What about those apparitions announcing that God is about to punish all humanity? Why shouldn’t God distinguish between good and evil?

Good evening, Father Angelo,

My name is Angelo, and I’d like to ask you this question.

God is considered good, and if He is good, He is also just, so how can we believe those apparitions that say God is ready to punish all humanity?

If we humans, despite being beasts, are capable of making the necessary distinctions, and not punishing children for their parents’ sins, or punishing an entire society if someone steals, why not God?

Don’t you think these pseudo-apparitions are false or of the opposite origin?

Best regards.

Priest’s answer

Dear friend,

1. To a visitor who asked me for an explanation of John 12:40, where Christ, quoting Isaiah’s words, says: “He blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, so that they might not see with their eyes and understand with their heart and be converted, and I would heal them” I responded as follows:

Dear Francesco,

1. According to the biblical and Eastern style, what God alone permits and does not prevent is often presented as done by God.

Thus, in the text you present, where it says that God blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, you should read: God allowed their eyes to become blind and their hearts to be hardened.

2. St. Augustine says: “God never hardens by inflicting malice, but by denying mercy, that is, by denying grace, without which the sinner’s heart does not dissolve its hardness and convert” (Epist. 914). T-N

3. St. Thomas: “God hardens some not in the sense of instilling malice, but rather in the sense of withholding grace… since those he allows to be hardened deserve to be allowed to be hardened by him” (Commentary on Romans 9:18). T-N

Why do they “deserve to be hardened”?

St. Thomas further responds: “God does not cause malice in the heart, but in His just judgment He allows some to fall into sin because of previous iniquities (a question of mine: what is this cause of previous iniquities, sins committed and not confessed? Like sins committed in youth? Or the iniquities committed by their fathers?), and in this sense the words of Romans 1:24 should be understood: “God has handed them over to the desires of their hearts” (Commentary on Romans 9:17). T-N

I concluded by saying: I think I can say that in these people there is such an affection and obstinacy for sin that they are completely insensitive to the action of grace.

6. Il riferimento a Dio che punisce tutta l’umanità senza fare distinzione non è corretto.
Perché Dio non punisce, ma è il peccatore che sottraendosi alla grazia divina si mette in balia dei demoni e da essi viene in vari modi tormentato.
Purtroppo nel compimento del male si possono coinvolgere anche i giusti. Ma non si può parlare di punizione divina.
Piuttosto si deve parlare di punizione diabolica causata da chi ha aperto e spalancato le porte al suo avversario.

4. It must also be said that God never abandons us completely, even if we abandon Him completely, because He continues with His power to give existence and every other good so that everything continually speaks of Him.

5. But when a heart is so stubborn in its refusal that it commits a sin against the Holy Spirit, then it completely closes itself to the action of divine grace.

In this sense, grace is said to be withdrawn from it, namely, because it obstinately and stubbornly rejects it.

6. The reference to God punishing all humanity without distinction is incorrect.

Because God does not punish, but it is the sinner who, by withdrawing from divine grace, places himself at the mercy of the demons and is tormented by them in various ways.

Unfortunately, even the righteous can be implicated in the commission of evil. But this cannot be called divine punishment.

Rather, it should be called diabolical punishment inflicted by the one who opened and threw open the doors to his adversary.

7. Do not give credit to alleged apparitions until they are approved by the Church.

We know well that some do not come from God.

This is why the Church is very cautious in this area. No one can accuse it of encouraging the gullible.

With best wishes, I bless you and remember you in prayer.

Father Angelo

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