Dear Dr. Geraghty,

Please let me know if I am correct on this.

God is pure love. Although He hates sin, He loves sinners. That's why He loves each and everyone of us. He even loves the souls in hell although they chose to reject God and be His enemies forever.

God hates evil, I think He still loves all the fallen angels He created although they chose to hate God and be His enemies forever. I think God loves all His creatures even though they freely choose to reject His love and turn against Him as His goodness and love are infinite.

Sometimes when I think that these fallen angels were once so beautiful when they were in Heaven, and now became so ugly and evil as they do have God completely, it is sad.

This gives us a very strong message that only when God is present, there is goodness and beauty since He is truly beautiful and good.

Is there anything wrong with what I wrote?

Thank you so much for all your help and God bless you.

Dear Anon,

You are pretty much on track. It is pretty hard to get all the details right. Since God is infinitely good, everything he has made is good. Men and angels coming directly from the hands of God are completely good and loved as such. But since men and angels have the power of choice, they can refuse to act as they should. This refusal is the origin of evil, which is not a being (otherwise it would be a good) but is the lack of what an intelligent being should be. Though free will is a good, the abuse of it is the root cause of evil. God cannot approve of this lack. He hates it for the false thing it is. In fact it is not a thing or being at all but the lack of being. There is no such thing as evil being a being in its own right. Evil exists like blindness in the eye exists. The eye is still good but its privation of sight is evil. Thus the demons and the damned are still good because they exist. But they are evil because they are frozen in their determination to rebel against God. Technically speaking, evil is the privation of a love that should exist in intelligent creatures.

Dr. Geraghty

COPYRIGHT 2009

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