St. Paul calls Satan the “mystery of lawlessness” (2 Thessalonians 2:8), but that does not mean his works are mysteries. In a similar way, we may understand Satan as the origin of evil acts, but that does not mean that we know the source of evil itself.

‘Mysteries’ is a term that the Church frequently says but rarely defines. I considered how Catholic teaching uses it, and I propose this formal explanation: A divine mystery is the known purpose of a particular deed or word of God. Most significantly, a mystery is the known purpose of Jesus Christ’s life. The word mystery reminds us that just as divine acts have known purposes, they also have purposes that we don’t know because God is not entirely known to us. The sacraments are also called mysteries.

Satan’s works are not mysteries in that sense because he is not divine, we know the purpose of his acts, and there is no purpose of his that we don’t know.

When he created the angels, God said, “Lucifer,” and the angel by that name came to be. Then God said, “Will you serve me?” and Lucifer said, “I will not serve.” It is the nature of angels that, when they decide, their decision is permanent. One-third of all the angels made the same decision and were all cast out of heaven and hurled down to the earth (Rev 12:4).

God created human beings after making the angels and the material world (Fourth Lateran Council). God made the world for our good and to show us his glory.

Humanity and material creation existed in God’s friendship. The world’s creatures lived in harmony. Each acted by perfect charity in action, giving what was due to itself and the other. Our first parents did not make themselves evil but Satan (Lucifer’s name after his fall) prompted them to do evil.

He persuades all of us to join his evil: to rise up against God, to assault him, to call ourselves and other things God, and to want God dead. So, we all had to pay the irrevocable penalty handed down by God’s justice, which was to be automatically banished from God upon our death. God’s merciful love did not let events stop there, but that’s a story for a different post (spoiler alert: “God’s merciful love” is Jesus Christ).

Evil is the absence of good. It has no purpose. It is the uncreated thing in God’s creation. The almighty God, however, brings good from the absence of good.

Where does evil itself come from? That question, we now see, leads to another question, “Why does God permit his creatures to be the way they are; why could Lucifer say ‘no’?”

God is almighty, and justice, wisdom, will, intellect, power, and essence are identical in him. Everything in God’s power is in his just will, in his wise intellect, and is of his essence. God is infinitely good. Therefore, everything that he created is good. He created angels and men as they should be. That includes acting as they want but not always as they should.

The Church confidently hopes that God will be all and in all. Until then, we will continue to be weakened in our powers, subject to ignorance and suffering, and know physical, spiritual, and moral evil. The Church’s prayer always reminds us that God nonetheless saves us from evil:

O Lord, who gave us your Son to rescue us graciously from death and from every evil, accept, we pray, in mercy this sacrifice, which we offer you in thanksgiving for our deliverance from distress. Through Christ our Lord.

Mass for Those in Any Need, Collect