Further Explanation of the Second Fundamental Principle

C is a truth so settled in Holy Writ that all afflictions and penal evils come from the hand of God, that it would not be necessary for us to take time in proving it, were it not for the obscurity which the devil with his cunning tries to throw over it. From the other also certain truth which we stated, which is that God is not cause or author of sin, the devil draws a false and lying conclusion, making some people believe that, though the evils that come to us by means of natural causes and irrational creatures, as sickness, hunger, and barrenness, come from the hand of God, because there there is no sin nor can be in such creatures, since they are not capable of it; yet the evil and affliction which come about by the fault of a man who wounds me, robs me, dishonors me, does not come from the hand of God nor is guided by the ordinance of His providence, but by the malice and damnable will of another man. This is a very great error. St. Dorotheus says very well, rebuking this error in those who do not take these things as coming from the hand of God: ‘‘There are those who, when another person says a word against them or does them any other ill turn, forget God and turn all their rage against their neighbor, imitating dogs who bite the stone and neither look at nor take account of the hand that threw it.”

To banish this erroneous action and secure a firm foundation in Catholic truth, theologians observe that two elements there are combined in a sin that man commits; the one is the movement and exterior act, the other, the disorder of the will wandering away from what God commands. God is author of the former; man, of the latter. Let us take the case of a man quarreling with another and killing him. To kill him he must needs put his hand to his sword, draw it and brandish his arm, and deal the blow, and do other natural movements which may be considered by themselves apart from the disorder of the will of the man who does them to kill another. Of all these movements, considered by themselves, God is cause and He produces them as He produces likewise the effects of the action of irrational creatures. For, as these creatures cannot stir nor act without God, so neither can man. He cannot stir his arm nor put his hand to his sword. Besides that, these natural acts are not evil of themselves, for, if a man practises them in necessary self-defense or in a just war or as a minister of justice, and so kills another, he would not sin. But of the fault, which is the defect and disorder of the will, whereby the wicked man does the injury, of that deviation from reason and perversion of the same, God is not cause, although He permits it where He might hinder it; but hinder it He does not, in fulfilment of just judgments of His own. They illustrate this by a comparison. A man has a wound on his foot and goes limping. The cause of his foot’s going is the virtue and motive power of his soul; but of his limping, the cause is the wound and not the virtues of the soul. So of the sinful action that man does, the cause of the action is God, but the cause of the fault and sin that there is in the act is the free will of man. Thus, though God is not nor can be cause or author of sin, yet we must hold for certain that all penal evils come from the hand of God and by dispensation of His providence, by whatever way and in whatever manner they come, whether they come by means of natural causes and irrational creatures or by means of rational creatures. God guided the hand of him that hurt you and the tongue of him who gave you the opprobrious name. Shall there be evil in the city that the Lord hath not done? says the Prophet Amos (iii. 6). Holy Writ is full of this truth, attributing to God the evil that one man does to another and saying that it is God Who did it.

In the Second Book of Kings, in the account of the chastisement wherewith God chastised David by means of his son Absalom for the sin of adultery and murder that he had committed, God says that it was Himself that was to do it. So I will raise up over against thee evil from thine own house (II Kings xii. 11). Hence it is also that the impious kings, who in their pride and cruelty inflicted most atrocious chastisements on the people of God, are called by Scripture instruments of the divine justice. Ah, for Assur, the rod of my indignation! (Isaias x. 5). And of Cyrus, King of the Persians, by whom the Lord intended to chastise the Chaldeans, He says: Whose right hand I have grasped (Isaias xlv.1). On which St. Augustine has this excellent remark: “God deals with us as an earthly father is wont to do. When the father is angry with his son, he takes a stick which he finds hard by and chastises his son with it. Then the stick he casts into the fire, and keeps for the son the inheritance. In this way God is wont to take wicked men for an instrument and scourge to chastise the good.” We read in ecclesiastical history how, at the destruction of Jerusalem, Titus, general of the Romans, going round the city, saw the ditches (moats) full of corpses and dead bodies and all the neighborhood infected by the stench. Whereupon he raised his eyes to heaven and with a loud voice called God to witness that it was none of his doing that so great slaughter had taken place. And when that barbarian Alaric was going to sack and destroy Rome, a venerable monk met him and begged him not to be the cause of so many evil deeds as were likely to be committed on that expedition. And he replied: “I am not going to Rome of my own accord, but some person assails me every day and torments me, saying: ‘Go to Rome and destroy the city.’” Thus all things come from the hand of God and by His ordinance and will. So the Royal Prophet David, when Semei reviled him and flung stones and dirt at him, said to those who would have had him take vengeance on the fellow: The Lord hath commanded him to curse David; and who shall dare to say, Why hast thou commanded it? (II Kings xvi. 10). He means to say: “The Lord hath taken him for the instrument of my affliction and punishment.”

But what great thing is it to recognize men as instruments of the divine justice and providence, since the same is true even of the devils themselves, obstinate and hardened as they are in their malice and anxious for our perdition? St. Gregory observes this marvelously in that saying of Scripture: An evil spirit of the Lord tormented Saul (I Kings xvi. 23). The same spirit is called “spirit of the Lord” and “evil spirit”—“evil” by desire of his evil will;

and “of the Lord” to give us to understand that he was sent by God to give that torment to Saul, and God worked by him. And this the text itself there declares, saying: An evil spirit, sent by the Lord, tormented him (Spiritus nequam a Domino) (I Kings xvi. 14). And for the same reason, says the saint, the devils, who afflict and persecute the just, are called in Scripture “God’s robbers”: ‘“robbers” for the evil will that they have to do us harm; and yet “of God” to give us to understand that the power they have to do us harm they have from God. So St. Augustine makes this excellent reflection: “Job did not say ‘The Lord hath given, and the devil has taken away,’ but he referred all to God: The Lord hath given, and the Lord hath taken away (Job i. 21); for he knew well that the devil could do no evil but what God permitted him to do.” And the saint goes on to say: “Let no one say, “The devil has done me this ill turn;’ but attribute your affliction and scourge to God, since the devil could do nothing against you nor touch even a hair of your head unless God gave him permission thereto.” ‘Thus the devils could not enter into the swine of the Gerasenes, without first asking permission of Christ our Redeemer (Matt. viii. 31). How could they touch you, how could they tempt you, without God’s leave? He who could not touch the swine, how shall he touch the children?