Indeed, the sin of Adam is a “felix culpa” (a “happy fault”) because, through it, God — in His benevolent care for us — caused an even greater good to come from it: the incarnation, the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, His resurrection, our salvation, and the redemption of the world.
Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga writes in his felix culpa theodicy, “Perhaps God sees that the best worlds he can actualize are ones that include the unthinkably great good of divine incarnation and atonement. Suppose he therefore actualizes a … world that includes incarnation and atonement, and in which human beings fall into sin, evil and consequent suffering.”
In his encyclical Salvifici Doloris, Pope John Paul II reflected upon the possibility of redemptive suffering. That is, the possibility that God can — and does — redeem our suffering for good. “One can say that with the Passion of Christ all human suffering has found itself in a new situation,” he writes. “In the Cross of Christ not only is the Redemption accomplished through suffering, but also human suffering itself has been redeemed.”
In other words, through Christ — and because of Christ’s sacrifice — our very suffering can also be redeemed and provided with new purpose and meaning. Moreland and Craig make a similar point, writing, “the chief purpose of life is not happiness, but the knowledge of God.”
“Many evils occur in life that may be utterly pointless with respect to the goal of producing human happiness,” they observe, “but they may not be pointless with respect to producing a deeper knowledge of God.”
A Christian response to the problem of evil acknowledges it is possible that God permits evil and suffering because He can bring about a greater good from it. //
Only Christianity addresses the problem of evil with an entirely unique answer among the world’s religions: God Himself — in the person of Christ — came to suffer with us, for us, and because of us.
Reflecting upon this fact, Christian philosopher Marilyn Adams writes, “[God] is not content to be immutable and impassible, to watch his writhing creation with the eye of cool reason. He unites himself to a human consciousness and takes the suffering to himself.” Only in Christianity does God enter His creation, live among His creatures, and ultimately bleed and die on behalf of and at the hands of His creation. Because He loves His creation. Because He loves us.
That, indeed, is a God we can trust in.
