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Request

Good morning,

here is my topic in brief:

I rely on the fact that God knows everything in advance and that He is Almighty.

1) Having created Adam and Eve with their weaknesses, he already knew what they could do and therefore He created this “vale of tears”. So He is solely responsible.

2) Everything that followed, therefore, is only a consequence. For example, He knew what Noah’s contemporaries would do, but He killed all of them willingly .A  murderer is someone who kills voluntarily.

CONCLUSION: In all honesty and sincerity I believe that God is both GOOD and WICKED.

Thank you for your sincere reply and greetings.

Carlo

Response from the priest

Thank you, Carlo,

for having summarized the two questions and so I privilege you by passing your email in front of the many waiting.

1. For the first question: it is as if you, having begotten a son who in due time becomes evil, and through this you become evil so as to deserve to be brought to court together with him and to be punished.

If the judge condemned you, you would tell him that he is an unjust and evil judge.

Well, you have given God the same unjust and evil sentence.

2. Having endowed man with freedom is not a condemnation to which God subjected man, but it is one of the highest gifts He gave him.

It is for this reason that man is superior to all existing realities in our visible world.

Freedom is perfection.

And God did not give it to man so that he can do evil, but so that creatively, with love and with merit, he expresses his potential and his life.

“He did not command anyone to be ungodly and gave no one permission to sin” (Sir 15:20).

3. The Second Vatican Council recognizes that “freedom in man is the highest sign of the divine image. God wanted to leave man “in the hands of his counsel” (Sir 15:14) so ​​that he spontaneously seeks his Creator, and freely reaches full and blessed perfection by adhering to him “(Gaudium et spes, 17).

4. St. Thomas had already stated that “man is similar to God not for the body, but for the soul, which has a free and incorruptible will” (Expositio in Symbolum Apostolorum) and that for freedom he is ” cause of his own will “,” principle of his works … and potestative over his own actions “(Sum theological, I-II, prol.).

5. Furthermore, God did not create Adam and Eve with “their weaknesses”.

Our first parents came out of the hand of God whole and perfect.

In Ez 28.12 we read:“ Thus says the Lord: you were a model of perfection, full of wisdom, perfect in beauty. In Eden, God’s garden, you were covered with every precious stone… Your heart was proud of your beauty ”.

Weaknesses arose after original sin because they found themselves inclined to evil.

6. The second statement is blasphemous to say the least. In fact, you write: “For example, He knew what Noah’s contemporaries would do, but He killed all of them willingly. A murderer is someone who kills voluntarily ”.

Well, the sacred text says that “every man had perverted his conduct on earth” (Gen 6:12).

Now, as happened with Adam and Eve, doing evil was the same as depriving oneself of something precious, of protection.

Our ancestors after sin found themselves naked, that is, impoverished, unprotected. From that moment they placed themselves under the power of the evil one, to whom they knowingly opened the door.

Now our adversary “comes only to steal, kill and destroy” (Jn 10:10).

So it happened in the time of Noah.

Those men, escaped from divine protection, found themselves at the mercy of the one to whom they had submitted and suffered as a prefiguration the same fate as those who, for their actions in fact, choose to be eternally under the tyranny of demons.

7. Only Noah with his family “found grace in the eyes of the Lord. (…).

Noah was a just and upright man among his contemporaries and walked with God ”(Gn 6,8-9).

5. With the hope that what happened for Noah will happen for you and for me, I assure you of my prayers and I bless you.

Father Angelo