[Buddha-l] Natural Evil

[Bob Zeuschner]

Although I personally do not find earthquakes etc. to be evil (sharing a 
Buddhist/Taoist perspective), I do believe that a Christian must find 
them evil.
Here is why.
God created this universe, and could foresee (omniscience) all the 
possible consequences to all possible designs. God had unlimited ability 
to make any universe she wanted (omnipotence), one without any flaws 
(nothing to cause undeserved suffering), or one with flaws.
God is the architect of the universe, the contractor, and supplied the 
building materials ("Fiat Lux!").
If a building collapses and hurts people, we sue the architect, we sue 
the contractor (shoddy design, shoddy construction) or we sue the 
supplier of the building materials (poor quality).
God designed and built a universe FOR human beings, out of LOVE for 
human beings (according to Stan).
If God designed a defective universe which falls on people, then God 
cannot be all good. This undeserved death and suffering is evil and is 
preventable, and thus is genuinely natural evil. God could have made a 
universe without flaws, but chose not to. God chose to cause unnecessary 
and undeserved death and suffering to humans (Christmas tsunami two 
years ago) and animals.
This suffering is undeserved and preventable.
Thus "Natural Evil."


Richard Hayes wrote:
> On Friday 06 April 2007 18:59, SJZiobro at cs.com wrote:
> 
>> Nature is not a moral world, and I'm sure this is why Richard disagreed
>> with my phrase "natural evil". 
> 
> Yes, that is part of the reason. I also disagree with Hume, whose arguments 
> against the existence of God included arguments that God cannot be good if 
> she allows "natural evil" to occur. The examples of natural evil that Hume 
> discussed were such things as earthquakes, floods and other events of the 
> natural world that cause misery to human beings and other sentient beings. 
> Perhaps because my thinking has been influenced by Xunzi, I think it is 
> misguided to think of earthquakes etc in moral terms, such as good or bad or 
> virtue or vice. Earthquakes happen when techtonic plates shift. Those are 
> mechanical events and should be discussed in purely mechanical terms, not in 
> any kind of language that implies any agency or intention or acts of will or 
> even acts of condoning---whether on the part men or mice or angels or 
> omniscient deities. Earthquakes are earthquakes, plagues are plagues, 
> epidemics are epidemics and gravity is gravity. We call them bad because we 
> don't much like them, unless they kill terrorists or other entities we have 
> in our folly designated as foes. 
>