Why does God allow violence to exist in the world?

Christians are obliged morally to combat injustice wherever it is and to work tirelessly for the salvation of souls.

The mass shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida, on June 12 shocked and grieved many Americans. Coupled with the high number of shootings in the city of Chicago this year, Catholics are asking, why does God allow such violence to occur? What does it mean?
To shed some light on this difficult issue, editor Joyce Duriga spoke with moral theologian Melanie Barrett. Barrett chairs the Department of Moral Theology at the University of St. Mary of Lake/Mundelein Seminary and is the author of “Love’s Beauty at the Heart of the Christian Moral Life: The Ethics of Catholic Theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar.”
Catholic New World: Gun violence has been at the forefront of the minds of Catholics in Chicago with the rise in violence this year and with the massacre in Orlando. Why does God permit violence in the world? How does our faith help us understand violence? How is violence related to the presence of evil in the world?
Melanie Barrett: Why God permits evil in the world is a mystery. But we can speculate that it has to do with the meaning of love.
God’s very nature is love. He is a communion of persons eternally united in love. Because we human beings are made in the image of God, we too are called to love, not minimally but maximally: to love God with the entirety of our heart, soul, mind and strength; to love our neighbors as ourselves; and to love even our enemies (rather than taking revenge upon them).
Indeed, love is the human vocation. As the Second Vatican Council proclaimed, “Man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself” (Gaudium et Spes 24).
But in order to be capable of love, we must be free. Love can never be demanded or coerced; it can only be given freely. Otherwise, it is not truly love.
Animals perform many good acts — like protecting and nurturing their offspring, even at great risk to themselves — but they do so out of instinct, not love. By contrast, when human beings lay down their lives for the sake of the others — as did the Christian martyrs, in imitation of Jesus — they do so freely, and out of genuine love.
By endowing us with freedom, God makes it possible for us to love. But he also risks that we might refuse to love. And this dichotomy gives rise to the drama of salvation: either we say “yes” to God, through faith expressing itself in love; or we say “no” to God, by opting for selfishness, hatred and malevolent destruction.
We see the “yes” in a world in which the sacrificial love of saints like Maximilian Kolbe shines forth amid the carnage of the Nazi death camps and where Christian martyrs in the Middle East testify to the faith while being raped, tortured and brutally murdered by ISIS.
Although God permits the weeds and the wheat to grow together — because uprooting all of the bad weeds would destroy much of the good wheat as well — at the time of the harvest, the weeds will be permanently destroyed and the wheat will be gathered carefully under God’s protection (Mt 14:24-30). But this will take place on God’s timetable, not ours.
In the meantime, we Christians are obliged morally to combat injustice — wherever we find it — and to work tirelessly for the salvation of souls. We cannot build the kingdom of God on earth perfectly, but we can further God’s reign by preventing the weeds from completely taking over.
CNW: What should we learn from violence in the world? Is God sending us a message when these things happen?
Barrett: I don’t believe that God is “sending us a message” when unspeakable acts of violence occur. But such incidents do challenge us to respond morally with compassion for the victims and their families; with a thirst for justice, to remedy any wrongs that have been committed; and eventually, in the long run, by forgiving perpetrators: for “they know not what they do” (Lk 23:34), and “if [we] do not forgive others, neither will [the] Father forgive [our] transgressions” (Mt 6:15).
CNW: Violence results in suffering. How can we view suffering through the lens of our faith?
Barrett: By creating a world in which freedom exists, God permits evil — and suffering — to exist as well. However, by means of God’s providence, and with the help of his grace, we can grow spiritually through suffering. Because Christ redeemed us by voluntarily suffering on our behalf, “human suffering itself has been redeemed,” so our own suffering can share in Christ’s redemptive suffering (St. John Paul II, Salvifici Doloris 19).
We also can become more virtuous by developing courage, perseverance, patience and compassion. By turning to God in our distress, we can deepen our faith and hope as well.
As St. Paul taught, “We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us” (Rom 5:3-5).
Above all, suffering can provide the occasion for us to grow in love: either by allowing others to care for us in our time of need or by actively caring for others who are enduring hardships.
Link