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Is God Dead?
Over the last few weeks, we have been looking at possible reasons why God allows evil and suffering to exist, including as punishment for sin, and as a consequence of other people’s sin (as a byproduct of free will). Recently, we have suggested that the exercise of free will is perhaps the predominant reason why God allows evil and suffering to exist. In this vein, we have sure enough seen how most all evil and suffering in the world traces back to free will decisions made by human beings. In short, the free will argument often dominates among all explanations given. This is all right, and well, and good, except the free will argument can hardly explain why North Carolina and Florida were devastated by back-to-back hurricanes not so long ago. In fact, one would think it absurd to think that these disasters were brought about by human free will under any circumstances.
Nor is it conceivable that a human being exercising free will could bring about any manifestation of tornado, or earthquake, or flood. It could be argued, I suppose, that natural disasters fall under the punishment for sin category of causation, but that seems highly unlikely when the sheer scope and randomness of the suffering brought about by natural disasters is considered. Surely, God is not punishing every affected human being because of their sin. Nor does it make sense to suggest that the victims of natural disasters are suffering as a consequence of other people’s sins. There must be another reason why human beings suffer from natural disasters. Since we have been considering for the last two weeks what Christian doctrine has to say about why God allows evil and suffering to exist, we will begin again with the Christian Bible.
