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God’s Unwavering Love For A Fallen Yet Good World

God’s Unwavering Love For A Fallen Yet Good World

Last updated on: July 9, 2026 at 1:09 am by Henry Karlson

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God’s Unwavering Love For A Fallen Yet Good World 2026-07-09T01:09:52-05:00 Henry Karlson

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God’s love is for all creatures, and indeed, the whole world. Painting: Cajetan Roos: Creation of the World / Wikimedia Commons

Everything which has been made, the whole of creation and its parts, were made good. This is as it could only be, for God is good and God created all that has been made through that goodness. Everything was created with the purpose that it should be able to participate, in their own way, with God’s goodness. For what is good is made greater in the sharing (or, in God’s eternal reality, is realized in and through such sharing):

It cannot be otherwise than that God’s work is good, that he does not reject or destroy but loves and preserves it. God’s seeing protects the world from falling back into the void, protects it from total destruction. God sees the world as good, as created – even where it is the fallen world – and because of the way God sees his work and embraces it and does not forsake it, we live. [1]

God loves all creation, because in it, God finds the good which God gave it. Through providence, God protects and preserves creation because of that good. Even when those given free will undermine their own goodness through an abuse of their freedom, even when they sin and contaminate creation by their sin (similar to the way radiation contaminates what it touches), there always remains some level of goodness underneath that defilement. The goodness is not completely destroyed. God knows it is there, and loves it, no matter how hidden it might be to us.

God will not destroy what God created, because that would mean God would destroy something which is good, which would not be a good act. Similarly, God’s provides makes sure creation does not end up annihilating itself. God will not the good which lies behind and in all things, the good given to everything and everyone in their creation, to be utterly destroyed. This is one of many reasons why God does not desire the perdition of anyone, and why, even if some resist God and God’s grace for all eternity, God does not annihilate them (or let them extinguish themselves).

Through providence, God is always at work with creation, drawing out the good in it from the corruption which defiles it, protecting it, preserving it, and gives it what it needs to grow and become something greater. Christians, being drawn into the divine life, are expected to imitate God. They should be preservers and protectors, seeking to conserve the world and all that is in it, instead of becoming its destroyers; this is why they are to love their enemies, not because they like what their enemies do, especially if those who they deem are their enemies do great evil, but because behind that evil, there is something of God’s good creation which remains, something which they, like God, want to preserve and draw out. Similarly, they should seek to draw out the good which is found in themselves; they should feel sorrow for what they have done wrong, but also, they should seek to free themselves from any and all sinful habits and the corruption such sin has had upon them. Grace makes this possible. And, having seen the mercy they should show themselves, once again, they are to realize they are to show similar mercy to others. George Maloney tell us that this is exactly the kind of wisdom the desert fathers and mothers learned; through their tears, through their sorrow for their sins, they are drawn to the way of love. They followed God by loving the world, seeking to lift it up, protecting it from the harm:

What the desert Fathers universally experienced through the gift of tears was a cosmic oneness in love and mercy not only toward all other human beings but toward animals, plants and all inanimate creation. God’s loving presence shines through all of creation as a self-giving love that can only engender in the heart of the purified contemplative a like response of love and mercy toward the whole world. Such a heart, freed from all taint of narcissism through tears, can look upon all human beings with the eyes of the compassionate God. [2]

Our own contrition, our own sorrow for our sins, our own resolve to do better, awakens in us the value of mercy, and if we truly embrace the mercy God has given us, we will find it will change us; we will become merciful to others, living our lives with the kind of charity God always intended us to possess. Our love will help us realize the unity we are to have with others, that we, and the rest of creation, share a common, created nature which makes us one. We also be able to understand God’s love for us better and see that God is coming to us like a Father and Mother: “The whole world and the whole human race are the offspring of their Creator.” [3] This, then, helps us to understand classical philosophical tradition, where the world is, in its way, is said to be “begotten by God.” We are to adapt this understanding by taking it metaphorically and not literally:

Our Plato in the Timaeus, following and supporting Timaeus, the Pythagorean, tells us that the world is begotten of God. He shows us the threefold cause of its creation; its efficient cause, its final cause and its formal cause. He has it that the world was made by God’s power through the grace of His goodness, as a model of divine wisdom. As the design of a whole building and of its parts exists in the mind of an architect, so the design of this whole world and its parts exists in the divine intelligence beyond the world. That world beyond he calls the world of intelligence, and eternal; this world he calls the world of senses, and temporal. [4]

Christians know that the world is not literally begotten by God, for the Logos, the Son of God, is the only one begotten of the Father, begotten of the Father before all ages. However, we find ourselves, our being, our essence, come from the Logos, the Word of God:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made (Jn. 1:1-3 RSV).

As we come from the Logos, the Logos makes us so that we reflect the Logos, having our own word or essence which defines us. We are logoi in the Logos. Through this, we can better understand talk about being children of God. As we reflect the Logos in our creation, there is something of divine filiation found in us. However, for us, this is derivative in nature; we reflection filiation, but we are made, while the Logos alone is begotten of the Father. The difference is real. In and through the Logos we participate and share in the divine Sonship, while the Logos actually is the one who is begotten of the Father before all ages (using the terms of Scripture to designate the two persons). But that shows us how and why the Father loves us, and draws us in to the divine life, for the Father loves us in the Father’s love for the Logos, the Son, as the Father sees the image of the Son in us. Understanding this properly also helps us understand Christ when he said that what we do to the least among us, how we help them and protect them and preserve their good, we do for him, because everyone and everything has an image of the Logos in them. Through that image, they all have the presence of the Logos in them. And so, if we want to follow God, we will seek to protect and preserve the logoi of creation, realizing as we do, we follow the way of God, who loves those logoi, not just because they were created good, but because they participate in the Logos, and serve as unique reflections of the Logos whom the Father loves.

[1] Deitrich Bonhoeffer, Creation and Fall. Temptation. Trans. John C. Fletcher (New York: Touchstone, 1997), 25.

[2] George Maloney, SJ, Prayer of the Heart (Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, 1981), 90.

[3] Salvian the Presbyter, “The Governance of God” in The Writings of Salvian the Presbyter. Trans. Jeremiah F. O’Sullivan (Washington, DC: CUA Press, 1962), 106-7.

[4] Marsilio Ficino, The Letters of Marsilio Ficino. Volume 1. trans. by members of the Language Department of the School of Economic Science, London (London: Shepheard-Walwyn, 1975; repr. 1988), 85 [Letter 43 to Giovanni Cavalcanti].

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N.B.: While I read comments to moderate them, I rarely respond to them. If I don’t respond to your comment directly, don’t assume I am unthankful for it. I appreciate it. But I want readers to feel free to ask questions, and hopefully, dialogue with each other. I have shared what I wanted to say, though some responses will get a brief reply by me, or, if I find it interesting and something I can engage fully, as the foundation for another post. I have had many posts inspired or improved upon thanks to my readers.

General Christian

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