Why?

I recently found "Paradise Lost" by John Milton for free on Gutenberg.org--and I am just about half way through. I know I am missing a lot though the old(er) English and the Greek mythological allusions, but I am getting the gist of it--and I find it fascinating! In fact, a lot of the things I have heard as a child about Satan do not come from Scripture but from Milton's classic. For instance: "Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven" is Milton. The devil's logic that spells out, "Since I cannot attack God, I can attack His chief creation (man) and thereby attack God" derives mainly from Milton.

My favorite verse so far is early on when John Milton describes why an almighty God would allow Satan to break from his chains in hell to then ultimately seduce Adam and Eve out of paradise:

So stretcht out huge in length the Arch-fiend lay

Chain'd on the burning Lake, nor ever thence

Had ris'n or heav'd his head, but that the will

And high permission of all-ruling Heaven

Left him at large to his own dark designs,

That with reiterated crimes he might

Heap on himself damnation, while he sought

Evil to others, and enrag'd might see

How all his malice serv'd but to bring forth

Infinite goodness, grace and mercy shewn

On Man by him seduc't, but on himself

Treble confusion, wrath and vengeance pour'd.

I love this. Milton thankfully does not attribute all of hell's power to this "rebellious force" lying somewhere beyond the sovereignty of God or outside His control. Satan and God are not these equal powers continually clashing over the outcome of this world. That would mean that God is simply not God. But the age old question that has plagued humanity for ages remains: "Why?" Why all this suffering? Why all this sin? Why is there a devil at all, when an all-powerful God clearly has the power to stop him at any moment? Milton in the verse above shows us in most Biblical fashion that what man (or devil) means for evil, God makes for good. Furthermore: without the sin, without the hardship, without the darkness--we would never know the great mercy and grace of Jesus Christ who took our sin on Himself. We would not know the "infinite goodness shewn on man by him seduced."

Augustine writes something similar here: "Since, then, God was not ignorant that man would fall, why should He not have suffered him to be tempted by an angel who hated and envied him? It was not, indeed, that He was unaware that he should be conquered, but because He foresaw that by the man's seed, aided by divine grace, this same devil himself should be conquered to the greater glory of the saints."

Greater glory. Greater glory for Christ. Greater glory for the saints. That is why evil is allowed its seemingly free reign for this season.

In our pain in this life God is not absent; and though we may not be able to make sense of everything this side of eternity, we can trust his word that He is indeed working all things for the good for those who love Him. For those who are called according to His purpose.

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In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.  --1 Peter 1:6-7