THE PERMITTED WILL OF GOD


TUESDAY, THIRTEENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Gen 19: 15-29; Ps 26:2-3,9-12; Mt 8:23-27

Moral and Natural Disasters

It is difficult for human minds to comprehend the goodness of God, His infinite power, and the occurrence of physical, natural, and moral evils. But our distinction between divine will and the permitted will of God is to attain greater clarity in the matter. The fact that God created all things for the sake of man forms the background for understanding the universe and its events. The whole physical order is for the training of man to be like God. It is a school where we learn the order in nature which flows from the Eternal Word of God. Without the original fall, the natural order is suited to lead man to a good understanding of the will of God, which would foster the incarnation of the Eternal Word. For as we have understood, God made us to be the dwelling place of His Word. The created wisdom is to prepare man to receive and habilitate the Eternal Wisdom. The decision of man to walk the independent path leading through knowledge of sin and death caused the original fall instead of the straight path of obedience to God. The former is the path of the permitted will of God, and the latter is the path of the divine will of God. We have chosen to walk the path of the permitted will of God, defined by physical and moral evils. Attentiveness to the word of God at any time renews the divine project of making us the dwelling place of the Eternal Word, now through the path of the permitted will.

The story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is a good illustration of what the path of the permitted will of God entails. It is the path we enter by choosing to act differently from what the word of God says. Since a choice away from the will of God is a choice of death, we apply for death when we sin against God. The people of Sodom and Gomorrah beckoned on death through their sinful lifestyle. A sinful lifestyle is an outcry to God to permit death to visit and dwell with the sinners, as an upright lifestyle is a plea for the life of God to come among men. As the Lord revealed yesterday: “How great an outcry there is against Sodom and Gomorrah! How grievous is their sin!” The Lord’s visitation is to permit death to wreak havoc in Sodom and Gomorrah. We understand the visitation of the three angels as manifested in natural disasters that destroyed the towns with brimstone and fire. The scriptural interpretation of them as angels is from the faith or spiritual perspective of Abraham. For the people of Sodom and Gomorrah and people without faith, the natural disasters destroyed the towns. Our faith in the word of God helps us to understand the connection between natural disasters and moral disasters. Our abandonment of the word of God causes the latter, which subsequently brings about the former. From the beginning, moral disaster is the cause of natural disaster. God imposes death and corruption on the created order as a consequence of our choice of death in place of life.

Obedience to the word of God commences the remedy of the whole disorder of moral and physical evils. Our openness to receive the word of God in our lives begins the repair of the moral and natural orders. Listening to the word of God leads us away from moral and natural disasters or provides support to cushion the physical evils permitted by God. “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock, and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.” Lot’s obedience to the word of God brought him and his family away from the natural disaster that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. We see the same thing play out in the Gospel. The fact that the apostles were with Jesus Christ in the boat saved them from natural disaster, for he spoke and restored the natural calm and order on the sea. Our Lord was surprised that their faith was too little to maintain their peace and calmness. “‘Why are you so frightened, you men of little faith?’ And with that, he stood up and rebuked the winds and the sea; and all was calm again.” How little our faith indeed, for we are easily frightened in the face of evil, moral and physical. 

Let us pray: O God, who through the grace of adoption chose us to be children of light, grant, we pray, that we may not be wrapped in the darkness of error and swept away by moral and physical disasters but always be seen to stand in the bright light and safety of truth. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. 

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