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Why didn’t God prevent evil?
Couldn’t God have made creation so that evil never happened? Yes, he could have, says St. Justin Martyr. But God knew that creation would be better if both we and the angels had free will.
Couldn’t God have cut off the serpent in the beginning, so that he never existed, rather than saying, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed” (Gen. 3:15)? Couldn’t he have created a multi- tude of people all at once?
But since God knew that it would be good, he created both angels and hu- man beings free to do what is righteous, and he set periods of time during which he knew it would be good for them to be able to exercise their free will. And be- cause he also knew it would be good, he made general and particular judgments. But each one’s freedom of will was limited.
Thus Scripture says this when the tower was destroyed and the languages were divided and altered: “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one lan- guage; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them” (Gen. 11:6). –St. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 102
IN GOD’S PRESENCE, CONSIDER . . .
Do I tend to second-guess God, asking why he allowed Satan to fall and Adam and Eve to sin? Wouldn’t it help if I remembered that these things are a consequence of the divine gift of free will that God gave not only to the angels but to me as well?
CLOSING PRAYER
Guardian Angel, God made us both with free will. Help me always to choose the right path, as you do, so that in the end we may both adore our Creator in Heaven.
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