The aged old “Problem of Evil” has been studied for a long time. The Free-Will Defense, that says pain and suffering comes from the abuse of free will by people, was advocated by Augustine around 400 AD. The Irenaean theodicy, named after the second century theologian Irenaeus, says that pain and suffering are essential tools for “Soul-Making”, that is, to build invaluable moral characters of people. On top of these ancient proposals to handle the Problem of Evil, a more modern approach to this problem comes from people who agree with the theory of Evolution.
I discussed Evolution in my previous posts. I do not think that Evolution can be the origin of life. However, there are Christians who believe that God uses Evolution to create all living things. We call this belief “Theistic Evolution”. For theistic evolutionists, there is a natural explanation to the Problem of Evil.
The two essential ingredients of evolution are mutation and natural selection. Genetic mutations happen randomly without direction. What kinds of mutation out of all these random mutations are allowed to stay? They are the mutations which help the organism survive better. Over a prolonged period of time, such beneficial mutations accumulate and eventually lead to a new species. Theistic evolutionists mostly agree that God set up the motion for nature, then let nature runs its own course, and in the end, creation is done without any intervention from God!
If God uses Evolution as a natural mean for creation, then it is not unreasonable to believe that God also let nature runs its own random unpredictable course on earth in addition to Evolution. Hurricane, famine, diseases, and all natural disasters are therefore allowed by God, even though they bring pain and suffering to people.
As Evolution brings all living things into existence, theistic evolutionists argue that natural disasters also bring essential goodness to earth. An example could be volcanic eruption. These violent eruptions could cause disaster to surrounding areas. Human and animal lives could be lost. However, the minerals that the eruptions bring to the surface of earth create fertile soil to the land that can hardly be created in other ways. In the regions around Naples, volcanic eruption that took place 35,000 and 12,000 years ago created fertile stretches of land. The soil is so rich that it continues even today to be a steady supply of nutrients for plant life in the area.
Therefore, according to theistic evolutionists, the undirected natural processes which is essential to the well-being of the earth happen and they cause pain and suffering as natural disasters. God allows them to happen and He does not intervene, in just the same way that He allows nature to run its course through Evolution to bring life to earth. God is not to be blamed for the pain and suffering caused by natural disaster. Instead, it is nature that is running through its normal cycles.
Does theistic evolution solve the Problem of Evil?
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