How God’s providence compares to so many evils…

How does God’s providence compare to the many evils we face in the world?
The saints experience everything that God has for those who love him. Helps: “Romans 8:28.) But not everyone has such faith. If God existed, certain things could never happen!” often the unbelievers object. One of them proved his atheism as follows: “There exist wars and horrific crimes. And what does God do? Either he doesn’t want to stop them, and then he’s not good, or he’s not good enough to prevent it, but then he is not omnipotent! But the existence of evil also tempts people to disbelieve in God the Father.
Objections of this kind are ancient. That is why the Church Fathers wrote treatises entitled God is not the cause of God’s providence and various kinds of evil (cf. St. Basil’s work). Because God is infinitely good, he can only act in the world for the good And yet there are earthquakes, floods, natural disasters, and also crimes committed by wicked people. So where does evil come from? From the sin of the first people and from the sins of all mankind. Saint John Chrysostom says that God allows them; He does not prevent them. But why? The answer does not seem easy, and therefore the Golden Mouth responds resolutely against those who offend God’s strange indifference and recalls that
Divine providence radically transcends divine intelligence. We must firmly believe that evil must also serve the greater good; God acts as a healing physician, even though the sick must suffer during treatment. These words were broadly explained by St. John Chrysostom, who was persecuted and died in exile. Among the recently living saints, let us mention, for example, St. Frederik Ozanama, who writes, “If only you wanted to strap on the bed these days to me, they would still be alive; it would be too short a time to thank you for the days I spent.” And my last words would be an anthem of praise for your goodness. “This answer springs from faith, but it is universal. Can it apply to all evils? After all, they are so diverse.

Physical evils and moral evils
Socrates already distinguished between “physical” evils and “moral” evils. Pain from disease, accidents on the road, and natural disasters are physical evils. On the contrary, sins and guilty crimes are moral evils. They say, Fathers, that physical evils are not real evils. They’re like a broom in the hands of a wise father who knows he must punish a mischievous child to bring them up for good. For example, people learn to pray and turn to God only when they fall into poverty or danger. This phenomenon is evidenced by the ancient proverb of sailors: “Who cannot pray, let him go to the sea; some dangerous storm! And what about moral evil, sin? “How can you live in this world full of evil?” they sigh occasionally. It’s difficult to believe, but we have to convince them that even evil not caused by God will escape God’s power. Pilate and the Jewish high priests committed grave sins by condemning Jesus to death, and yet the end result of this judgment was the cross, which saved the whole world. According to legend, Saint Prokop, the Czech patron, forced the devil to pull the plow by which the saint cultivated the land of his monastery. What an evil spirit wanted to destroy, he had to build. The legend symbolically expresses what has been verified so many times in the history of the Church and in believers’ personal experience. God’s providence, as illustrated in the gospel parable of the prodigal son, shows us how a person discovers the true face of a merciful God only when he decides to return to his father’s house and repents for his delusions. There are cases where the bold expression “o felix culpa” applies.