OP, your querry can only be answered up to a point. Pope John Paul II deemed the very same ponderings brorught us face to face with the “mystery of evil” in the world.
still, i’ll look at a couple of aspects that are knowable with confidence: while human persons were created with original grace, meaning they were given every grace they needed to avoid sin (relationship with God, heightened intellect, intact wills) they still sinned. since then, even the baptized human person’s intellect is darkened and will is weakened. we have tendency to sin. we can know this with confidence because we can see our own and others’ tendency toward evil-doing every minute of every day.
our darkened intellect is knowable too. here you are, a guy (or gal) with perhaps above moderate intelligence questioning the “fairness” of the God of the universe. that is pretty declarative statement on the darkened intellect of man.
but let’s turn the question inside out a little: why would any God, a God who sees and knows all things, create a species, Human Person, in His own image and likeness, Person with intellect, Person with free will, Person with the abilility to either accpet or reject/ give or refuse love— why would any God create that species full well KNOWING the Human Person would despise Him? reject Him? distrust Him? hate Him? ignore Him?
why would He do that full well knowing that His solution to their ***free-will fallenness ***
would be to sacrifice Himself? and what a sacrifice it would have been! God would not only suffer the crucifixion as a Father witnessing the torture of His Son, but as the Son Himself subject to every agony available? why would ***any ***God of any universe set up all that “system failure” only to be triply ignored, quadruply hated? especially, when, as the story goes, God didn’t ***need ***Human persons to be happy? God was complete without us?
what kind of a nut is this God?
the scandal of the cross, YMan. it’s a killer. it suggests that, in the end, God gave us something breathtakingly and wildly unexpectedly better than a Fail-Free system. He gave us a Save-All system.
just now, i’m reminded of the “story” of the fall. in the garden, Satan opened the conversation with “did your God tell you not to eat of ***any ***of these trees?”
brilliant. Satan’s question was hideously brilliant. what Satan was really saying was, “that God of yours is unfair, unreasonable. He cant be trusted, can He?” he didnt even have to pursue that line of thinking. the simple infection was enough to prime Eve for sin.
the question is still being asked, isn’t it: How can that God of yours be trusted? isnt He unreasonalbe? unfair?
He experienced torture and death from the most pittiful perspectives on my account. He’s given me every grace to avoid sin. and yet I want to blame Him for unfairness? for my sin? for my failures?
YMan, apologetics carries the case of the all-good God a looooooong way. but in the end, Faith is required.
here’s me: I’m willing to be a fool for this story. i’m willing to be a fool for this God. i’ve heard the arguments for Him. they’re good arguments. i’ve heard the arguments against, Him too. many of them have merit ***especially if ***one has no use for “mystery”.
but for me, i’m willing to be a fool for Faith in Him. i’m willing because I know love. I’ve expereinced love i didnt deserve. as a result, astonishingly, ASTONISHINGLY, i’ve been able to give love— sacrificial love-- not just for my clan, but for people whom i dont like-- people who didn’t deserve it.
there’s nothing-- NOTHING— from a system failure- untrustable- semi-good God that could inspire me to do that. nothing.
in the end, i believe because i’ve seen guys just like you and gals just like me change-- like unrecognizably change-- and become recepticals and then channels of scandalous, humiliating, foolish sacrificial love.
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