LITERATURE: The Consolation – A Dose of Faith

Ah, a very good answer from Philosophy in the discussion of understanding the punishments or evils visited upon men of good virtue: 

"But, you ask, what worse confusion can there be than for the good to enjoy prosperity and suffer adversity, and for the wicked also to get both what they want and what they cannot bear?  But is human judgment so infallible that those who are thought to be good and evil are necessarily what they seem to be?  If so, why are men’s judgments so often in conflict, so that the same men are thought by some to deserve reward and by others punishment?

(…) "Now, what is the health of souls but virtue, and what is their sickness but vice?  And who, indeed, is the preserver of the good and corrector of the wicked but God, the governor and physician of men’s minds, who looks into the great mirror of his providence and, knowing what is best for each one, causes it to happen?  Here, then, is the great miracle of the order of Fate:  divine wisdom does what the ignorant cannot understand."  (Book IV, Prose 6, p. 84)

Philosophy has already made it clear that in trying to understand the will of God, man applies his knowledge of his own self, within his own space and time.  It is, as Philosophy suggests, ridiculous to expect a God to think like man.  In the above excerpt, she also reveals that our own judgment is not on the level of a Supreme Being’s, and even amongst ourselves we argue right and wrong, good and evil.  If we either came to understand the will of God on His own level, or accept that "Father Knows Best," than we can come to terms with His direction of Providence, Fate, and free will.

This is getting interesting.