CCC 310 But why did God not create a world so perfect that no evil could exist in it? With infinite power God could always create something better.1 But with infinite wisdom and goodness God freely willed to create a world “in a state of journeying” towards its ultimate perfection. In God’s plan this process of becoming involves the appearance of certain beings and the disappearance of others, the existence of the more perfect alongside the less perfect, both constructive and destructive forces of nature. With physical good there exists also physical evil as long as creation has not reached perfection.2
1 Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, STh I,25,6.
2 Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, SCG III,71.