Veritas et Sapientia – The Good That God Does And The Evil That Men Do

Mandeville, LA – But what about the innocent victims of the sins of others? What about the innocent victims of Achilles’ anger and Paris’ lust? What about the ordinary people of Troy? What about “blameless” Hector and his equally blameless wife and child? Why should they suffer? How are they to blame? Or, to put the whole question in the modern idiom, why do bad things happen to good people?
Perhaps Zeus might answer these questions with the retort that the gods are not to blame for the sins of men. In other words, if Hector and his wife and child are blameless, so are the gods. Blame Achilles and Paris for the destruction of their innocent victims, Zeus would retort, but don’t blame me.

There is, however, a further question that arises from Zeus’ defence of himself. If he is so powerful, why does he permit the innocent to suffer? Why should the sins of the guilty cause suffering to the guiltless? If God could prevent such suffering of the innocent victims of sin but refrains from doing so, isn’t he also to blame? Isn’t he in some way an accessory to the sin? In other words, how can a good God permit bad things to happen to good people?

There is a hint that Zeus, or at least Homer, had asked these difficult questions insofar as Zeus states that the recklessness of mortals brings sorrow “beyond what is given”. In other words, even without human recklessness, some suffering “is given”. One thinks perhaps of earthquakes or other natural disasters. Why does God permit such things to happen? The answer is that they are “given” as a gift to bring us to our senses because the proud heart cannot love unless it is broken. “And I will give you a new heart,” says the Lord, “and put a new spirit within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh.” “But God’s eternal laws are kind,” writes Oscar Wilde, “and break the hearts of stone.” And so broken hearts are necessary because, as Wilde asks, “how else but through a broken heart may Lord Christ enter in?”

Oscar Wilde’s poignant question solves the problem of suffering and reveals the secret of Love. The One True Lover allows Himself to suffer so that we can see the meaning of love, and therefore the meaning of suffering, in the vision and presence of His wounded Beauty. – Joseph Pearce, Wounded Beauty, September 2017 St Austin Review

TheKingDude

Host of the Mike Church Show on The Veritas Radio Network's CRUSADE Channel & Founder of the Veritas Radio Network. Formerly, of Sirius/XM's Patriot channel 125. The show began in March of 2003 exclusively on Sirius and remains "the longest running radio talk show in satellite radio history".

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