A Tidal Wave of Theodicy

Why Does God Permit Evil?

by Dom Bruno Webb

Sophia, 2004

153 pages, $10.95

or sophiainstitute.com

The age-old “problem of evil” has become the subtext behind the biggest news story of the year: If God is omniscient and omnipotent — that is, all-knowing and all-powerful — then he both knew the tsunami was coming to South Asia and could have stopped it. If he were all good and merciful, he would have.

The fact that tidal waves swept across thousands of miles of poverty-stricken Asian shoreline is, for some, evidence against God’s good attributes. For others, it’s an argument for a mindless, violent universe that cares not one whit for life. For some of those, it’s evidence that there is no God to begin with.

A Catholic of an earlier day may have been more comfortable addressing this issue, and a more Christian culture would have been more open to the answer. It is fortunate, then, that this book, published originally in 1941 in England, was reprinted last year by Sophia Institute Press.

Dom Bruno Webb gets right to the point in the first page, quoting the ancient philosopher Epicurus: “Omnipotence could, Benevolence would have prevented evil.” Addressing the more modern concern of “Why bad things happen to good people,” the author gives the traditional Catholic response: None of us is good, and what you see as bad may really be suffering that will lead to salvation.

Why God permits evil has to do with original sin, the fall of man and angels, personal sin and punishment, the permissive as opposed to the intentional will of God, the redemptive power of suffering and the power of God to bring good out of even the greatest evil.

Much of the evil and suffering in nature is due not only to original sin but to the previous fall of the rebel angels, the author writes, following St. Thomas Aquinas. This is not to say that Satan caused the tsunami; rather, a sin-stirred deep disturbance in the world works through natural causes to wreak such havoc.

Yet isn’t God more powerful than devils? Why does he allow such a deep-set disorder to stretch its ruin across time, so that even unknowing infants are swept out to sea? Could not God, in an instant, set things right? Here we get to the crux of the matter: the cross. As Dom Bruno says, sin is the cause of all evil, moral and physical, and God allows sin so to preserve the great good of free will. To prohibit free will would prevent God from making creatures in his own image and likeness who could choose him.

Rather than abolish free will, God chose to redeem man, who freely had turned against him. He came as a man himself, to lead man to himself. Jesus did not have to die to redeem man, the author says. But it is fitting that such great love, poured forth in the Incarnation, should be crowned with the ultimate suffering and sacrifice that only God in the flesh could accomplish.

“Thus did God permit the sufferings of Christ for our fallen race,” writes Dom Bruno. “Thus does he permit the sufferings of us who are Christ’s members, who share His own redemptive work. For since it was by suffering that Christ redeemed mankind, He has by His Passion sanctified suffering for all time.”

Free will reigns even after the redemption. Man can still choose for or against God. Physical suffering can be pain with a purpose. The sufferer is called to the foot of the cross to contemplate Christ and suffer in love for his own salvation and the salvation of others. This good, Dom Bruno says, ultimately will defeat all evil.

Stephen Vincent writes from

Wallingford, Connecticut.