Why Is There Natural Evil If God Is Good?
Natural evil might be simplified as the bad results of creation that have no connection to human will. Examples include hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, tornadoes, famines, viruses, and plagues. They don't result from sin, and it seems God must have built them into his creation. How can God be good when he created a world that accidentally causes us harm? Before we begin answering this question we should ask some clarifying questions.
PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS
Is suffering, pain, and destruction necessarily evil? What does the word "evil" really mean? Not all destruction is evil. We wouldn't say it was evil to demolish a building before constructing a better one. We wouldn't say stabbing a vaccination needle into a baby was evil even though it causes pain. We wouldn't say the pain we feel after a good gym workout is evil. What does "evil" really mean?
Another question we need to answer is whether God created natural evil in the first place? Some may answer "no" because he concluded that everything was good after creation. Some may answer "yes" because the character of our world necessitates random chance interacting with physical forces to create natural evil.
Are natural evils necessarily just natural? Some would answer "no" because everything in life has an underlying spiritual meaning. Some would say "yes" because sometimes accidents just happen and neither humans nor God have any relationship to them.
Did God create natural evil? Some would say he's omnibenevolent and wouldn't do that. Some would answer "yes" because he sent the flood and plagues on people and nations he wished to punish. But is God omnibenevolent? This is another question we have to ask. Or, rather, is God the kind of omnibenevolent being we hope he is? Perhaps our definition of "good" isn't the same as his definition.
Is there any possibility humans should be held responsible for natural evil? Could human sin be responsible for an earthquake? Most people assume this to be impossible, but some moderns would ascribe at least some blame to humans who polluted the environment or caused climate change. Others might suggest humanity's first sin ended cosmic stability, introduced death into the world, and set off a chain reaction that corrupted everything in the cosmos. Like the story of the princess and the pea, humanity's tiny rebellion against God might have disrupted the entire universe.
Let's move on to explore some of the possible solutions to the question of how a good God could allow for natural evil.
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
If God is omnibenevolent and omniscient then we should expect him to understand the meaning of "good" in a way that far surpasses our own understanding. If he created the world as a "vale of soul making," in which he uses natural evil as a forging process to perfect our eternal souls, perhaps all suffering should be re-perceived as positive everlasting good.
This solution implies humans are too stupid to understand what's really good. We're like kids, too naïve to understand how we should perceive the world. Kids think eating a hundred cookies for dinner is "good," but an adult knows this is evil because they're judging with a longer time horizon. CS Lewis wrote: "If God is wiser than we, His judgments must differ from ours on many things, and not least on good and evil. What seems to us good may therefore not be good in His eyes, and what seems to us evil may not be evil." God is thinking a million years in the future while most humans can barely budget for a single year.
Another possible solution to our question is that Jesus nullified the evil of suffering through his torture and death. If the creator God took on flesh and accepted the natural evils of the body then humans should stop thinking about natural evil as being evil. Perhaps the apostles were thinking this when they rejoiced at being whipped for Christ and thrown in a dungeon. The very fact that Jesus suffered, and his suffering can be acted out by human beings, means that suffering has lost its evil nature and been redeemed by the creator God. How can we complain about the suffering process when our Lord was glorified through this process? This is among the arguments against Gnosticism. The world and the human body can't be inherently evil because Jesus entered our world in the flesh.
Finally, let’s look at some Bible passages that may be relevant to our question.
BIBLE PASSAGES
PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS
Is suffering, pain, and destruction necessarily evil? What does the word "evil" really mean? Not all destruction is evil. We wouldn't say it was evil to demolish a building before constructing a better one. We wouldn't say stabbing a vaccination needle into a baby was evil even though it causes pain. We wouldn't say the pain we feel after a good gym workout is evil. What does "evil" really mean?
Another question we need to answer is whether God created natural evil in the first place? Some may answer "no" because he concluded that everything was good after creation. Some may answer "yes" because the character of our world necessitates random chance interacting with physical forces to create natural evil.
Are natural evils necessarily just natural? Some would answer "no" because everything in life has an underlying spiritual meaning. Some would say "yes" because sometimes accidents just happen and neither humans nor God have any relationship to them.
Did God create natural evil? Some would say he's omnibenevolent and wouldn't do that. Some would answer "yes" because he sent the flood and plagues on people and nations he wished to punish. But is God omnibenevolent? This is another question we have to ask. Or, rather, is God the kind of omnibenevolent being we hope he is? Perhaps our definition of "good" isn't the same as his definition.
Is there any possibility humans should be held responsible for natural evil? Could human sin be responsible for an earthquake? Most people assume this to be impossible, but some moderns would ascribe at least some blame to humans who polluted the environment or caused climate change. Others might suggest humanity's first sin ended cosmic stability, introduced death into the world, and set off a chain reaction that corrupted everything in the cosmos. Like the story of the princess and the pea, humanity's tiny rebellion against God might have disrupted the entire universe.
Let's move on to explore some of the possible solutions to the question of how a good God could allow for natural evil.
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
If God is omnibenevolent and omniscient then we should expect him to understand the meaning of "good" in a way that far surpasses our own understanding. If he created the world as a "vale of soul making," in which he uses natural evil as a forging process to perfect our eternal souls, perhaps all suffering should be re-perceived as positive everlasting good.
This solution implies humans are too stupid to understand what's really good. We're like kids, too naïve to understand how we should perceive the world. Kids think eating a hundred cookies for dinner is "good," but an adult knows this is evil because they're judging with a longer time horizon. CS Lewis wrote: "If God is wiser than we, His judgments must differ from ours on many things, and not least on good and evil. What seems to us good may therefore not be good in His eyes, and what seems to us evil may not be evil." God is thinking a million years in the future while most humans can barely budget for a single year.
Another possible solution to our question is that Jesus nullified the evil of suffering through his torture and death. If the creator God took on flesh and accepted the natural evils of the body then humans should stop thinking about natural evil as being evil. Perhaps the apostles were thinking this when they rejoiced at being whipped for Christ and thrown in a dungeon. The very fact that Jesus suffered, and his suffering can be acted out by human beings, means that suffering has lost its evil nature and been redeemed by the creator God. How can we complain about the suffering process when our Lord was glorified through this process? This is among the arguments against Gnosticism. The world and the human body can't be inherently evil because Jesus entered our world in the flesh.
Finally, let’s look at some Bible passages that may be relevant to our question.
BIBLE PASSAGES
"When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.'" -2 Chronicles 7:13-14This passage describes what most humans would call "natural evil" as originating in God’s divine will. Natural events are not, perhaps, as wholly natural as many would like to believe.
“And the Lord said to Satan, ‘Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?’ Then Satan answered the Lord and said, ‘Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.’ And the Lord said to Satan, ‘Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.’ So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.” -Job 1:8-22The many disasters that befell Job appeared to be natural. The house collapsing on his sons and daughters could have been merely accidental. His pain and illness with boils might have been nothing more than the natural spread of disease. However, the narrative presents a very different picture. Job's suffering wasn't natural, it was the product of a spiritual competition between God and Satan. The natural events of life were manipulated by hidden spiritual forces.
"I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the Lord, who does all these things." -Isaiah 45:7God claimed control over natural forces. God is actively controlling the events of our world. He's bringing the hurricanes and plagues. They aren't mere accidents or random chance occurrences without meaning, they're divinely willed events.
“There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, ‘Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.’” -Luke 13:1-5Jesus refuted the idea that calamity necessarily meant God was angry with people. Like the book of Job, Jesus recognized that even when calamity came, even when God controlled it, humans weren't necessarily meant to understand what was happening behind the scenes. The meaning of natural evil may be as simple as Jesus' lesson: Humans perish all the time for strange reasons, and we'll parish both physically and spiritually if we don't repent.
"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us." -Romans 8:18Life is so short, suffering is so short. It's sometimes easy for us to forget that everyone who's ever lived has also died. Every great man we've read about, every wise sage and conqueror, has perished. It's simply unlikely we'd be able to see the meaning of life within our present tiny frame of reference.
"For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God." -Romans 8:19-20The corruption of nature was part of God's plan. He placed it under corruption so it could somehow be glorified through the same process though which we're being glorified.
"And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose." -Romans 8:28Natural evil cannot be seen as completely evil from a Christian perspective. Calamity of all kinds should be reinterpreted as somehow good for us, but from our tiny stupid human perspective this can be difficult and even impossible to believe.
"For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." - 2 Corinthians 5:1The union of heaven and earth is coming. The end of natural evil, whatever it is and whether it is truly "evil," is coming. Our bodies will die like Jesus' did, but we'll receive a better glorified body in the resurrection just as he did.
"He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away." -Revelation 21:4The suffering caused by natural evil will one day be gone. The "evil" aspect of natural events will no longer cause us pain and emotional distress (whether because we understand things better or because the phenomenon we face will transform). A better future awaits us.