison, Liturgy of the Hours, III, Office of Readings for June 22).
Julian of Norwich says, "I learned by the grace of God I had to stay firm in your faith, and then I firmly and fully believe that everything would be over for good. . . : You'll see that same sort of thing will be for every good "(Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, 32). We firmly believe that God is Lord of the world and history. But the ways of his providence often remain unknown. Only at the end, when it will end our imperfect knowledge and we will see God "face to face" (1 Corinthians 13:12), fully know the streets, along which, even through the dramas of evil and sin, God will lead the its creation until the rest of that Saturday (Genesis 2:2) final, in view of which he created heaven and earth. [Catechism of the Catholic Church].
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