Not Gepetto: Why Saramago's Question Assumes the Wrong God

José Saramago famously asked why God did not simply destroy the devil instead of permitting the Cross. This essay argues that the question itself assumes a conception of God foreign to classical Christian theology: a divine puppeteer standing outside creation, manipulating events by force. Drawing on Scripture, Augustine, Aquinas, and the author's philosophical framework, the essay contends that evil is rooted not merely in an external tempter but in the human will. Removing the Adversary would not heal freedom, just as destroying an idol does not remove idolatry from the heart. The Cross is presented not as a choice between two violent alternatives but as God's refusal to answer evil through domination, revealing instead a God who is the ground of being rather than the master of strings.