Its been a while, but I am back to Ilia’s book (Franciscan Prayer) again, still in the chapter on Desire.
A couple quotes to consider:
“We can say that God is like a beggar of love waiting at the soul’s door without ever daring to force it. God becomes powerless before human freedom. He cannot violate it because it flows from his own omnipotence. In other words, God created us free and cannot take back the gift of freedom he has given.”
and,
“God risks the eternal ruin of of His creation in order that it may attain its greatest potential — loving union with God………We are free to love God, but because we are free we must constantly choose God. Perhaps it would be easier if God simply made decisions for us — but then we would not have freedom…….God would be like a dictator or a tyrant…….The greatest gift of the human person is not the ability to think but the freedom to love.”
Sometimes I wonder why anybody has trouble understanding the presence of evil in the world. Voluminous works are dedicated to explaining that presence. Yet, I have long believed the answer to be clear and simple.
Ilia captures that answer here.
God desires the expansion of love so much that He rejects His own power and refuses to interfere as we make our decisions, for better or worse.
His conviction is so strong that He is willing to risk the entirety of creation on the bet that ultimately, we will embrace the desire to love Him as He has written it in our hearts.
When we embrace the desire to love Him, we respond favorably to His will.
When we embrace the desire to love ourselves, we do the opposite, and evil is the result.
Evil exists because love requires freedom. In essence, evil is a necessary evil.
As I stated at the beginning, God’s purpose in creation is the expansion of love.
How well that purpose is fulfilled depends entirely on how we structure our desires.
