IgnatiusInsight.com: "Are God's Ways Fair?" by Ralph Martin

Are God's Ways Fair? | Ralph Martin | An excerpt from Is Jesus Coming Soon? A Catholic Perspective on the Second Coming. 
      
Today when the truth of judgment is spoken, certain questions and objections are often posed. Let us briefly consider them here before concluding our treatment of the topic.
      
Is God Fair in His Judgments?
"Modern man" protests that a God who would allow people to be damned is unfair. Since God is love, many argue, the notions of punishment and hell must either be Old Testament leftovers or first-century cultural superstitions that are not really part of the revelation of Scripture.
      
This line of reasoning has a number of problems.

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Comments

[Mark Brumley]

This is an interesting passage from Ralph Martin's book. It would be great if people would read it and discuss it. It seems to be to be essentially correct, yet open to reasonable questions.

While it is true that modern man wants to put God in the dock, to use C.S. Lewis' expression, we can ask whether endowing man with reason in the world as it is, is tantamount to requiring that he at least raise the question of whether what Christianity says about God can be reconciled with the experience of evil in the world. Is it necessarily the case that one is arrogantly standing in judgment of God when one raises the question of how God can be all-powerful and all-loving and all-wise while allowing the innocent to suffer? It would be interesting to hear people's response to this.

[MenTaLguY]

While it's true that many such questions are not really asked in good faith, some are -- isn't theodicy a legitimiate discipline, after all?

[Mark Brumley]

Yes. St. Thomas Aquinas presents the existence of evil as one of two objections he finds against the existence of God. Although he answers the objection, he does not suggest that posing the question necessarily involves bad faith.

[Ed Peters]

Mark, small point here, but did TAQ say there (where, exactly?) that evil "exists"? Or was what just a shorthand way of referring to a fact we all know about....thx, edp.

[Mark Brumley]

I don't have the Latin text handy to see what he wrote in the original. However, the English translation at New Advent gives the objection as follows:

Objection 1. It seems that God does not exist; because if one of two contraries be infinite, the other would be altogether destroyed. But the word "God" means that He is infinite goodness. If, therefore, God existed, there would be no evil discoverable; but there is evil in the world. Therefore God does not exist.

The word "exists" does not appear there, although he does state that there "is" evil in the world.

In his reply to the objection, he states:

Reply to Objection 1. As Augustine says (Enchiridion xi): "Since God is the highest good, He would not allow any evil to exist in His works, unless His omnipotence and goodness were such as to bring good even out of evil." This is part of the infinite goodness of God, that He should allow evil to exist, and out of it produce good.

In his reply, he states that God allows "evil to exist."

Now, the issue I suspect that you are raising is whether this use of the word "exist" is intended to refer to evil as a being, rather than the deprivation of being. I think the use of the term "exist" in the translation quoted above is intended to convey the notion that evil is real, as opposed to imaginary, but not that it is a "being." "Being" is good in itself.

[Ed Peters]

cool. thx.