If God is all good, why does he allow natural disasters to happen?

I promised myself I'd never make a post about politics. But I never said anything about religion/theology.

In the midst of the atheist/theist debate on the existence or non-existence of God, the most common argument against God's existence (or at least against the existence of the Christian God specifically) is the problem of evil: if God is all good and all powerful, why does he let bad things happen?

There are two versions of this argument. The first is why does God allow evil people to do evil things (i.e. murderers, rapists, etc), and the second is why does God allow natural disasters to occur, like earthquakes or tsunamis, or even cancer.

The first objection (why do bad people exist) deals with the problem of evil, and the second (why do natural disasters exist) deals with the problem of tragedy. There's a non-trivial difference between evil and tragedy. A murderer is evil, but you can't say an earthquake is "evil," not by the same definition. An earthquake is tragic, because it can kill many people and destroy property, but there's no malicious or otherwise conscious intent behind it. It's just nature's course. So it's not evil.

So to clarify, why does a Christian God, who is supposedly all knowing and all powerful, allow evil and tragedy to exist, given the fact that these things cause great distress to our wellbeing?

The problem of evil has had a few rebuttals made against it before, but the main one I hear most often has to do with free will. That is to say, God allows evil people to exist because free will is important. If he never let us do bad things, then we'd all just be robots, forced to only do good things without a say in the matter.

Morality, in any case, requires free will to work: if I don't steal something because I don't want to, even if I have every opportunity to do so, then you may say that I'm a "good" person. But if I don't steal something because I'm literally unable to, then I'm not good, just harmless. Being harmless does not mean being good. A serial killer without his weapon is harmless, that does not mean he's good.

So the only way conventional morality exists as we know it is through free will, which by extension means that people will do bad things. The counter-argument is that you may not value free will all that much. Why is free will worth all the suffering? It's not worth to let people be murdered just so you can choose whether to be good or bad.

I think this is a fair argument, and my only response at the moment is that without free will, and therefore without knowledge of good and evil, you would have no standard to compare to make those judgements. For you to know what good is, you must know what evil is. A fish living their whole life under water won't know what water is, because you can only know wet by knowing dry. In that sense, our free will is what lets us make those judgements.

Again, you may object and say that it still isn't worth it, and that you prefer security over freedom. I won't argue against that, other than say that we share a different set of priorities in our values.

The second objection is the problem of tragedy: if God is all good, why do things like earthquakes or cancer exist? You can't say "because free will," because these things are separate from human decision making. They come from nature.

The Christian theological answer, which is rooted in the Bible, is that Earth used to be a paradise, but because humans rebelled, God cast us out and now the world sucks. To most people, this is a very unsatisfying answer. It really doesn't explain why God allows tragedy to happen because of evil. Are the two related.

Let's suppose they are related. You may say that if God didn't allow tragedy to occur, then there's no reason to believe that he should allow evil to occur as well. It's the next logical step. If the purpose of getting rid of natural disasters is to get rid of suffering, then you must also get rid of evil decision making because that also causes suffering. In that respect, they're both the same.

But this still isn't enough. Let's suppose that the goal isn't to get rid of suffering, but to get rid of suffering which is outside our control. After all, the reason to let suffering exist in the problem of evil is to also let free will exist. It's the whole foundation. But in the case of tragedy, free will is not involved, so why let suffering continue?

I do have a response to this, but it's somewhat convoluted and very poetic, and I'm not sure I can do it enough justice. I'll still try, though.

Suffering, whether it's a consequence of free will or not, is what gives our lives meaning. Take art, for example. Art is not meant to be fun or enjoyable. Art is pain. It's a pain that requires thousands of hours of honing before you can say you're good at it. And despite this pain, people still engage in it and still choose to produce very dark, serious, distressing works of art. Why is that? No one can read Twilight's Inferno by PaulAsaran and say it brought them enjoyment. Sure, you may enjoy the quality of writing in that respect, but you can't enjoy the contents themselves, unless you're some sociopathic sadist.

So why do we choose to voluntary engage in things which bring us suffering? Because without suffering then things are less important. There's less meaning in them. That's why dark, serious stories get a lot more praise than feel-good fluff fics. It's just how we were made to appreciate things. Real life, for better or for worse, is like a story from which we derive meaning. Like Dostoevsky observed, human beings prefer interesting trouble over uninteresting boredom. And so, many great stories throughout our history, like the Greek stories, have to do with the world beating down on us, because it makes us feel more meaningful. It's being grateful for your pain, or at least being grateful that you're worthy of your pain.

So you can say that natural disasters happen because life would be less meaningful without them. Evil, too, in that respect. You may still object, and say that meaning itself is not worth the suffering, and to that I have no reply. In fact, my whole argument above can be dismissed and I wouldn't have a word in it. I was just trying to reconcile these problems. Whether it's right or wrong, it's good to entertain these ideas.

Comments

[Silver Octave]

He's Neutral Good.

Here's why:

He allows natural things to happen, ie, the virus. Because he doesn't interfear unless it is no other choice, and he wanted us to help ourselves to show our own good inside.

[TheAncientPolitzanian]

Ah, the good ol' Epicurean paradox.

[GivingSpider]

Minor major nitpick:
Humans didn't rebel.

The 'Original Sin' that got the first Humans exiled from Eden was the consumption of the Forbidden Fruit: fruit that would grant the consumer knowledge of Good/Evil. Adam and Eve were told never to eat this particular fruit, but everything else in Eden was fair game.

As the story goes: Eve was manipulated by a Serpent (Lucifer according to most Christians I know), and she then got Adam to also eat the fruit.

Now: the consuming of the fruit happened before there was an understanding of morality; thus before Free Will had any actual value. Because there was no understanding of what was wrong, or consequences of being wrong; of course eventually they would have eaten it whether by curiosity or the aforementioned tricky Serpent.

Having said that: The Christian God does in fact knowingly facilitate evil things happening to good people, and I say this because according to the Bible: He Did in Eden.
All knowing and all powerful Christian God, in order to be all powerful and all knowing: would have damn well known that Adam and Eve would have eaten the fruit thanks to the Serpent infiltrating Eden.
Humans having leanings towards good or evil (or if you prefer: law or chaos): starts with God's Design.

Basically: the world already 'sucked'. The deck was stacked against Adam and Eve before they were made.