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Natural evil presents one of the most difficult challenges for any theodicy. Moral evil — the suffering caused by free human choices — can at least in principle be explained by appealing to the value of free will. But natural evil — the suffering caused by earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, diseases, parasites, predation, and other natural phenomena — appears to have no connection to human freedom. Furthermore, animal suffering raises profound questions that most theodicies struggle to answer: animals have suffered for hundreds of millions of years before humans even appeared on Earth, and they are generally not considered moral agents capable of the kind of soul-making that the Irenaean theodicy describes. This lesson examines the philosophical challenges posed by natural evil and animal suffering, and evaluates the various theological and philosophical responses.
Natural evil encompasses all suffering and destruction that results from natural processes rather than human agency:
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