¶ … Problem of Evil
Natural Evil vs. Moral Evil
Natural evil is a term that embraces theodicy, in the sense that there are devastating earthquakes, and tornados, tsunamis, and hurricanes, and other terrible weather situations that harm people and communities (Philosophy of Religion). God created the planet and in doing so He never promised to always have fair weather with puffy white clouds and rays of sunshine every day. The planet is a natural world reality, and besides the frightening weather events, natural evil could also be seen in a child's birth defects, in a mother's breast cancer; one could argue that a woman got breast cancer from eating too much red meat or other foods that are not recommended, but nevertheless when she is stricken with this deadly disease, it can be considered a natural evil that has caused her pain -- and maybe taken her life as well.
On the other hand, moral evil is due to the bad behaviors of a person or organization (Flescher, 2013). Moral evil could be murder, could be mean-spirited unjustified public slandering of a person who does not deserve those attacks. Adultery is considered a moral evil and though it is not as serious as armed robbery, it nonetheless is committed by persons who break God's laws (The Ten Commandments).
Why must a Theodicy be internally consistent vis-a-vis the explanation of evil's existence? The other question that is normally linked to this questions is: since He is all-knowing and all-powerful, then why doesn't God prevent evil from happening?
A very good beginning for an answer to this question is provided by Elwell when the author discusses the contradiction inherent in the desire to have God stop evil, or at least to understand why God can't do that. Since apparently it is believed that God offers people...
He makes his decision to take that purse and run because he has the free will God has given him. So God can't put a notion in his head to not steal the purse and also grant him free will.
Another very different position can be arrived at when reviewing the idea presented by Gottfried Leibniz, which posits that because God has created only the "best world" -- or as Leibniz explains, "God is the only metaphysically necessary being." There are of course an infinite number of other kinds of worlds God could have created, but He chose the best world. Hence, it can be viewed as God being "morally praiseworthy," even though there is moral depravity and unending amounts of evil in the world. Leibniz may seem that he is rationalizing in a strange way or contradicting himself. But going back to free will, God chose to give humans free will and He gave them the best metaphysical world possible in which to make choices and judgments. So the fact that there is evil in the world, the best world that God can make, God is shown to be "just," Leibniz explains.
The Merits of Elwell's Position on the Problem of Evil and Free Will
Elwell does use some narrative that is perhaps too esoteric for the lay person to fully comprehend. Not that he does it purposefully, but using words like "nonconsequentialism" cause the reader to look that word up and try and fit it into the context that Elwell is building. That is, God has solved the problem of evil, which is a problem of "internal consistency"…
