Natural Evil

[Gambit]

how come it is unfair when people use arbitrary measurements, on what should be a level playing field, but it is totally logical when God does it?

Because of God's perfect knowledge his judgments are less arbitrary than our own. He is able to take into account circumstances that escape our notice.

How do you know that God is doing any such thing? Can you point me to any scripture which outlines, point by point, where God evaluates situations in such a way? I don't want a guess at why God does something, I want an actual answer.

I know it's been done to death, but let's take starving children in Africa for instance. Can we assume, given the disproportionate amount of suffering they go through, that God has some sort of specific rule for them? Here's another scenario: What if a person is born in a thriving country, to non Christian parents, but they then convert and the worst experience they ever endure is someone cutting in front of them in a line? This means, that like the babies who die before they get the chance to sin, the Christian who led a charmed life is never tested at all. So we now have two ends of an extreme - people who perpetually suffer and people who suffer little to no bad experiences in their entire life. There is also the fact that in the majority of cases these people are born in the same countries, respectively.

Does God hate Africa? Many Christians, when faced with the questions I have just posed, believe that God does hate Africa. Rather than see the problems with the accepted explanations, they blame it on the people. We've all heard Christians make claims such as God brought that earthquake, God caused that tsunami, for example. It's just not good enough, and the defenders of the Christian faith have a lot of explaining to do. For me, assigning qualities to God without evidence is a cop out; with the only benefit being, it helps Christians sleep better at night.

[Aiza]

I don't see illness or falling off a cliff as "evil" at all. Sad, yes but "evil" is a very strong term and it implies a moral dimension to what is happening. I don't think there is such a thing as "natural evil"

Falling off a cliff by accident = Not evil.
Animal pushes you off a cliff = Not evil.
Human accidentally pushes you off a cliff = Not evil
Deliberately shoving someone from a cliff = Evil (grave matter + consent + knowledge)

Also killing a baby (or anyone really) is an evil and hateful act, which drives out love from the world, and is therefore contrary to any sort of Christian creed.

[NoMoreFaith]

Also killing a baby (or anyone really) is an evil and hateful act, which drives out love from the world, and is therefore contrary to any sort of Christian creed.

Out of curiosity, how do you define "baby"?

[Reforged]

No such thing as evil, period. Its a concept created to encompass all we find repulsive on an emotional level and sometimes physical level. The processing of pigs and chicken when observed fits this description to a tee, that is why we do not observe it to get around this unhappy fact.
This leaves us free to apply the same criteria to a cat catching a bird or a cheetah taking down a gazelle without seeming like hypocrits.

This isn't to say the morale system isn't a good concept, it makes a happy, functional society possible but it has its flaws and grey areas.
As such it could not be attributed to a timeless, benevolent and omnipotent being because it is so far from perfect. It is far more likely to be a by-product of humanities co-operative nature that helps it survive.
i.e. Tim is more likely to survive and pass on his genes than Bob because Tim is less prone to needlessly skull-fucking potential allies to death.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Can you point me to any scripture which outlines, point by point, where God evaluates situations in such a way?

God's answer to Job is found in Chapters 38 and 39.

[Gambit]

Can you point me to any scripture which outlines, point by point, where God evaluates situations in such a way?

God's answer to Job is found in Chapters 38 and 39.

Those chapters do not answer my question. Basically God says "I do everything, so don't question me."

[Mister Agenda]

It's all our own fault. Because of THE FALL ™ we are subject to diseases and the whole system in general is breaking down to teach us a lesson in humility as we discover how helpless we are without God.

However...we keep finding ways to cure diseases and survive disasters. 14% of the world's population lives in the most wretched poverty...but 20 years ago it was more like 40%. We have our problems, but things haven't been going downhill since the supposed 'Fall', they've incrementally been getting better (for humans, at least, acknowledging that we seem to be an extinction event).

[Neo-Scholastic]

Those chapters [Job 38,39] do not answer my question. Basically God says "I do everything, so don't question me."

Maybe the problem is not with the answer, but with your question. Through Job, God reminds us that His knowledge goes far beyond and His concerns are deeper than we could ever imagine. What seems like injustice from the point of view of a single person at a particular point in time may not be so in reality.

[NoMoreFaith]

I've always disliked the term Natural Evil, merely because it implies Unnatural Evil.

It seems people are allergic to the quite simple concepts of pain and suffering, rather than nebulous "Good" Vs "Evil" concepts.

There is no Natural Evil, but there is certainly pain and suffering. As we established whilst examining Epicurus, that his concepts of Evil were linked heavily to a life of hardship, and the pain and suffering inflicted during it.

Apparently we won't appreciate eternity if we don't have a good bit of suffering here on earth first. God is just a loving parent, who when faced with a petulant child, takes their dinner away and stoically listens to the tears while the child hungers.

I love it when some Christians compare a parent/child education relationship with the concept of an entire family burning to death in an accidental fire or earthquake.

For the most part thou, Natural Evil is a oxymoron in my opinion, where Evil is through intent, and Nature has no intentions.

I would also consider, that anyone who thinks that all human based Good works are from God, and Evil from man, is considering the problem from a faulty position if they wish to place Free Will in both this and the afterlife, because they become inconsistent.

[Ryft]

There are two words that you use, Tobie, that I would want to examine quite carefully: "interference" and "natural". These two words come with significant baggage. First, the notion of "interference" suggests that God is in some sense detached or uninvolved in so-called "natural" processes. Second, the category "natural" is presumably used in opposition to something like "supernatural" or "spiritual", suggesting that reality is made up of two quite distinct, even separate, levels. From my (Christian) perspective, I would want to reject both of those uses of language.

Ding! Ding! Ding! Quoted for truth! Well said, Markos!

God does not "intervene," a term which inherently assumes that there is a world of events independent of God's sustaining power and providence. The idea that God got things running then just stood back or engaged himself elsewhere is a deistic view that is inconsistent with—nay, inconceivable on a biblical world view. "As suggested by Richard Bube, if God were to unplug himself in that way from the cosmos, we and everything else in the cosmos would simply cease to exist. ... [God] is thoroughly involved in the operations and functions of the world" (John Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One [InterVarsity Press, 2009], 20).