Editing Problem of evil (section)

=====Natural evil=====
A third challenge to the free will defence is natural evil, evil which is the result of natural causes (e.g. a child suffering from a disease, mass casualties from a volcano).<ref>[http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/rs/god/chgoodandevilrev1.shtml "The Two Types of Evil"]. Accessed 10 July 2014.</ref> Criticism of natural evil posits that even if for some reason an all-powerful and all-benevolent God tolerated evil human actions in order to allow free will, such a God would not be expected to also tolerate natural evils because they have no apparent connection to free will.<ref name=boydp69/><ref name="Lacewing2014p239">{{cite book|first=Michael|last=Lacewing|title=Philosophy for AS: Epistemology and Philosophy of Religion|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EoA9BAAAQBAJ |year=2014|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-317-63583-3 |pages=239–242 }}</ref> [[Patricia A. Williams]] says differentiating between moral and natural evil is common but, in her view, unjustified. "Because human beings and their choices are part of nature, all evils are natural".<ref name="Patricia A. Williams">{{cite book |last1=Williams |first1=Patricia A. |title=Doing Without Adam and Eve Sociobiology and Original Sin |date=2001 |publisher=Fortress Press |isbn=9781451415438}}</ref>{{rp|169}}

Advocates of the free will response propose various explanations of natural evils. [[Alvin Plantinga]]<ref name="Stanford"/><ref name="Good and evil">{{cite book |title=God, Freedom, and Evil |last=Plantinga |first=Alvin |year=1974 |publisher=Harper & Row |isbn=978-0-8028-1731-0 |page=[https://archive.org/details/godfreedomevil00plan/page/58 58] |url=https://archive.org/details/godfreedomevil00plan/page/58 }}</ref> references [[Augustine of Hippo]],<ref>Alvin Plantinga, ''God, Freedom, and Evil'' (Eerdmans, 1989), 58.</ref> writing of the possibility that natural evils could be caused by supernatural beings such as [[Satan]].<ref>Bradley Hanson, ''Introduction to Christian Theology'' (Fortress, 1997), 99.</ref> Plantinga emphasizes that it is not necessary that this be true, it is only necessary that this possibility be compatible with the argument from freewill.<ref name="Good and evil"/>{{rp|58}} There are those who respond that Plantinga's freewill response might address moral evil but not natural evil.<ref name="David Kyle Johnson">{{cite journal |last1=Johnson |first1=David Kyle |title=The Failure of Plantinga's Solution to the Logical Problem of Natural Evil |journal=Philo |date=2012 |volume=15 |issue=2 |pages=145–157 |doi=10.5840/Philo20121528 |url=https://www.pdcnet.org/philo/content/Philo_2012_0015_0002_0145_0157|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Some scholars, such as [[David Ray Griffin|David Griffin]], state that free will, or the assumption of greater good through free will, does not apply to animals.<ref>{{cite book|author=David Ray Griffin|title=Evil Revisited: Responses and Reconsiderations|url=https://archive.org/details/evilrevisitedres0000grif |url-access=registration|year=1991|publisher=State University of New York Press|isbn=978-0-7914-0612-0 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/evilrevisitedres0000grif/page/94 94]–95 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first=John S. |last=Feinberg |title=The Many Faces of Evil (Revised and Expanded Edition): Theological Systems and the Problems of Evil |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9w_vM7DgWN4C |year=2004|publisher=Crossway|isbn=978-1-4335-1727-3 |pages=94–95 }}</ref> In contrast, a few scholars, while accepting that "free will" applies in a human context, have posited an alternative "free creatures" defense, stating that animals too benefit from their physical freedom though that comes with the cost of dangers they continuously face.<ref name="Nicola Hoggard Creegan 2013 48">{{cite book|author=Nicola Hoggard Creegan|title=Animal Suffering and the Problem of Evil|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xB1pAgAAQBAJ |year=2013|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-993185-9|page=48}}</ref>

The "free creatures" defense has also been criticized, in the case of caged, domesticated and farmed animals who are not free and many of whom have historically experienced evil and suffering from abuse by their owners. Further, even animals and living creatures in the wild face horrendous evils and suffering{{snd}}such as burns and slow death after natural fires or other natural disasters or from predatory injuries{{snd}}and it is unclear, state Bishop and Perszyk, why an all-loving God would create such free creatures prone to intense suffering.<ref name="Nicola Hoggard Creegan 2013 48"/>