Before the Face of Providence: Understanding Freedom, Sin, and the Wisdom of God

Preamble

Few questions trouble the human heart more than this: If God is good, why is there evil?

It has vexed not only the fool who says in his heart “There is no God” (Ps. 13:1), but even those who love and serve Him. The so-called philosopher wrestles with it in his pride; the saint, in his tears. The sick man asks it in pain, the mother in sorrow, the soldier amid ruin, the penitent in temptation.

A set of questions posed by a faithful asking for clarifications in feedback to the catechism corner of my Sunday bulletin for the 18th Sunday After Pentecost drew attention to this topical theme.

The Catholic answer to the questions makes it clear that through all the shadows, whatever it may be, Providence reigns unshaken. 

Yes. God’s wisdom is like the sun behind the storm-cloud: unseen, but never absent. He permits what He could prevent, that He might draw forth from the wreckage of sin the triumph of grace. The same Hand that allows the wound pours in the balm and crowns the patient soul that endures.

The Questions

The faithful wrote:

Questions 

1. Is there anything in reality not created by God?

2. God created a pure soul but then created a weak body to accompany the soul and, as the ULTIMATE knower, knows all the tendencies of this weak body. Is this not true?

3. Also, God, as the ULTIMATE knower, knows those who will make use of His graces to gain salvation. Which means fatalism is true from the back door, despite the claim that humans are free moral agents? Of course fatalism here means strict determinism, the idea that all are predetermined to happen or not.

4. God is both perfectly merciful and perfectly just. But then the justice seems not perfect since if God created the Body with all the defects and tendencies and then allowed the devil to wreck havoc in this world against souls. In the end, each soul is judged despite the circumstances of this terrible world, which God allowed to go rogue? Is this really perfect justice?

5. Can't it be said that God created Satan and he went rogue and trillions of years later, God created us humans and put us together in his world with the same rogue personality whose angelic nature remained? God, being the ultimate knower, knows what this dark entity can do and yet put us with him here to test us? With our bodies with concupiscence? Is this justice, please?

These are questions I need clarity on.

The catechism that got this discussion started... 

Responses

1. Is there anything in reality not created by God?

Nothing that is was not created by God. Only nothingness is uncreated.

"All things were made by Him, and without Him was made nothing that was made” (John 1:3).

The Fathers teach with one voice that God is the sole Creator of all that is, and that every creature, as creature, is good. Even the devils, says St. Augustine, “were not created devils, but made so by their own will.” (De Civitate Dei, XI, 15.) Their nature was created good; their sin was their own corruption of that good.

Evil, therefore, has no substance or being of its own. It is not a thing made, but a good spoiled.

St. Augustine writes: 

 “Evil is not a substance, but the privation of good.” (Enchiridion, 11.) 

“Everything that exists is good insofar as it exists.” (Confessions, VII, 12.)

St. Thomas Aquinas confirms:

 “Being and good are convertible; hence every being, as being, is good. Evil is not a being, but the privation of being and good.” (Summa Theologiae, I, q.5, a.3.)

And St. Basil the Great says:

 “Evil is not a living and an animated substance, but a condition of the soul contrary to virtue.” (Homilia in Principium Proverbiorum.)

• Thus, all reality — all being — proceeds from God’s creative hand and is good in its essence.
• Corruption enters only where a created will departs from its proper order to the Creator.
• God made being; creatures made defect.
• What is real is God’s work; what is disordered is the creature’s misuse of His gifts.

2. God created a pure soul and a weak body. He knows its tendencies. Is this true?

Yes, it is true — but only half the story. God indeed created man with a pure soul and a body of clay, yet in the beginning this body was not weak. It was subject to the soul, harmonious, and radiant with grace. Weakness entered not by creation, but by corruption — through the sin of Adam. 

Original justice was the garment of strength; when it was torn by sin, the body became a rebel against the soul. Concupiscence, weariness, sickness, and death are not from God’s hand but from man’s disobedience. Yet, in His mercy, God did not leave us prisoners of our own ruin.

“Where sin abounded, grace did more abound.” (Rom. 5:20)

He who knows our dust also gives us His Spirit. The same God who permits the body’s frailty pours into the soul the power to rise above it. Thus the Christian, carrying his weakness like a cross, learns humility and earns a crown.

 “My grace is sufficient for thee; for power is made perfect in infirmity.” (2 Cor. 12:9)

Our weakness is the stage on which divine strength performs its miracles.

3. If God foreknows who will use grace, is not fatalism true?

No — God’s foreknowledge does not make fatalism true. He foresees all things, but He does not force them. His knowledge is eternal vision, not iron necessity.

 “Whom He foreknew, He also predestined.” (Rom. 8:29)

But to foreknow is not to compel. God sees from eternity what we will freely choose in time, just as a man on a mountain sees the traveler’s whole path without moving his feet for him.

St. Thomas teaches:

 God’s knowledge is the cause of things as the artist’s plan is the cause of his work — not by necessity, but by wisdom. (Summa Theol., I, q.14, a.8)

Grace moves, but does not drag. The soul remains free, yet dependent. Like a ship with the wind in its sails, man must still steer; the breeze of grace aids, but does not chain.

Fatalism is the creed of pagans; Providence is the faith of the saints.  Fatalism chains man; Providence governs with wisdom and freedom. God foreknows the victory of those who choose to fight with His grace — and His foreknowledge glorifies, not abolishes, their freedom.

4.  If God allows the devil and a fallen world, is His justice perfect?

Yes—His justice is perfect, though to our dim eyes it seems veiled in shadow. God owes His creatures nothing; all that He gives is sheer mercy.

“Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Gen. 18:25)

He permits the devil’s malice and the world’s ruin, not because He delights in suffering, but because He can draw from them a higher good. As St. Augustine says:

 “God would never allow evil to exist unless He were powerful enough to draw good from evil.” (Enchiridion, 11)

The devil’s hatred sharpens the virtue of the just; the world’s trials purify the heart; pain becomes the furnace of charity. Divine justice is not the smooth road of ease, but the narrow way that leads to a perfect crown.

In the end, every wound will be healed, every wrong made right, and the soul will see that even the thorns were woven into a garland of glory. Then it shall cry, with adoring awe:

 “Just and true are Thy ways, O King of ages.” (Apoc. 15:3)

5. If God created Lucifer, knowing he would become Satan, and then—ages later—placed mankind in the same world with that fallen spirit, does this not seem unjust? For God knew the devil’s cunning, allowed him to tempt weak human nature already burdened with concupiscence, and then judges men who fall under such trials. How can this be perfect justice?

Response:

At first glance, the mystery does seem severe: the Almighty creates a splendid angel who turns traitor, and then allows that same rebel to prowl among fragile creatures of clay. Yet this is not injustice but the wisdom of divine Providence, which draws harmony even from discord.

“Thou wast perfect in thy ways... till iniquity was found in thee.” (Ezech. 28:15)

God created Lucifer good, noble, and free. His rebellion was not foreordained, but freely chosen in pride. God foresaw it, but foreseeing is not causing; a king who foresees treason does not author the crime.

When man was later created, he too was made upright and armed with grace. The trial of temptation was not a cruel trap but a test of love and fidelity—as a soldier’s valor is proved in battle. Man’s fall was his own fault, not God’s cruelty.

 “God made man right: and he hath entangled himself.” (Eccles. 7:30)

Even after Adam’s sin, God’s mercy turned defeat into redemption. The devil was permitted to remain, not as an equal rival to God, but as an instrument of probation—a black background against which the gold of virtue gleams.

 “The life of man upon earth is a warfare.” (Job 7:1)

Concupiscence, born of sin, is not a curse without remedy; it is the arena in which grace triumphs. God knows the devil’s malice, but He also knows the immeasurable power of grace He pours into souls. No soul is left unarmed: the Cross, the Sacraments, the intercession of the Blessed Virgin, and the holy angels stand as fortresses around the faithful.

Thus, Divine Justice is not seen in sparing us the combat, but in promising a crown to those who fight with His strength. God allows the tempter only that His saints might be crowned victors.

In the end, when the warfare is over, we shall see that every snare of Satan was turned into a step toward sanctity, and we shall cry out with the redeemed:

 “O happy fault, which merited for us so great a Redeemer!” (Exsultet, Holy Saturday)

Summing Up

• All creation is God’s; all corruption is creature’s misuse.
• Grace restores, freedom cooperates, justice rewards, mercy redeems.
• He who seems to permit evil does so only to crown good — and thus, as St. Paul cries:

 “O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God!” (Romans 11:33).