Daily Reflection — July 4, 2026

Freedom and Evil -- A man who is free to love is free to hate. He who is free to obey is free to rebel. Virtue in its concrete order is possible only in those spheres in which it is possible to be vicious. Man can be a saint only in a world in which it is possible to be a devil. You say, “Well, if I were God, I would destroy evil.” Well, if you did that, you would destroy human freedom. God will not destroy freedom. If we do not want any dictators on this earth, certainly we do not want any dictators in the kingdom of heaven. Those who would blame God for allowing man freedom to go on hindering and thwarting his work are like those who see blotches and smudges and errors in the student’s notebook and would condemn the teacher for not snatching away the book and doing the copy himself. Just as the object of the teacher is sound education and not the production of neat and well-written copybooks, so the object of God is the development of souls and not the production of biological entities.