hannahj:
hey i have a religion speech due soon. im in year 11. i chose the topic
BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE FROM A CATHOLIC PERSPECTIVE
im finding it rather hard to gather info that i can easily understand so id like to see some of your views and any info you may know. thankyou so kindly. HANNAH
Hi Hannah,
You really chose a great topic. I would like to share some thoughts that I wrote after my son became seriously ill and underwent a liver transplant. Please pardon the length of this, but maybe it contains some thoughts you can use:
It seems incongruous to speak of darkness and pain as
gifts from a loving, merciful God. What kind of God, it is often asked, could permit such unspeakable tragedies to befall those whom he loves? Here again, our feelings rise up against our traditional belief in the eternal goodness of God, a notion many of us have accepted unquestioningly since childhood. It is natural to view pain and misfortune as punishments, or at least as evidence of God’s absence, even among sincere believers — many of whom will find they can no longer believe when confronted with a personal horror that seems to contradict their understanding of love. My own experience, however, although passing through the same feeling of betrayal, has led me to the opposite conclusion — that the darkness and suffering we encounter in life are actually evidence of the divine presence, indeed the very proof of God’s love and mercy.
It begins in the garden, where man and woman were created
in the image and likeness of God — which is to say, endowed with intellect and free will, two capacities absolutely necessary in order to truly love. Have we not been taught that love, after all, is the essence of the divine nature? To be devoid of intellect would render one incapable of understanding love; and to have no freedom in the matter would make love nothing more than mere compulsory instinct. Humanity was created
from love, in order
to love. Without these two qualities, humanity could not reflect the divine essence.
Yet in their freedom, man and woman chose to trust in
their own understanding, rather than to trust in the wisdom and goodness of their Creator. The “fall of man” was thus an act of pride, a refusal by man to acknowledge any higher authority than himself, a self-imposed exile from the loving will of God. By choosing himself, man acted against love (which by nature can never be self-centered) and cut himself off from God, the all-loving provider upon whom man depends for his life. Imagine an infant who refuses to recognize his dependence on his parents for sustenance, and insists that he doesn’t need their wisdom, care, or authority. Screaming with hunger which he cannot satisfy, lying in his putrid diapers overflowing with excrement — yet through it all refusing to acknowledge his dependence on the one who gave him life — such is the condition of man at the fall.
A loving God sees the pathetic plight which his beloved creation has imposed upon himself. Man, in choosing to be his own god, is no longer capable of attaining the destiny for which he was created. Were God to force man into submission and obedience, however, he would effectively strip his creation of its divine resemblance — the freedom to love as he loves. The only hope, the only
salvation, for his self-focused creature is to recognize its utter dependence on God and return to him in trust. God will not compel humanity to acknowledge its dependence on him, but will invite our voluntary return by reminding us, time and again, of that dependence.
From my own experience, I know that when the events of my life are falling smoothly into place according to my liking, I do not consider myself very dependent on divine providence. If anything, I tend to feel more secure in my own self-reliance, more convinced that my own wisdom and abilities are sufficient for my well-being. Subconsciously, I reject my own need for salvation, and the God of love cannot abide such a senseless loss. God desires our salvation intensely — even more than we ourselves do — but not because it can add anything to his already infinite majesty. He desires our holiness for our sake alone — “that my joy may be yours, and your joy may be complete.” And so it is
out of love that God gives us suffering, in order to shatter the self-reliant pride that keeps us from recognizing our need for him. The acknowledgment of our total dependence on God is the necessary precondition of faith, the “good soil” of which Jesus speaks in the parable of the seed, that enables us to receive the salvation he offers us. If he were not to remind us of this dependence, he would in effect be allowing us to drift into damnation — and that kind of god would not be the God of love.
