738. Could God improve humankind by using methods other than destructive scourges?
“Yes, and God uses them every day. The Creator has given each of you the means of progressing through the knowledge of good and iniquity. Because humans profit so little by those other means, it is necessary to wound their pride and to make them feel their weaknesses.”
a) Good people fall victim to these scourges just as much as bad people do. Is it fair?
“On Earth, human beings measure everything against their physical lives. After death, they see things differently and feel that the physical life is nothing. A century in your world is but a flash in eternity; therefore, the suffering of days, months, or even years on Earth are of no significance, and are only a lesson that will serve you in the future. Spirits are the real world, preexistent to and surviving everything else (See no. 85). They are God’s children and the focus of all Divine concern. Bodies are only the outer shells under which they appear in the physical world. When great scourges decimate the human race, the victims are like an army whose clothing is torn, worn out or lost in battle. A general cares more about his soldiers than their coats.”
b) But the victims of these calamities are victims nonetheless.
“If you viewed life on Earth for what it truly is, and as being so small in comparison to infinity, you would attach much less importance to it. These victims will find significant compensation for their pain in another existence, if they bear their suffering with resignation.”
Whether death is the result of a public disaster or results from an ordinary cause, we are forced to go when the hour of our departure has come. The only difference is that more such departures occur at the same time in the event of a public disaster. If we could elevate ourselves to contemplate the human race as a whole, the calamities that seem so terrible now would be reduced to passing storms in the destiny of the world.
