The World: Very Good.
Last
week’s article began a series looking at what Jesus Christ and the Bible tell
us about the world, particularly our current up-side-down world where lies
abound, and how we should live in it. It all begins with Genesis 1:1: “In the
beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” God also says all that He
created is “good” (Gen 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 20, 25) and “very good” (Gen 1:31).
Now,
really, is everything in the world good? How can it be? In this crazy, evil
world?
I
know a guy who regularly says, “Well, we live in dualism,” or that things are this
way “so long as we live in a dualistic universe.” He’s part of a crowd of folks
in the world who believe that in order for a god of light and good to create
matter (or density), that there had to be a corresponding god of darkness and
evil, and both must always be in balance. They believe nothing could exist
without that balance of light/dark, good/evil. That’s their “dualism.” I hear
it as a sort of fatalism, a big sigh of “well, it’s just that way.”
St.
Augustine says even the “pagans” (Greek philosophers) agree that God is all
powerful and therefore supremely good. Such a God would not “allow anything
evil to exist among his works were he not so omnipotent and good that he can
bring good even out of evil. For what else is that which is called evil but a
removal of good?”
Augustine
illustrates this idea of evil as only being a removal of good in terms of
normal bodily decay. “In the bodies of animals, to be afflicted with diseases
and wounds is nothing other than to be deprived of health: the aim of treatment
is not to make the evils which were in the body, such as diseases and wounds,
move from where they were to somewhere else, but rather that they should cease
to exist, since a wound or a disease is not in itself a substance but a defect
in the substance of flesh.”
Did
you catch that? Augustine is saying that evils such as diseases and wounds do
not have an existence in themselves; they are just defects of the flesh. “The
flesh itself is the substance, a good thing to which those evil things, those
removals of the good, known as health, occur.” The good of health of the animal
returns when the evil of disease is gone.
What
if a diseased animal dies, hasn’t evil prevailed? No. The animal has died and
ceased to exist, therefore the evil is also gone. The disease is a compromise
of the animal’s health. When the evil of disease overcomes the animal and it
dies, evil ends. It never had its own existence.
Yes,
St. Augustine’s perspective is initially surprising. Evil as not having its own
existence but only as removal of a good? Only good having existence? Yes,
that’s it.
Then
a whole lot of the world makes sense. The world IS GOOD. You understand why it
is an absolute truth that “in everything God works for good with those who love
Him” (Ro 8:28). God of inexhaustible power can make absolutely everything work
for good – except for one big thing that remains within God’s goodness: free
will. With the gift of free will intelligent beings (angels and humans) have
the possibility of choosing against God’s goodness. That is the evil – when we
choose against good, removing the good. More on free will next week.
But for this week, remember that in God’s creation and plan, God did not create evil, suffering, deception, or lies. The world God created, the world that exists today, is still 100% completely entirely ALL GOOD. The evil we see, we create, God only allows because in His greater power, He can and will bring greater good out of it all if we cooperate with God in love. Have hope! Do not be discouraged!
Dibby Allan Green has a BA in Religious Studies (Westmont College, 1978) and MA in Theology (Augustine Institute, 2019), is a lay Catholic hermit, and a parishioner of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish.