The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1917-02-24
POPULAR APOLOGETlCS.
Adapted from the German of Rev
Peter Mikes, S. j., by Rev. James
Watcher.
LXVIII. The Problem of Evil.

sible for me to believe in personal
and Almighty God is the terrible
misery in the world. A good God can
allow no evil.
Answer: That there is much
misery in the world is true; that
much of it is the natural consequence
of unbridled passions, of open and
secret sins and crimes against ones
self and others, is scarcely less true
In spite of all that we do not deny
that many suffer a great deal from
things of which they are personally
innocent. This fact as riddle for
a thinking man which can not always
be solved; but to deny on this &C
count the existence of personal, in
tinitely good, wise, and almighty God
is unreasonable. when once it has
been evidently proved that God ex-
lists, and is infinitely good; the evils
of this world cannot be attributed to
the absence of wise and benevolent
Providence, even if the existence of
those evils remains to a large extent
a riddle to us. A man who waited
to render homage to his Creator till
he had solved all the problems, to
the solution of which his curiosity
might urge him, would act far more
absurdly than a child who would re-
fuse to honor and obey his parents
till they had justified to his mind all
the details of their housekeeping
The distance between a childs
mental capacity and that of his par
ents is, after all, finite: but Gods
mind is infinitely above ours"
(Boedder, S. j., Natural Theology, p.
39D.
y The real evil and the principal
source of the social misery is the
moral evil, sin, especially grievous
sin, which, when not repented of and
forgiven, does not only torture man
in this life, but will separate him
eternally from God and thus make
him miserable.
God gives man real liberty, and
thereby the possibility of SHINING, be-
cause man can abuse his liberty and
can act. contrary to the divine will
Therefore not God, but man is the
author of sin.
God does not want sin and can not
want it. He forbids it under penalty
of the seYerest puniShments, nay, as
Revelation teaches, under exclusion
from the vision of God, which con
stitutes mans eternal happiness. He
gives to every man sufficient grace
that he can avoid sin and use his
liberty Alright. But if man wants to
abuse his freedom, God can not be
bound to prevent such a wicked man
to abuse his liberty. Such a one in
deed casts himself into the greatest
misery, but it is his own fault 1t is
true, God could give to every man
so much grace that he would of his
own free choice avoid sin; but if He
had to do that, God would have to
give just to the wicked the greatest
measure of grace. But why He has
set definite bounds to His liberality,
is one of the adorable mysteries of
His freedom.
In spite of that God would prevent
sin if it did not serve His wisest
ends. Not the welfare of the crea-
ture is the end and aim of God in
creating-that is only of secondary
importance, but a higher end is and
must be to Him His own glory. This
He attains by the salvation as we'll
as by the damnation of man; it is
in the power of man whether he
70 ole
unspeakable bliss or His justice in
eternal misery.
81 The physical evils: pain, sick
ness, death, hunger, need and misery,
are certainly hard often very hard;
but it is always true that they do
not exclude man from his last end,
eternal salvation. He who limits the
existence of man to this perishable,
earthly life, to him the existence of
evil in the world must indeed remain
an unsolved riddle. But if this life
is only the preparation for another,
where there will be no more evil,
then only that can be an evil in the
true sense of the word, which makes
the attainment of that life either diff
cult or impossible. But there is not
the nature of temporal evils. Whether
they help or hinder man in the attain
ment of his eternal end, depends
after all on mans attitude towards
them. If he wants to, they are for
him indeed a hard but successful
school of virtue; they give him al
ways chance to become morally
strong in the struggle, or they adj
monish him not to be entangled by
earthly striVings, but to keep his eye
on things of lasting value above this
perishable life.
Hence there are not lacking wise
reasons that God may permit evil.
We say: permit, for evil as such is
no direct object of the divine will,
as no one can wish anything just
because it is an evil. No doubt God
could create world in which there
would be less evil; but He need not
do So Otherwise He would have to
create the very best one, which how
ever is not possible. Whatever ex-
lists outside of God is by it's very ma
ture limited and imperfect and there
fore the source of many evils. Every
thing could be more perfect; to be