Providence
"The universe was created in a state of journeying toward an ultimate perfection yet to be attained, to which God has designed it..... God cares for all, from the least things to the great events of the world and its history." -CCC 2nd ed. p.80. Everything that happens is within God's providence, including natural disasters. This means earthquakes, tsunamis, deaths of innocent children are all willed by God. How does this square with the notion of God as all-good?
This is known as the problem of evil or pain and can lead one to Atheism or to other erroneous ways of looking at the world or God. Included in our understanding of providence is the mystery of human free will. We refer to it as a mystery because it is not an easy concept to "get your head around," as you might gather from Fr. Fessio's discussion above.
Some people have tried to explain the presence of suffering in a world created by a God who is all-good with the philosophy of Deism, popular during The Enlightenment. A deist believes that God created the universe and set it in motion, but is no longer involved with it. When earthquakes happen and kill children, it's just bad luck; God didn't mean for it to happen. But God upholds every aspect of our lives. He knows everything. Being outside time, he "sees" past, present and future all at once. In an attempt to displace responsibility for the earthquake from God, the Deist proposes a god who is not all-knowing nor all-powerful and so not God.
At the other extreme is the person who believes in fate. They understand correctly that there is no such thing as luck and that God wills the occurrence of all natural events. But they see God's control as absolute, including the actions and words of human beings as well, in other words they deny free will. A person is fated either for heaven or hell. If you live a pious life, it is because God destined you for heaven; if you live an evil life, it is because God destined you for hell. But why would God create a man simply to destine him to hell?
Between these two extremes is our Catholic understanding of providence and free will. Everything is either directly willed by God or allowed by God to happen. With our free will we can either choose to cooperate with God's plan, or turn from him and sin. This is moral evil which is allowed by God in order to respect our free will. But "God is in now way, directly or indirectly, the cause of moral evil. He permits it to derive good from it." -CCC p82.
As for the natural disasters which are physical evils, we know that being in God's plan, a greater good will come from them. Death is not the ultimate evil, nor is suffering. There is meaning to all suffering we witness remembering that the greatest good, the glorification of Christ and our redemption came from the greatest of human suffering, The Passion. Though we do need to be careful not to project our own ideas onto God's will and design as we attempt to see meaning in natural events.
We reviewed practical steps to discern God's will and plan, particularly in light of suffering and difficulties which arise every day in our lives. Remembering that everything is willed or allowed by God, including things that seem unjust, such as someone insulting you, cheating you or wronging you in some other way. Recognizing God's providence means accepting these things without becoming angry, indignant or vindictive. Instead we should offer these little crosses up each day. We also talked about anxiety and the difference between being prepared and worrying excessively. Anxiety grows from a lack of trust in God. A good practice throughout the day is to remind ourselves of Providence with the prayer of acceptance, "Fiat voluntas Tua," "Thy will be done."
A Drop of Clear Water is a lay support group for Catholic teens. Our goal is to bring together teens who love their faith, are committed to chastity, and are ready to explore the wonder and beauty of Catholicism.