LIVING WATERS
For the proclamation of the Gospel and the edification of the Body of Christ
The Simple Good and the Complex Good
There is a paradox in Christianity around tribulation, posits C.S. Lewis. Blessed are the poor, but we must eliminate poverty, through social justice and almsgiving. We are blessed when we are persecuted, but we can avoid persecution by fleeing from city to city, and we can plead for deliverance from it.
But if suffering is good, should we not seek it rather than avoid it? The answer is that suffering is not good in itself. What is good in any painful experience is, for the sufferer, his or her surrender to God's will; and for onlookers, the compassion it arouses and the acts of mercy to which it leads.
In the fallen and partially redeemed universe, we may distinguish: (1) the simple good that descends from God; (2) the simple evil produced by rebellious creatures; and (3) the use of that evil by God for his redemptive purpose, which produces (4) the complex good to which the accepted suffering and the sin of which there has been repentance contribute.
Now, the fact that God can produce complex good from simple evil does not excuse those who do the simple evil. And this distinction is central. Offenses will occur, but woe to those for whom they occur! Sins do make grace abound, but we must not take that as an excuse to continue sinning. The crucifixion itself is the best, and at the same time the worst of historical events, but the role of Judas is still simply evil.
When a wicked man causes pain to his neighbor, God can turn that simple evil into a complex good, but he will certainly judge the one who did that evil. Everything collaborates with God's purpose, even if it is very different for the men involved to collaborate as Judas or as John.
The whole system is calculated, so to speak, for the clash between the good men and the bad. And the good fruits of fortitude, patience, compassion and forgiveness for which the cruelty of the cruel man is permitted, presuppose that the good man will continue to seek the simple good.
No one should transform this into a general license to afflict mankind, because "affliction is good for it". That would mean putting oneself in the place of Satan, or Judas. If anyone would wish to imitate them, he must be willing to receive their same wages.
Those who suffer of good will make it possible that, behind a simple evil, comes for them a complex good, by the intervention in grace, of God. The simple good and the complex good come from God, but the difference between the two is made by suffering. The greater richness of the latter is mediated by pain accepted by faith. Acceptance of suffering and repentance of sins, on the part of man, is what will make it possible for a simple evil to become a motive of spiritual richness.