The Problem of Natural Evil

[whag]

Kind of interesting article about it from a Jewish perspective, a general idea being if all the world repented, moral and natural evil would go away:

Source: Rabbi Steinsaltz

With the exception of Yom Kippur, there is no mention of fast days in the Torah, although they are the subject of significant discussion in the books of Nevi'im and Ketuvim. From these writings we can glean much about the significance and purpose of fast days, both public and private, as they were kept in ancient times. Thus, many of the principles found in Masechet Ta'anit are based on oral traditions going back to Mount Sinai as we find them described in the prophetic writings.

The underlying theory behind a fast day is the idea that worldly occurrences are not happenstance. Just as there is a physical, rational explanation for a given event, so there is a spiritual explanation for it, as well. This includes a basic belief in reward and punishment as well as hashgaha peratit - attention bestowed by God on every individual, community and nation. Thus, a disaster or tragedy must be seen either as a warning or as punishment (as is described in detail in Chapter 26 of Vayikra), both of which demand a response of prayer and repentance.

In Israel, the most common natural disaster is a drought, which is the focus of a large part of this tractate. A lack of rain is indicative of the wrath of God (see Devarim 11:17) as both punishment and warning. More than any other calamity, when there is no rain, one has no recourse other than to turn to God in prayer. -Source

© Copyright Original Source

Of course no answer to PONE is perfect, but that response basically retains all the original aspects of the problem. If it's saying that natural evil was woven into the design, why? Especially considering that the bases of volcanos contain the richest soil, making it irrational to expect human beings NOT to settle there (or near rivers and coasts and so forth). If it's saying that human beings or Satan caused it, we've merely circled back to the original problem.

Damn you, philosophy! =P

[Darth Executor]

That's an answer but too specific to earthquakes. Besides, faults are everywhere.
Moreover, the bases of volcanos contain the richest volcanic soil. And it doesn't make the most logistical sense to settle AWAY from coasts where the fish are and river banks that irrigate agricultural land. Those locations are vulnerable to flood and tsunamis.

Why ignore the Adam and Eve part? Humans were protected from natural dangers until Adam and Eve screwed up the gig we had.

[whag]

Why ignore the Adam and Eve part? Humans were protected from natural dangers until Adam and Eve screwed up the gig we had.

That's not what the natural history record says. Could Eve have antedated CroMags? There's good evidence that modern human beings weren't protected, so you should probably go into more depth here.

ETA: http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/...s/cro-magnon-1

"Analysis of the skeletons found at the rock shelter indicates that the humans of this time period led a physically tough life. In addition to Cro-Magnon 1’s fungal infection, several of the individuals found at the shelter had fused vertebrae in their necks indicating traumatic injury, and the adult female found at the shelter had survived for some time with a skull fracture. The survival of the individuals with such ailments is indicative of group support and care, which allowed their injuries to heal."

[lilpixieofterror]

The traditional definition works for me. From Wikipedia:

Natural evil is evil for which no human being can be held morally responsible for its occurrence.

The phenomena discussed here are sufficient examples of it.

ETA: In his book The End of Christianity, William Dembski uses the broader example of the evolutionary arms race as representing the problem of natural evil.

Using Dembski as a serious source of information should tell me something right there, but it is kind of entertaining to watch skeptics treat nature as something that could care less about us one minute and try to say that is a problem the next minute. What is it? Should nature care about us or not?

[robrecht]

I'd contend you're only looking at it from the liberal Christian theist's perspective. I'm talking about the conservative perspective that regards those ancient characters as real and being responsible for the corruption of nature.

Oh, OK, I get it, sort of like shooting fish in a barrel, right?

[shunyadragon]

I guess I'm still a theist and yes I do struggle with it, though more in the sense of I think it indicates a sadistic or impotent God rather than none at all. We've currently been going over that question and others in this thread.

The concept of a natural evil results from an ancient literary perspective that has become a part of the concept of the Fall and Original Sin. Some Christians have worked around this with changing the interpretation of the literature, but it remains there in the belief of the Fall and Original Sin still anchored in ancient literature.

The Baha'i Faith considers nature not evil, nor an issue in the suffering and pain in nature. Nor does evil exist as a force in the concept of a cause of human suffering and sin. The pain and suffering in the world is simply part of the physical nature of our existence and not directly related to the spiritual nature of our world nor the journey of the soul.

[seanD]

I'd contend you're only looking at it from the liberal Christian theist's perspective. I'm talking about the conservative perspective that regards those ancient characters as real and being responsible for the corruption of nature.

I agree that liberal Christians who deny the literal history of Genesis will have a problem with this. But if it's the case you're looking for a conservative view, there are three scenarios that directly link free will to natural evil.

First scenario is the fact that mankind is the direct cause of natural disasters. Fracking is just one among possible myriad examples of man’s insatiable drive for earth’s natural resources and the possible cause of earthquakes, contaminated water sources and sinkholes. Global warming (if it is in fact man-made) has a whole cacophony of potential natural climate disasters directly caused by man. We could probably list endless examples of this link.

Then you have the second scenario. Maybe it’s not a good idea to build civilization on fault lines or near coastlines or in excessively cold or hot regions. But because mankind has rebelled against God, they no longer have God’s guidance or divine wherewithal and so what looks like an ideal and practical place to settle is really a natural death zone.

Then we have the third scenario: the fall that knocked whole ecosystems out of whack. Of course this scenario is purely theoretical because we don’t know what extent natural disaster causation is linked to the fall.

In all three scenarios, man’s free will is directly related to natural evil.

[Gnostic Bishop]

I can grant theists free will on the problem of moral evil. I don't grant them free will on the problem of natural evil. I simply cannot bend my mind to accept that free will is responsible for the problem of natural evil. Are there some theists here who struggle with that as well?

http://www.youtube.com/user/ProfMTH#...8036F680C1DBEB

If theistic evolution is true, then the myth of Eden should be read as a myth and there is not really any original sin.

Doing evil then is actually forced on us by evolution and the need to survive. Our default position is to cooperate or to do good. I offer this clip as proof of this. You will note that we default to good as it is better for survival.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBW5vdhr_PA

Can you help but do evil? I do not see how. Do you?
And if you cannot, why would God punish you?

Regards
DL

[JohnnyP]

Of course no answer to PONE is perfect, but that response basically retains all the original aspects of the problem. If it's saying that natural evil was woven into the design, why? Especially considering that the bases of volcanos contain the richest soil, making it irrational to expect human beings NOT to settle there (or near rivers and coasts and so forth). If it's saying that human beings or Satan caused it, we've merely circled back to the original problem.

Damn you, philosophy! =P

That's not what the natural history record says. Could Eve have antedated CroMags? There's good evidence that modern human beings weren't protected, so you should probably go into more depth here.

To start I think Genesis 2 is about Adam and Eve in a Heavenly realm where animals created for Adam were really cherubim (Day 4), they were like angels. While evolution of animals and other humans happened later in Genesis 1. It may be that this evolved world with death and disaster was kind of a hell that Adam and Eve created for themselves eating from the Tree of Knowledge, to be like gods creating their own worlds. If so then suffering and disaster of this entire dimension, not just moral evil, would be a direct result of their sin. That's kind of a Kabbalistic view as well.

[whag]

That scenario is impossible, since the phenomena you describe antedated human beings' penetration of crust.

Global warming (if it is in fact man-made) has a whole cacophony of potential natural climate disasters directly caused by man. We could probably list endless examples of this link.

Human beings weren't burning fossil fuels during the hot ages. That scenario doesn't jibe with what we know about industry in stone age.

Human beings wouldn't know what fault lines were or how to detect them. They settle where the fish and fertile soil are, which makes logistical sense.

All those scenarios, not just the last one, are equally hypothetical, requiring faith to accept.

All three scenarios aren't likely, circling us back to the original problem.

[whag]

To start I think Genesis 2 is about Adam and Eve in a Heavenly realm where animals created for Adam were really cherubim (Day 4), they were like angels. While evolution of animals and other humans happened later in Genesis 1. It may be that this evolved world with death and disaster was kind of a hell that Adam and Eve created for themselves eating from the Tree of Knowledge, to be like gods creating their own worlds. If so then suffering and disaster of this entire dimension, not just moral evil, would be a direct result of their sin. That's kind of a Kabbalistic view as well.

Can you narrow down a time period when they were kicked out of heaven? Presumably, it would've been after human beings arrived on the planet. If that's the case, the problem remains since we clearly see disaster predecing the emergence of human beings.

[whag]

Oh, OK, I get it, sort of like shooting fish in a barrel, right?

You think they're that easy a target?

[whag]

Using Dembski as a serious source of information should tell me something right there, but it is kind of entertaining to watch skeptics treat nature as something that could care less about us one minute and try to say that is a problem the next minute. What is it? Should nature care about us or not?

Who's a good source of info you'd recommend, and what does he/she say about it?

[Kelp(p)]

That's an answer but too specific to earthquakes. Besides, faults are everywhere.
Moreover, the bases of volcanos contain the richest volcanic soil. And it doesn't make the most logistical sense to settle AWAY from coasts where the fish are and river banks that irrigate agricultural land. Those locations are vulnerable to flood and tsunamis.

For those reasons, I don't find that response satisfactory at all.



I'm not seeing how good will could lessen the severity of a pyroclastic flow or bolide impact.



That forces one to posit that we once had the power of The Incredible Hulk, in a sense. If a landslide buried a civilization--no problem. The inhabitants could just excavate their out of it with super strength. That seems like a reach to me.

I think part of the issue is addressed by John Chapter 9:

As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3 Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. 4 We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. 5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” 6 Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man's eyes with the mud 7 and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.

After the man was healed, Jesus tells him to go present himself to the Pharisees. They refused to accept that Jesus healed the man because this all took place on a Sabbath and the kick the formerly blind man out of the Temple. So, starting in verse 35, emphasis mine:

Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”[c] 36 He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” 37 Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.” 38 He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him. 39 Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” 40 Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, “Are we also blind?” 41 Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt;[d] but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.

Luke 13:1-5 is also interesting:

There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices [referring to an excessively bloodily put down insurrection in AD 28, I think]. 2 And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? 3 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. 4 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? 5 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

The point is not, "repent or God will drop a tower on you," but rather, "don't look to different causes of suffering in the world and claim that each of them must be deserved. Look instead at your own sins and how they are ruining your life and those around you, both now and potentially in eternity."

I'm not sure that human beings being potentially immune to suffering is so farfetched from a Christian point of view. I subscribe to the view (most popularly advocated by Bishop N.T. Wright) that there is no "Heaven" awaiting us, in the sense of a paradise in the clouds. Rather, I believe that God means the Earth to be our home for eternity. We will be resurrected in perfected, eternally healthy bodies and will enjoy life on Earth forever in fellowship with God.

I don't see the problem in also saying that this is the way it was intended at first. It doesn't matter if there was never an actual Adam and Eve with a snake (I don't agree with JohnnyP about the Garden of Eden being in Heaven, just fyi). Somewhere along the line, man or hominid started disobeying God. If we could have been theoretically perfect, we quit being so and the door was closed on that for now.

As for why earthquakes and volcanoes even have the exist in the first place, they are rather a necessary part of the ecosystem we have now. If you look in other threads around here lately, you'll see me flailing up and down trying to show that God could have made a better possible world than this. Now, I'm not so sure, though. This is the world God wanted to make for us, and we'd have to do some awfully complex calculations to come up with a better one that still had as interesting and glorious a natural world as a consequent, right?

I'm not sure I'm absolute on this, but here are the possible answers that occur to me while I'm typing this.

[Kelp(p)]

The concept of a natural evil results from an ancient literary perspective that has become a part of the concept of the Fall and Original Sin. Some Christians have worked around this with changing the interpretation of the literature, but it remains there in the belief of the Fall and Original Sin still anchored in ancient literature.

The Baha'i Faith considers nature not evil, nor an issue in the suffering and pain in nature. Nor does evil exist as a force in the concept of a cause of human suffering and sin. The pain and suffering in the world is simply part of the physical nature of our existence and not directly related to the spiritual nature of our world nor the journey of the soul.

It doesn't really matter what one calls it. The question is, is the Baha'i God indifferent to human pain?