ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses God's program of redemption for human beings. It advances a Thomistic Theodicy of Redemptive Suffering (TRS) that deeply explores how God uses suffering in order to further our redemption and align and conform us as fallen beings to himself as our highest good. According to this TRS, central to God's redeeming work is fostering in us the virtue of “suffering love”: a love for God and others that disposes one to suffer on behalf of others in service to God's redemptive work in their lives. This TRS also claims that there are “anonymous redemptive sufferers.” These are sufferers who may not recognize how they are serving God's redemptive plan but who God knows will lovingly embrace their role in that plan, once they reach heaven and come to know and love God fully. Furthermore, according to this TRS, God uses redemptive suffering in purgatory in order to redeem sin so that we can live ultimately good lives with him in heaven. Finally, it affirms that since God has sovereignty over our salvation he can ensure (working with, rather than against human free will) that we attain ultimately good lives, in which all evil has been redeemed.
