The person does not bring good or evil to others

[chrpenka]

Dear all,

I came accross with this opinion:
"No one brings good or evil to others, only God brings it according His will or according to what they deserve. Only God sees and knows everything and only He can judge other people and their relationships.

The man wrote it in Croatian in these words: Ni jedna osoba ne donosi drugima ni dobro ni zlo, to donosi samo Gospodin po svojem naumu ili po zaslugama dotičnih. I samo Gospodin sve vidi i sve zna i jedino on može suditi, prosuđivati, cijeniti i procjenjivati druge ljude i njihove međusobne odnose.

Any good saying of the church fathers or saints which can clearly show, this this opinion is not a catholic view?

Many thanks for your insights.

 

[Gorgias]

No one brings good or evil to others, only God brings it according His will

God is not the author of evil. He does not tempt people with evil.

 

[Richca]

I think the quote you provide in english doesn’t make any sense without further explanation and qualifications. I mean, many people do good to others as well as evil and God is not the cause of moral evil either directly or indirectly as the CCC says but he is the first cause of all good. So, a distinction needs to be made between God as the first cause and creatures as second causes for the CCC#308 says ‘The truth that God is at work in all the actions of his creatures is inseparable from faith in God the Creator. God is the first cause who operates in and through secondary causes’. Ultimately, everything that happens in the world depends on God’s will as St Augustine says " Nothing is done, unless the Almighty wills it to be done, either by permitting it, or by actually doing it." But creatures are not devoid of exercising real causality though not without God as the first cause. God permits moral evil because he created us with free will and it is not always the case that some moral evil done to some person and permitted by God is a case of punishment that that person deserves.

Jesus and Mary were sinless so they weren’t deserving of any punishment yet they suffered much evil perpetrated on them when they were on earth on behalf of the salvation of souls. And again, God is not the author either directly or indirectly of moral evil though he is the first cause of a moral evil act in so far as the act is a being but not in so far as the act is defective, lacking being and goodness, and which is caused by the creature. There is certain sense in which it may be said in a way that some evil act committed against us sinners by some other person which God permits is something we deserve such as like in atonement for any personal sins, mortal (in which case we deserve eternal punishment) or venial, we may have committed and thus we can lessen our purgatorial time. God brings good out of evil for our benefit in satisfaction for our own sins as well as for others, living or dead, and for advancement in virtue, holiness, and the imitation of Christ our model. ’ If we suffer with him , we shall also be glorified with him (Romans 8:17).

 

[chrpenka]

Hello Gorgias,

thank you for your reply.

I found myself these saying of the saints and also the church councils:
God gives to a man the soul (Lateran council V. in 1512) which has the reason and free will ( IV. Constantinopole council, in 681).
St. Bernard: The soul of man is an image of the Holy Trinity as the soul has three cardinalities: memory, which shows to God Father, reason to Jesus Christ the Son and free will which is an image of Holy Spirit.
St. John Damascene: God does not want evil, neither force men to the virtue.
St. Augustin: By evil (bad) tree Our Lord means the bad/evil will and by a good tree He means the good will. (From: Against Julian).

Therefore: good works happen through our free will decision and by reason we can recognize the good works of others as Our Lord himself says : " through the good friut you recognize good tree" and vice versa.

And this simly contradicts the Croatian man’s saying above.