Natural Evil

5 Pages 1347 Words

“Natural Evil”
“Natural Evil” refers to injury and suffering caused by diseases, accidents, earthquakes, fires and floods. When seeing these events on the television or hearing them on the radio we either think nothing of it or feel bad for the victim or in most cases the victims. This begs us to ask “Why do bad things happen to good people?” or if we are unfortunate enough to experience these events firsthand we ask ourselves “Why?” or Why me?” As human beings, all of us feel that we are good people and that these courses of events are unjust and wrong. This gives us a general notion that bad things really don’t happen to good people, never have and never will. This notion has absolutely no clarity though, because bad things do happen to good people every day. It is these people with this notion that bad things don’t happen to good people that put the blame of tragic events on God’s shoulders. These same people are one’s who faith is threatened when a young boy dies of leukemia but only feel sorrow for a man who dies “in good old age and full of years.” (Gen 25:8) According to Migliore, it is no more just that a young boy of leukemia than a man die of old age, because as he says it is god’s natural order and not that of “infinite creatures.”
Creaturely life is Transient; it has a beginning and an end (Ps. 90:10). This quote out of psalms states that life is simple you are born and you die. According to Migliore, “ God has created a world in which there is both birth and death, both rationality and contingency, both order and freedom, both risk and venerability.” Migliore uses this to explain natural order. He is explaining that God has no set natural order of death or order in which people die. According to Migliore, it is all freedom; we are in somewhat control of when we die. If you die from lung cancer because you are a smoker that is your own fault, god has no control over it. Na...