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Dear Father Angelo,

First of all I want to convey to you my appreciation and gratitude for the wonderful service you perform: your answers are always restorative, precious pearls to keep.

I will not dwell too much on my ups and downs about the Faith and spiritual search and I would like to ask you two questions that are close to my heart, and in relation to which I have not yet obtained an answer that satisfies me in the light of sacred Doctrine and the Word: for this your answer would be precious to me.

The first relates to the subject of theodicy (I have seen the answers you have already given on the subject but none of them answer my question): how are cases of natural imperfection to be explained, with regard to the attributes of God, of those persons who, through no fault of their own or of others, are born malformed or with serious problems and are perhaps destined to live in suffering for a short time before dying?

Can we conclude that these unfortunate people have received less from God than other people (the majority) who are born with full psycho-physical potential and faculties and from this we can deduce that nature has been less perfect for them than for most?

But if, as it is true that nature emanates from God, does this mean that we must accept a kind of imperfection in God the Creator?

Or is their life (in many cases a short one)  full of suffering and characterised from the beginning by dysfunction and disease to be considered in itself perfectly equal to the normality of cases?

What answer can we give dear Father?

The other question is more conceptual and it is as follows: when we refer to God the creator, would it be better to refer to a first and single creative act of God or to a permanent creation?

If God absurdly did not exist for a second, should we not conclude that nothing more would exist, not even what God has already created?

Thank you very much and please remember my daughter in your prayers.

Kind regards,

Marco

Dear Marco,

1. the imperfections we find in the order of nature, and particularly in humans, are certainly not attributable to God, who is absolute perfection.

They stem from original sin, which not only caused our progenitors to lose God’s grace and preternatural gifts, but also partially corrupted the order of nature.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that with original sin “the harmony in which they had found themselves, thanks to original justice, is now destroyed: the control of the soul’s spiritual faculties over the body is shattered; the union of man and woman becomes subject to tensions, their relations henceforth marked by lust and domination. Harmony with creation is broken: visible creation has become alien and hostile to man. Because of man, creation is now subject «to its bondage to decay» (Rom 8,21). Finally, the consequence explicitly foretold for this disobedience will come true: man will «return to the ground», for out of it he was taken. Death makes its entrance into human history” (CCC 400).

As you can see, I have emphasised the expression “Because of man, creation is now subject «to its bondage to decay» (Rom 8,21)”.

2. However, it must be said that these imperfections or handicaps to which some people are subject from birth do not touch the essence of the person or human nature, but only certain accidental characteristics.

As persons, we are all equal. No one is more of a person or more perfect than another in that order.

All, therefore, are of equal dignity: man and woman, child and elderly person, those who are beginning their life’s journey and those who are concluding it, the sick and the healthy, the handicapped and the most powerful man in the world.

3. Equal and perfect as persons, men, however, “are not alike from the point of view of varying physical power and the diversity of intellectual and moral resources” (Gaudium et spes 29).

We would say that they are not equal in personality, within which there can be evolution and involution.

Personality concerns goods that are certainly important for an individual, but secondary (or incidental) to the dignity of the person. They concern, for example, health, physical fitness, gifts, virtues, skills, culture, life experience…

4. As you see, when speaking of human nature, one must distinguish between what is essential to human nature and what, while important, is not.

Some in this second aspect – from a human point of view – seem more unfortunate.

However, there is not only the present life.

On the contrary, the present life is for us humans only an essential condition for the enjoyment of eternal life.

It seems opportune to quote what the Magisterium of the Church has written in reference to eugenic abortion that intends to suppress children with some handicap: “A Christian’s outlook cannot be limited to the horizon of life in this world. He knows that during the present life another one is being prepared, one of such importance that it is in its light that judgments must be made. From this viewpoint there is no absolute misfortune here below, not even the terrible sorrow of bringing up a handicapped child. This is the contradiction proclaimed by the Lord: “Happy those who mourn: they shall be comforted” (Mt. 5:5). To measure happiness by the absence of sorrow and misery in this world is to turn one’s back on the Gospel.” (Declaration on procured abortion, 18.11.1974, no. 25).

What God has prepared for them, we can guess from those expressions that resound several times in the Gospel: “last will be first, and the first will be last” (Mt 20:16).

The last: that is, those who are considered by men as such.

But even here “the thoughts of men are vain” (Ps 94:11; 1 Cor 3:20).

5. Regarding the second question: by creation is meant the act by which God initiated the being of all things and also the act by which God preserves in existence.

This preservation is like a continued creation.

All creatures continue to exist because God gives them existence. They do not have the power to exist from themselves, but they have it from God.

St Thomas writes: “And hence even as God alone can create, so, too, He alone can bring creatures to nothing, and He alone upholds them in being, lest they fall back to nothing” (Summa Theologica, III, 13,2).

I gladly remember you in my prayers and, together with you, your dear daughter.

I wish you well and bless you.

Father Angelo