Hello and welcome to Cat the Gans was live we did it again we've got a great Friday lineup for you and you are very welcome to call 888-318-7884.

I'm Sikell at your host second hour we'll do a wonderful combo that will generally is a wonderful conversation when we get Ryleen Simpson on and we'll talk about dealing with same sex attraction if that's the situation you find yourself in or a family member Ryleen is just wonderful on that so that's how we'll finish up our Friday but the first hour it's ask a priest if you've got a question appropriate for a Catholic priest whether you're Catholic or not.

No confessions please but other than that whether it's a pastoral or a theological question that you'd like to ask a priest you are welcome to call 888-318-7884. I mean it quite sincerely you don't have to be Catholic to call if you have something you've been wanting to ask a priest 888-318-7884.

Our guest former radio host himself father Matthew Spencer OSJ he's the provincial of the oblits of Saint Joseph here in in the United States father Matthew Spencer thank you very much for being with us.

So I would a pleasure thanks for having me glad to be back and you did it on short notice with us too I'm really grateful for that because I know you're very very busy and and you just you just stepped up for us so thank you.

Yeah you know sometimes divine providence just makes it work out thanks but actually I should say all the time divine.

Yeah I don't know if you want to go with sometimes there as a Catholic priest that's a good point.

Oh well we're awful glad it did though again 888-318-7884 so you you're not hosting a radio show because you're the provincial which people should know is the leader of the community here in the United States of the oblits of Saint Joseph.

But you still do radio from time to time like I hear you fill in in for various people here and there.

Yeah I do you know I was on an act of hard radio for for some time and then on relevant radio when those two organizations merged and you're right I don't do regular radio appearances these days but I I get calls to help out like this and I love it you know aside it's it's amazing doing Catholic radio because we reach so many people.

A lot of people who might not be willing to come into a Catholic church but want to hear what we have to say and that feels like a real privilege to me to be able to enter that conversation.

Yeah I couldn't agree with you more and so I just really want to stress again especially since Father just said that if you're not a Catholic you're very welcome if there's something that you're curious about or something that does not make sense to you maybe it sticks in your crawl a bit about what you've heard about Catholics or what you understand about Catholics.

You're very welcome here eight eight eight three one eight seven eight eight four and right now three lines open we've got three lines open.

Father I think that means we are all set to go to calls you want to take some calls.

Excellent yeah let's do it all right let's go to Joseph and click look at that.

We have the provincial of the Alvets of St Joseph here and we start right out with the Joseph see how Providence works Joseph and Cleveland Ohio listening on Catholic dot com that's our website Joseph we're glad you're here go ahead with your question for father Matthew Spencer.

Hi guys thank you for taking my question so so a little bit of background I grew up Catholic but then kind of became more or less agnostic and then I now start to come back now I I believe that the argument for a creator is is good but I guess my biggest issue at the moment is how can we know that.

God is good and not evil main problem for me is like you know there's just like so much evil in the world I just don't really know how to exactly like kind of like know how that's possible when there should be an all powerful all good God.

Okay Joseph wondering what you have your stuff father oh I love this Joseph so thank you for for calling in and I'm really really grateful to hear about your openness you know to to a discover rediscover the Catholic faith it's a really good question a really big question actually that you're asking how do we know that God is good and not evil and actually there's a really simple way which it's going to sound like a referential self referential definition.

It's actually important to ponder which is that it's good God is good because he is God that is his his his very we can say essence right of being God defines what is good and what is evil and so we learn from God himself what is good now I know that sounds kind of strange well then couldn't God have have anything be good.

The difference is as Christians is that we know that God is also love right so we this is revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ and through the Holy Scriptures and so we know that that goodness and love are intimately connected and fundamentally right explain or or reveal to us who God is in the limited way that we can understand it as as Christians.

So we know that God is good because because he's God Joseph and I'm not trying to say that this is I mean some people might say well this is a totology right you're just referring to the same argument you're using but the definition of good and evil have to go back to some objective source right and as Christians we know that that is God himself and so we look to God to discover what is good but but you also get to one of the one of the biggest conundrums.

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