A simple kinetic type animation that responds to the questions, “Is God Good? If He is, Why Does Evil Exist in the World?”
Is God Good?
“God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.”
Saint Augustine
Bible Verses That Answer “Is God Good?”
The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth.” – Exodus 34:6
“O taste and see that the LORD is good; How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!” – Psalm 34:8
“No one is good but One, that is, God.” – Mark 10:18
“Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.” – James 1:7
Why Is There Evil?
We have a good, loving, and merciful God. So when bad things happen, how could that be God’s will for us? Father George Elliot, explains why bad things happen, as a result of our free will. God never desires for us to sin, but he respects our gift of free will so much that he allows us to do things that are not good for us. God also wills the greater good that we may not be able to see in the midst of our suffering.
God Reveals His “Plan of Loving Goodness”
“It pleased God, in his goodness and wisdom, to reveal himself and to make known the mystery of his will. His will was that men should have access to the Father, through Christ, the Word made flesh, in the Holy Spirit, and thus become sharers in the divine nature.”2
God, who “dwells in unapproachable light”, wants to communicate his own divine life to the men he freely created, in order to adopt them as his sons in his only-begotten Son.3 By revealing himself God wishes to make them capable of responding to him, and of knowing him and of loving him far beyond their own natural capacity.
The divine plan of Revelation is realized simultaneously “by deeds and words which are intrinsically bound up with each other”4 and shed light on each another. It involves a specific divine pedagogy: God communicates himself to man gradually. He prepares him to welcome by stages the supernatural Revelation that is to culminate in the person and mission of the incarnate Word, Jesus Christ.
– Catechism of the Catholic Church
Photo by Marc-Olivier Jodoin on Unsplash
