Hey, I just found the notes I had taken during Father's homily last Sunday! I'm really happy since there were some good things in the notes which I had forgotten. And I don't want to "put words in his mouth" as my dad used to say.
Father did say last Sunday that evil is the absence of good-NOT ANYTHING CREATED-and compared it to darkness being the absence of light.
Father talked about the problem that agnostics and atheists have in believing in God. They have a difficult time in understanding how all this evil is going on in the world if we have such a good God. I used to have difficulty understanding too-even if I did believe in God at the time.
These nonbelievers told me the same thing and at first I didn't know what to say. But Father did an excellent job of outlining the reasons evil exists.
God doesn't create evil; but He allows it for several reasons:
1) Moral evil is allowed so we can have free will; free will leads to true love of the Lord.
2) Physical evil can be an illness or disability-such as the absence of hearing-which can lead to God's greater good. For example God could either take someone who is deaf and give him the ability to hear-or maybe He may use the lack of hearing in some other way. (Reminds me of Jesus healing the man who was born blind, but the absence of sight or hearing could be a person's "cross" for them to bear.)
3) Evil can be a punishment for sin-such as the plagues the Egyptians were subjected to when Pharaoh hardened his heart against the Jews and used them as slaves.
4) Evil can be used to sanctify the good. Father gave the book of Job as an example of this. Job was a virtuous man whom God allowed Satan to tempt. God told Satan he could do whatever he wanted to do with Job-"except you cannot kill him." He lost his health, his wife and 10 children, his livestock, and everything else. But he was given twice as many animals and 10 more children.
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