“Yet the patience of God still invites the wicked to penitence, just as God’s chastisement trains the good in patient endurance. God’s mercy embraces the good for their cherishing, just as his severity chastens the wicked for their punishment.”
~St. Augustine, Book 1, Chapter 8
The modern encapsulation of the problem of evil is “why do bad things happen to good people.” I find Augustine’s take blessedly clear and oddly comforting. Essentially, bad happens because the world fell. The suffering exists by man’s action and God’s allowance—in some mysterious sense, we as man cannot know. But, none of this suffering is in vain, to the unrepentant, suffering is both a punishment and a severe mercy to bring them back to God. For the believer, the supposed “good person,” suffering is a means of grace to teach us patience, and will ultimately bring us close to the heart of God. I feel a sense of probably-evil pleasure knowing that Satan’s tool for destroying us, suffering, actually is one of God’s greatest opportunities of bring us to himself. Pardon me.
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