In the fifth chapter of the Gospel according to St. John, we read of Jesus healing the paralyzed man who lay by the pool. Later when Jesus encounters the man, Jesus warns him. He says to him, “Go and sin no more, lest something worse befall you.” Here Jesus isn’t warning him that, if he sins, he will grow sicker, he will have some kind of physical ailment even worse than his paralysis.

Jesus makes it very clear, again and again, that physical disease is not necessarily always linked to the way we have lived; it is not a result of our sin. Of course, there are thing we can do that are sinful that result in sickness. We can drink excessively; we can take drugs. We can do all kinds of things that harm the body, things that are sinful. But here Jesus is talking about something far greater than physical ailments.

Jesus says, “Something greater may befall you,” because, when we sin, we inflict on the soul wounds that are far more harmful and far more dangerous than physical ailments. Physical ailments will come to an end when our body dies, but the wounds that we commit against the soul—passions that we give ourselves to, habits of sin—may form the soul in such a way that, when we face judgment, the consequences may go on to eternity. The wounds may be an eternal wound.

This encounter really with Jesus raises all kinds of questions for us, but we may principally say, “Where, then, does suffering come from? If it is not always a direct result of our sin, directly, specifically, where, then, does this suffering come from? Why is there suffering at all in the world, and where does evil come from? Why is there evil in the world?” Now, to answer this we have to look at what it truly means to be created in the image of God. It may seem strange that we would raise these two facts, that there is evil in the world and that we are created in the image of God, but the two are connected. This is not a paradox or something strange. The reality is we are created in the image of God, and for man to be in God’s image the possibility of sin and suffering must exist.

When we look in the book of Genesis, we read that God does indeed create man in his own image and likeness. When we say this, of course, God is immaterial. Therefore we know that to be in God’s image is something of the soul, that immaterial part of us. The Church doesn’t go to any great lengths to make it a doctrine of what this actually means, but we do have the teachings of the Fathers, and collectively they teach us what it means, what this image of God is in us. Some of the Church Fathers, of course, talk about the image of God being immortality, given by grace not by nature, by essence. The Church Fathers talk about it being the reason, the reasoning part, of the soul; the fact that we have free will. And of course, without reason, we cannot have free will; and without free will, we cannot love. The ability to give love and to genuinely love God and each other is a reflection of the image of God within us. Love must be freely given, and therefore we must have free will in order for love to be real.

We must be clear, though. God did not create evil. The Church does not teach that God created evil. Man was created sinless. Adam and Eve were created sinless in paradise, but this does not mean that they were not created with the inability to sin, they were not created incapable of sinning, the tendency was not in their nature. We may say that the tendency to sin did not exist in man at his creation, but it was within his power, within his will, within his choice. Man was created with free will, free choice. He was created with the ability to choose, to strive towards closer union with God, strive to greater perfection—or to choose disobedience, to turn away from God and embrace disobedience.

Man was created with this choice. He was given the choice because God created us that we would give our free will back in obedience to God. Evil itself is really a violation of God’s laws. We may see evil as this violation, disobedience to the will of God. And in this sense, of course, we may dare to say even natural disasters are not evil. Yes, they produce suffering—there is chaos, there is terrible pain and suffering as a consequence of many natural disasters—but they are not evil in themselves. Now, all sorrow, all suffering, is a consequence of sin, but sometimes that suffering is a chastisement, as we see there in the book of Genesis, and in many of the Fathers. Our suffering may be the thing that holds us back from greater sin, but teaches us the nature of sin. But all suffering is a consequence of sin.

So we may say, then, how may natural disasters—earthquakes, fires, floods, volcanoes, these things that cause great suffering—how can they possibly be linked to man’s sin? Well, we have to go back even further to understand the nature of the fall. The fall really was that act of disobedience that began in heaven. It began amongst the angels. The devil, through his own pride, was disobedient to God. The angels, of course, who have free will, who have choice—some of these angels, led by Satan, were disobedient to God; they rebelled and were cast out from heaven. And on earth, the devil in the form of a serpent, it says in Genesis, tempted Eve. So man, Adam and Eve, were tempted by the devil.

The fall of man in this way, then, had an impact on the whole of creation, because man is really the unique crown of this earthly creation that exists both as earthly and heavenly; we have both body and soul. And so this fall, this act of disobedience, this giving-in to temptation, the choosing to follow temptation, then affected the whole of creation: vegetation, animals, even the lifeless things of the world—the seas, the ocean, the ground, the elements—all fell. And so the forces within creation, the forces that drive and push, the way that the things of the earth interact with each other, were no longer in the condition in which they were created.  The consequence of this fallen state of creation are these natural disasters that befall us. So man’s sin was manifested in all things. In all things, even in those things that are not living.

Therefore we may say that all sin originates in the devil. “Devil” literally means slanderer, but all sin originates in the devil. He was the first to sin, and he was the one who tempted man into sin. Satan and his angels, even now, work continuously to tempt man into evil. This is their activity now. And they exist, we are told, in the aerial realms; they exist, we are told in Scripture, just beneath heaven. There in the aerial realms, they are continuously active, seeking to tempt man into evil, into disobedience. Continuously: they never cease; they’re always active, cast down into these aerial realms.

But in order to be perfected, we must have free will and be able to choose to accept and follow these temptations. Now, not all temptations that we experience now are directly given to us by the devil. Some temptations are bodily. Some temptations are a consequence of our fallen nature. Some temptations are a consequence of our having developed habits of sin that become passions in the soul. But they originate, originally, in the devil and his rebellion with God. And when we sin, when we choose to follow temptation, when we follow disobedience, we fall into union with evil. We give ourselves to evil. We give ourselves to the activity of the devil. We turn our back on the blessedness of God.

But however much we do this, however much we sinners—as individuals, as families, as nations, as governments—nothing can prevent the whole of history culminating in the fulfillment of God’s will. However much we sin, we must not lose hope, and we must not be disheartened, and we must not become despondent. Everything, despite the fall, despite the fallen nature of this world, this cosmos, this very being that we are within ourselves, despite our now fallen nature, God’s plan, God’s providence, works to bring all things to fulfillment. All of our lives are in God’s care, and when we struggle against temptation, when we struggle to be obedient, which so often is very difficult for us, we who are so sinful, we are pursuing the kingdom of God; we are working according to God’s plan and God’s will.

The image of God is something created in our soul. All of us are created with the image of God. God gives us the image of God at the creation of our being, but the creation of us in the image of God and the likeness of God are two different things. God created us in his image and likeness. “Let us create man in our image and likeness,” he said. But the Church Fathers tell us that the likeness of God is something different to the image. We all have that image that is marred and defaced and fallen, but the likeness of God is something a bit higher. It is that part of our self that comes into being and grows when we are faithful, when we love, when we forgive, when the gifts of the Holy Spirit are manifested within our lives. The likeness of God grows in us as we are perfected.

Christ promises us if we struggle, if we repent, if we confess our sins and seek that healing that he offers, the same healing, the same power that healed the paralytic, so, too, can heal the wounds of the soul, those more dangerous wounds that we have afflicted upon ourselves. Let us confess, let us find the healing that Christ gives to us through the mystery of confession, and let us know always the whole of our lives, every individual one of us is in the care, the love of God. God hears every word, every thought, every prayer that we utter. We are constantly in his presence. Though we have turned away from him so often, though we have sought the things of the world instead of his kingdom, instead of his love, he has not turned his back on us.

So whatever evil we see, whatever evil we commit, let us know, let us hope, that in our struggle we can turn away and that we can find the hand of God calling, leading us to his kingdom, to his blessedness that he created us for in the beginning.