Fourth question. "Why do unforeseen events happen so often?"

    Fifth question. "Why does a bad person die in a good death like the righteous while a righteous person sometimes dies a bad death like the unrighteous?"

    Answer to the first question. The Judge answered: "Friend, your questioning does not come from love; however I answer you for the love of others. You ask why animals suffer infirmities. This is because there exists a disorder in them as in the rest of creation. I am the maker of every nature and have given to each its own temperament and order in which each one moves and lives. However, after man, for whose sake all things were made, set himself against his lover, that is, against me his God, then disorder entered all the rest of creation, and all the things that should have been afraid of man began to set themselves against him and oppose him. Because of this defective disorder many troubles and difficulties befall humankind as well as animals.

    Besides, sometimes animals also suffer because of their own natural immoderation or as a curb to their ferocity, or as a cleansing of nature itself, or sometimes because of human sins in order that human beings, who have a greater use of reason, might consider how much punishment they deserve, when the creatures they love are plagued and taken away. But if human sins did not demand it, animals, which are under human charge, would not suffer in so singular a manner.

    But not even they suffer without great justice. Their suffering occurs either to put a quicker end to their lives and lessen their wretched toils that consume their strength or on account of a change in seasons or out of human carelessness during the process of work. People should therefore fear me, their God, above all things, and treat my creatures and animals more mildly, having mercy on them for the sake of me, their Creator. I, God, accordingly decreed the Sabbath rest, because I care for all my creation."

    Answer to the second question. "As to why everything is born in pain, I answer: When humankind rejected the fairest pleasure, they immediately incurred a life of toil. And because the disorder began in and through humankind, my justice causes there to be some bitterness even for other creatures, which exist for the sake of humans, so as to temper their pleasure and foster their means of nourishment.

    For this reason, people are born with pain and make toilsome progress in order to render them eager to hurry to their true rest. They die naked and poor in order to make them restrain their disorderly behavior and fear the coming examination. Likewise animals, too, give birth in pain in order for bitterness to temper their excesses, and so that they may be participants in human toil and sorrow. For this reason, insofar as humankind is so much nobler than are animals, people should love me, the Lord God, their Creator, all that much more fervently."

    Answer to the third question. "As to why a child carries the sins of his father, I answer: Can anything clean come from that which is unclean? When he lost the beauty of innocence due to disobedience, the first man was thrown out of the paradise of joy and was enveloped in unclean things. There is no one to be found who can regain this innocence by himself. For this reason, I, merciful God, appeared in the flesh and instituted baptism, by means of which a child is freed from perverse uncleanness and sin. Because of this, a son shall not carry the weight of his father's sin, but each shall die in his own sin.

    However it often happens that children imitate the sins of their parents. Sometimes, too, the fathers' sins are punished in their children, not because their fathers' sins go unpunished in the fathers themselves, although the punishment for sins may be put off for a time. Rather, each shall die in and be punished for his own sin. As it is written, the sins of fathers are also sometimes visited upon the fourth generation, because it is my divine justice that, when sons do not try to placate my wrath either for themselves or for their fathers, they should be punished along with their fathers whom they followed against me."

    Answer to the fourth question. "As to why unforeseen events often happen, I answer: It is written that a man shall be punished by the very things in which he has sinned. Who can fathom God's purpose? Given that many people seek me not in accordance with knowledge but for the sake of the world, some of them having more fear than is right, others taking too much for granted, still others being proud in their own counsel, I, God, working for the salvation of all, sometimes bring about that which people fear most. At times that which is loved more than is right is taken away, while at other times things that are sought and desired overanxiously are delayed, so that people may fear, love, and acknowledge me as their God always and above all things."

    Answer to the fifth question. "As to why a bad person dies a good death like the righteous, I answer: The wicked sometimes have some good to them and perform some works of justice, and for these they must be rewarded in the present life. Likewise, the righteous do bad things at times, and for these they must receive punishment in the present or they must expect it. As everything in the present life is uncertain, and all things are left to the future, and as there is only one entrance for everyone, so there must also be only one exit for everyone, though it is not the manner of their exit but that of their life that makes people blessed.

    When wicked people make the same kind of exit as the righteous, it is because of my divine justice, because they themselves desired that exit. Sometimes the devil, foreseeing the exit of his friends, announces to them beforehand the time of their death with a view to their vainglory and presumption and deception (as one finds in the so-called apocryphal books) so that they may receive the fame of righteousness after death.

    On the other hand, a sorrowful death sometimes occurs to the righteous with a view to their greater reward in order that those who were always concerned about virtue in their lifetime might be free to fly to heaven through an ignominious death, inasmuch as no offscourings to cleanse can be found in them.

    It is written that the lion killed the disobedient prophet but guarded the corpse without eating it. That the lion kills the body - what else does it imply if not my divine permission that allows the disobedience of the prophet to be punished? The fact that the lion did not eat the body was a proof of the good works of the prophet, so that, purged in the present, he would be found righteous in the life to come. Let everyone therefore be wary of analyzing my decisions. For, even as I am incomprehensible in virtue and power, so too I am terrible in my judgments and counsels. And, indeed, some people, wishing to comprehend me in their wisdom, have been cut off from their hope."