THE PROBLEM OF GOOD

The problem of good? What problem, you ask? We're all familiar with the Problem of Evil and we all have a problem with it, from the greatest atheist to the greatest theist. Even if we can explain evil, understand evil, know evil's insides and out, we still have to live with it and, thus, deal with it. It is in this dealing with, coping with, enduring and trying to overcome evil that causes every human being difficulties no matter what we believe or do not believe.

The truth is that the problem we have with evil is the same problem we have with good. It truly is the same problem, but we often to fail to see it that way. It is easy to see the problem we have with evil, especially we believers. It is that age-old question that has no satisfactory answer, at least not for believers: If God is all-good, where does evil come from? To put it another way: Why does God permit evil when God the all-powerful can prevent it?

The answer we give is always the same: free will. Because God created us with free will - and only God knows why God did - we are now free to do good or to do bad. And we often do bad, deliberately, with malice aforethought. Now that may be a satisfactory response to the "why" of the problem of human evil. It does nothing, or very little, to give a satisfactory answer to the "why" of natural evil like hurricanes, tornadoes and floods or to that fact-of-life of simply being in the wrong place and the wrong time. The truth is we will never understand evil fully, not in this life, no matter how hard we try, especially when we try to explain the evil we ourselves do.

Yet, what evil always seems to boil down to is that it is a God-problem. God must ultimately be held responsible for natural evils because that is the way God created this universe and God must also be at least be held as an accomplice to deliberate human evil because God created we human beings with the ability and the freedom to do evil, to be selfish and bad.

That being said (and probably also being debated: is he, meaning me, right about that or is he a heretic?), what goes unsaid is that we humans, while trying to foist at least a little of the responsibility and the guilt for human evil upon God's shoulders, so often give God little or no credit for the good we do. That is the Problem of Good. We are so often tempted to take all the credit for the good we do and take as little blame as we can for the bad we do.

We can't have it both ways. Either we give God the credit for creating us good with the ability to do bad or we take all the responsibilities for all the good and all the bad that we cause or do. I will grant that I may be making a mountain out of a molehill here. We usually do give God some of the credit and thanks for the good we do and the good done to and for us. My point is that we need to become a little more aware that doing good may come naturally simply because of the way God created us; but because we are prone to also be selfish, doing good is the result, and only the result, of the grace of God. And thanks be to God for that.