What Is Natural Evil?

What Is Natural Evil?

Natural evil is suffering that results from the natural order rather than from human free choice. The category includes disease, genetic disorder, earthquake, flood, famine (when caused by drought rather than policy), animal predation, and the suffering that the natural world inflicts on its inhabitants simply by operating as it does. The term was introduced to mark a contrast with moral evil—suffering that results from the misuse of human free will, like murder, cruelty, betrayal, and oppression. The distinction is central to the structure of the problem of evil, because the two kinds call for different theistic replies.

The distinction is sometimes contested. Some theists hold that all evil is ultimately moral, tracing natural evil to the free choices of non-human spirits (the Fall of angels) or to the Fall of humans corrupting nature. Some philosophers argue that the line is fuzzy: famine caused by policy is moral, but famine caused by drought is natural, and the two often interact. But the distinction is useful for organizing the debate, and most treatments of the problem of evil work with it. The SEP entry on the problem of evil treats the moral-natural distinction as a basic structural feature.

Why Natural Evil Is Harder

Natural evil is the harder half of the problem of evil for theism. Moral evil can be addressed by the free will defense: God values free creatures, free creatures can choose evil, and a world with free creatures and some evil is better than a world of automata. The value of free will can justify God's permission of moral evil, at least in principle. But natural evil doesn't yield to this move. If a child dies of bone cancer, or a tsunami drowns thousands, or a fawn burns in a forest fire, these aren't the result of human free choice. The value of human freedom doesn't obviously justify them.

This is why the evidential version of the problem of evil, developed by William Rowe, focuses on natural evil. Rowe's case—the fawn's suffering in the forest fire, which serves no apparent greater good—is a paradigm of natural evil, and it's chosen because the free will defense can't touch it. If theism is to handle natural evil, it needs resources beyond the free will defense. The main options are theodicies that treat natural evil as part of the design (soul-making), hypotheses that trace it to non-human free will (fallen angels), and appeals to the necessity of natural law.

The Soul-Making Reply

The soul-making theodicy, developed by John Hick, handles natural evil by treating it as part of the design for moral and spiritual development. A world without disease would have no opportunity for compassion in medicine, no courage in the face of suffering, no solidarity with the sick. A world without natural disaster would have no occasion for the virtues of rescue and rebuilding. The harshness of nature is, on this view, the condition for the development of moral agents who can freely come to love the good. Natural evil, far from being a defect, is part of the soul-making environment.

The theodicy has force, but it faces the scale objection: even if some natural evil is necessary for soul-making, is the amount we observe necessary? Does every child's cancer, every earthquake, every instance of animal suffering really produce moral growth that couldn't be achieved with less? Hick's reply is that we can't judge from within the process, but critics argue that this is unsatisfying. The theodicy also faces the instrumentalization worry: if suffering is permitted for the sake of soul-making, the sufferers seem to be means to an end, which is morally troubling. The IEP and SEP entries treat the soul-making reply as serious but not decisive.

The Fallen Angels Hypothesis

A different reply, developed by Plantinga in the free will defense, hypothesizes that natural evil results from the free choices of non-human spirits—fallen angels or demons. On this view, natural evil is a form of moral evil, but the moral agents are non-human. This extends the free will defense to cover natural evil: God values the free will of all creatures, human and non-human, and the misuse of non-human free will produces what we call natural evil.

The hypothesis is controversial. Critics object that it's speculative (there's no evidence for demons), that it doesn't fit the distribution of natural evil (why would demons cause animal suffering before humans existed?), and that it seems to make God dependent on the choices of beings whose existence is uncertain. Defenders reply that the defense only needs possibility, not actuality, and that the demonic hypothesis is a possible explanation that shows consistency. The hypothesis is more often used as part of the free will defense (which only needs possibility) than as a theodicy (which needs actuality). The SEP entry treats it as a technical move with limited theological appeal.

The Natural Law Reply

Another reply appeals to the necessity of a stable natural order. A world governed by stable laws—where fire burns, where water drowns, where gravity pulls—is a world where rational agents can predict, plan, and act. Such a world requires that the laws operate uniformly, which means they'll sometimes produce suffering (fire burns the careless child as well as the careful cook). A world without stable laws—where fire burned only sometimes, or where gravity varied—would be unpredictable and would make rational agency impossible. So the stability of natural law, which is a great good, comes at the cost of natural evil.

This reply has force, but it faces objections. Critics argue that God could design stable laws that produce less suffering (laws where disease is rarer, where earthquakes are less destructive, where predation isn't required for ecological balance). The reply that stable laws require some suffering doesn't show that they require this much. The reply also struggles with cases where natural evil seems gratuitous—where no greater good is served by this particular instance of suffering, even if natural law in general is good. The natural law reply is part of the toolkit but not a complete solution.

The Problem of Animal Suffering

Animal suffering is an especially sharp version of the problem of natural evil. Animals suffer disease, predation, starvation, and injury, and they have done so for millions of years before humans existed. The suffering isn't the result of human free choice (humans weren't around), and it's hard to see how it serves soul-making (no human moral agent is developed by pre-human animal suffering). The standard theistic replies struggle: the free will defense doesn't apply (no human choice), the soul-making theodicy doesn't fit (no human soul is being made), and the fallen-angels hypothesis seems strained (demons tormenting dinosaurs?).

Some theists have developed specific replies. The most common is that animals don't suffer in the morally significant sense—they experience pain but not the higher-order suffering that matters. This reply is increasingly implausible, given what biology has revealed about animal cognition. Another reply is that God will redeem animal suffering eschatologically—animals will be restored and their suffering made good—which is theologically hopeful but speculative. The problem of animal suffering is one of the most active areas in contemporary philosophy of religion, and it's a serious pressure point for theism. The SEP entry treats it as a live and difficult challenge.

Why It Matters

Natural evil matters because it's the part of the problem of evil that the standard replies don't handle well. Moral evil can be addressed by free will; natural evil requires additional resources, and those resources are contested. If theism can't give a satisfying account of natural evil, the problem of evil remains a serious challenge even after the free will defense answers the logical version. Natural evil is where the evidential argument is strongest, and it's where contemporary philosophy of religion focuses its energy.

Natural evil also matters because it's where the problem of evil meets ordinary human experience. Most of the suffering that devastates people—disease, disaster, loss—is natural evil, and the question "why did God allow this?" is asked most often about natural evil. The philosophical and theological work on natural evil is, at its best, an attempt to give an honest answer to that question, or to acknowledge that no fully satisfying answer is available. The SEP entry treats natural evil as the cutting edge of the problem of evil, with the debate ongoing.

Sources

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "The Problem of Evil" — https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evil/
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Philosophy of Religion" — https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/philosophy-religion/
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Augustine" — https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/augustine/
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Hume" — https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume/

Related Topics

• What Is the Problem of Evil? — the challenge natural evil belongs to.
• What Is the Soul-Making Theodicy? — the main reply to natural evil.
• What Is the Free Will Defense? — the reply that doesn't handle natural evil.
• What Is a Theodicy? — the general project.
• Philosophy of Evil — the wider framework.