Question:
Answer:
In short, God is good and thus cannot do moral evil. Some might respond, “Then God cannot do everything and therefore is not all-powerful (omnipotent).” In fact, doing evil would be an impoverishment of God, showing there is something outside God that can impair or limit him. Which would thereby show that God is not omnipotent and therefore not God.
St. Paul affirms God’s goodness:
Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation which in Christ Jesus goes with eternal glory. The saying is sure:
If we have died with him, we shall also live with him;
if we endure, we shall also reign with him;
if we deny him, he also will deny us;
if we are faithless, he remains faithful—
for he cannot deny himself (2 Timothy 2:10-13).
If we are unfaithful, God will seek us out like the Good Shepherd after a lost sheep (Matt. 18:12-13). Yet, he will not coerce our love, for that would not be truly loving and a violation of the free will he gave us. Still, as St. Paul says elsewhere, God demonstrates his merciful love in coming to die for our sins:
While we were yet helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Why, one will hardly die for a righteous man—though perhaps for a good man one will dare even to die. But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us (Romans 5:6-8; see John 3:16-17).