Wasn't sure where to post this as this is probably a philosophical/theological question more than not.

Anyway, this thought occurred to me and I figured it was worth discussing. As God is all-knowing, all-perfect, and all-good, it follows that even from an evil action that is performed either by man or by Satan, He will not permit it to have an ultimate evil end, rather He will see to it that the Ultimate End is something that is good and perfect, as is befitting of His Divine Will. For example, let's say a pagan man is robbed of all his property by the government and is forced to live on the street. Say he goes into a conversion because of this, and becomes a great Saint who in turn converts thousands of souls. Although evil was initially done, good came out of it, as is befitting God's will.

Now, what if this evil never happened at all? Let's say there are two people who are about to commit adultery, and would give birth to a child that would become one of the greatest saints ever to walk the Earth. What if, by the realization of the horror they were about to commit, backed out at the last moment. This would mean that the Saint would never have been born. This sounds very close to consequentialism, but in fact, the two people would never know that the sinful act would have led to a great saint having been born, so it's mostly God I am talking about. Is it possible that He may have both great joy for the fact that the two people avoided a sin, but also sorrow, since he cannot create His beloved saint? This leads one to wonder, if God takes both joy for every evil that is avoided, but also a certain amount of sorrow, since He cannot bring about another good that would have come out of the evil that was not done.

I am not saying that God is limited, but that from the way He has acted so far, he will allow one thing to happen, and if that thing happens, avoid doing another thing. E.g. If a bridge remains standing, He will not allow it to simultaneously fall, etc.

would have to agree, though I am a rather mean schmuck arent I

Good comes out of sin for the sole reason that God foreknew the sin and incorporated it into his divine plan, if God did not foreknow mans decisions then his will could be frustrated, but as God foreknows mans decisions due to his foreknowing mans nature and the nature of the whole of creation nothing that ever occurs was not eternally accounted for.

Thus your hypothetical situation of God wanting to created this holy saint due to a sinful union but being frustrated by the resistance of the couple, is a situation that simply does not exist nor can it exist.

Quote from: Laurentius

Good comes out of sin for the sole reason that God foreknew the sin and incorporated it into his divine plan, if God did not foreknow mans decisions then his will could be frustrated, but as God foreknows mans decisions due to his foreknowing mans nature and the nature of the whole of creation nothing that ever occurs was not eternally accounted for.

Thus your hypothetical situation of God wanting to created this holy saint due to a sinful union but being frustrated by the resistance of the couple, is a situation that simply does not exist nor can it exist.

The idea isn't that God's plan is frustrated. When a man makes a decision, he will only know the end result of one of those choices he could have made, God knows the road down all of them. What I wonder is what God thinks about those things which will never happen, or might have happened. Does he possess any sorrow for the good that was not done, or joy for the evil that were not done?


Lol this can be very easy to over think.

God, desiring our benefit and greater good, I think, will only allow what is best to come about with our lack of cooperation with His Will. No matter how much evil we commit, He will turn it to some greater good. He knows the journey and end of all, and has already decreed what He will allow to take place while respecting our free will and freedom to act out our lives as we please. But if there is ever something that will lead to a greater evil He will no doubt intervene somehow prevent it.

I think God is saddened by our refusal to cooperate with His Divine Plan which would be nothing but the fulfillment of our hapiness. But He gave us free will and our foreseen refusal to obey has been taken into account before our creation. Im sure God was always sorrowful for our sins and pleased with our good deeds before time began since He knew it all along.

I think the mystery is, why did He go through with it?

Does he possess any sorrow for the good that was not done, or joy for the evil that were not done?

Let's take two of the Maries, the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene.  Is God sad that Mary Magdalene was not as pure and perfect as the Virgin Mary?  No, because that is part of her journey, that is part of her character, that is what makes her unique and different, that she had a bad past and that she was able to turn herself around with God's help.  

Mary Magdalene is a much lesser saint than the Virgin Mary but she is a greater saint than her sister Martha who was also a virgin.  Everything is perfectly ordered, though, with greater and lesser luminaries, so God is not sorrowful over those who don't rise as high as others.  There is no such thing as "what could have been."  There is the elect, of greater and lesser degree, with Christ being far above Mary who is far above the angels who are above the saints who are above the rest ( tucked into a little corner somewhere, hopefully, is Raoul76 ), and then there is the reprobate.

There IS good that is not done, and that is what is held against us on the Day of Judgment, but I think that is what is used to determine how high or low we rank in heaven.  I'm not sure it's an occasion for sadness since it was all foreseen, all of our little omissions and peccadilloes and failures.

Certainly we can compare any Saint to the B.V.M., by saying our Lady far surpasses them all in holiness. This is the doctrinal difference between the comparison of dulia and hyperdulia.

I don't think we can compare Saints with other Saints as to holiness. Sometimes we celebrate their feast days with greater solemnity or say one was a greater saint, but this is not as to holiness. Greater emphasis is based on what they have manifested outwardly, a more practical motive, that is, how much emphasis for imitation or admiration of those outward, visible things that God decided he wanted to manifest through them each.

As to holiness itself, I don't think it can be compared. The most obscure saint, not (yet) canonized, may in fact be holier than a wonder-working Saint. For all we know, St. Dismas may have become holier than Sr. Francis of Assisi. Nobody knows.

It really is all based upon capacity for holiness and the cooperation to fulfill that capacity God gives each person. This is the same basic lesson of the widow's mite, where her capacity to give was extremely limited, and the mite she offered was, before God, greater than anyone else giving pounds of silver. It is all in capacity and the will. Since we will never know the capacity of our neighbor, we should focus on seeking to know our own capacity while diligently fulfilling it.