Where does evil come from? It’s a question that often comes back: it’s not easy to understand why a person suffers, why they get sick? Or why a child is born into a disadvantaged family? What did he do wrong? Why him? In the following lines I will try to give you my answer.
Last year I recorded this podcast. I have adapted it a bit in light of a question that was asked to me by the public during a meeting I attended yesterday:
God is so perfect that he created imperfection. He created us. From the first words of the Book of Genesis: “God said, “Let there be . . .»” (Genesis 1,3) we encounter the almighty Word of God: “He speaks and everything is done…” (Ps 33, 9). Everything begins with an act of love: Creation, from which the entire universe arises: being from non-being, the fullness of good that fills the void of nothingness.
On the first day God created angels (Jubilees II, 1, 1-3), narrates the Book of Jubilees, a text from the 2nd century BC that we find in the Coptic Christian Bible (and also the Coptic Christian Catholic Bible) which admits him among the canons, while for us Roman Catholics he we consider it apocryphal. But behold, as creatures gradually distanced themselves from God, imperfection grew.
God loved his creatures so much that he granted them free will: the ability to make mistakes. The ability to choose between good and evil. Here it is, if also God created good, evil was born from an “excess of good”. Born, but not created. Born from a free choice. We read in Genesis: “God said: «Let there be light!». And there was light. God saw that the light was good.” (Genesis 1,3-4). The land and the sea water: “good thing” (see Genesis 1.10). The shoots and plants: “good thing” (see Genesis 1:12). Sun, moon and stars: “good thing” (see Genesis 1,16-18). Fish and birds: “good thing” (see Genesis 1.21). Animals: “good thing” (see Genesis 1.25). And then came man, created in the image of God: “very good thing” (see Genesis 1, 27-31). Man: a very good thing that God loved too much.
Man, like celestial creatures, was given the possibility of making mistakes: God left man “at the mercy of his own will” (Sirach 15.14). And the man was wrong. He was wrong in listening to the serpent (see Genesis 3.1-24). He made a mistake in shedding his brother’s blood (see Genesis 4,1-15.25). And a long chain of errors began that spanned wars, massacres and the worst abuses. Also passing through the worst sin committed in the history of humanity: the murder of the Son of God.
We often make mistakes because we fall prey to the demons of pride, envy and hatred. Or simply because we are unable to accurately evaluate the consequences of our actions. We are imperfect beings. And therefore fallible. This is why God always offers us his forgiveness.
And it is from up there, from the Cross on which we had nailed him with our own hands, from the Cross on which he ended up because he was betrayed by that creature that He had loved so much, that Christ’s ultimate forgiveness will come: «Father, forgive them for they know not what they do» (Luke 23.34).
The omnipotent God who created us, the omnipresent God who is always beside us, the omniscient God who knows our every thought, even before it is formulated in our head, never intervenes to condemn us, but always to forgive us. He did not even condemn Judas, his betrayer, who even ate from the same dish. He did not condemn Peter, who promised him eternal loyalty only to then deny him before the cock even crowed. He did not condemn Cain, who murdered his brother, but “he placed a mark on Cain so that no one finding him would kill him” (Genesis 4.15). Just as, before expelling Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, he had compassion for them and sewed them two tunics (see Genesis 3.21).
God loves us too much to stop us from making our own choices. To impose his will on us. He created us with love, but we did not love him back. God became incarnate, but we did not welcome him. He died for us, but we are the ones who murdered him. This is where evil comes from: from us who choose badly. From us who listen to the hiss of that serpent who is none other than a fallen angel, a celestial being who first chose badly. Let’s not complain about something that comes from us, from our gesture, from our free choice.
Source: La Buona Parola, Alessandro Ginotta’s blog https://www.labuonaparola.it
YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/c/AlessandroGinotta
Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/alessandro.ginotta
