Omnipotent God And Moral Evil

omnipotent God.

These explanations above, apparently, do not give explanations of the problem of natural disasters. Why there are tornadoes, epidemics, hurricanes, tsunamis, and earthquakes happen in our world? These evils cannot be explained by free will of creatures. Because of these natural disasters many innocent people die or lose their families and friends. How can natural evil be explained and what is the reason behind it? Moral evil is explained through the concept of free will, but we cannot do the same with natural evil. Therefore, there is a problem: God is the one who is responsible for the natural evil, and, as a result he is also responsible for death and suffering of innocent people. (Geisler, 2011)

However, innocence of people can be argued: all people have a sin because of Adam (Rom. 5:12), and as a punishment for it people deserve death (Rom. 6:23). Natural disasters can be considered as a direct consequence of the curse, which is a result of the fall of humanity (Gen. 3, Rom. 8). It will not be removed until the return of Christ (Rev. 21 - 22).

Also, the claim that God is responsible for death and suffering of innocent people also can be argued, because it implies that God has a moral guilt when he takes away lives of his creatures. But there is no moral guilt for God. It is falsely assumed that because the creatures are not allowed to take someone else's life, then is not acceptable to do the same for God. God gives life and only he has the right to take it (Job 1:21), but people do not give life, and they have no right to take it away.

Same way, the statement that natural evil cannot be explained through free will of humans can also be argued. From a biblical point of view, the free choice of Adam and Eve con...

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...er virtues. It is impossible to experience the joy of forgiveness, without not allowing the fall. Disasters produce patience, and without free will there is no pain. So, the world where evil does not exist is morally incomplete. It is hard to tell if any of the alternative worlds are better from the moral perspective than the world that we have now. There is no proof of that, so it is also hard to prove that God created not the best of all possible worlds, even if this world has the distortion of good in it. But it also does not mean that the world that we have now is the best one. God did not finish his creation and it is said in the Scripture that there will be a better world later without any suffering. (Rev. 21:1-4) However, the world that we have now is a creation of God, who is all-good, omnipotent and omniscient, and for now there is a reason for evil to be.