Air disasters have been highlighted in our media to an unusual degree in 2025. Multiple people have lost their lives in airline disasters. Fatal weather disasters have also proliferated. Over the years this blog has reported on many current weather disasters and human-caused tragic events. These events have caused many residents to wonder if our planet is a place of brokenness and despair, or conversely, a place to thrive.
In the past several years the phenomenon of war has been responsible for a significantly greater quantity of human deaths. The Ukrainian War beginning in 2022 and the Israel-Gaza War starting in 2023 have thrown these geographic regions into strife and chaos. At the same time many journalists have speculated that natural disasters have multiplied owing to global warming. Whatever the cause, many secular people have wondered why the Creator of humanity permits pain and death to exist on Planet Earth if He is an omnibenevolent and omnipotent God. This is a question people of faith commonly address in conversations with secular doubters.
Many tragedies are traceable to the presence of evil on our planet. A search for the definition of evil reveals wide-ranging results. Evil is recognized as something causing harm. What sort of harm are we talking about? Let us categorize two types of harm—moral harm and physical harm. These categories may help us understand categories of evil.
Moral evil is the source of most of the strife in our world. Humanity has a natural sense of what is right and what is wrong. Our world has people who commit wrong even though they betray their natural sense of what is right and what is wrong. This betrayal is a deliberate act. The natural sense of right and wrong is codified in the Old Testament by the Ten Commandments Moses received from God on Mount Sinai. Moral evil is evident in wars fought between or within nations where humans are depravedly killed. The Ten Commandments forbid many other moral evils.
Natural evil occurs in a different category of reality. Natural evil implies that the evil occurs in nature. The term natural evil connotes that physical harm results. For example, tornadoes and earthquakes occur in the world of nature. Physical harm, perhaps even death, results. Natural evil, therefore, is not the result of human behavior. Natural evil is more “multi-faceted.” Hugh Ross of the Reasons to Believe ministry prefers the term natural suffering rather than natural evil.
An even more difficult question is why an omnibenevolent and omnipotent Creator permits suffering, premature death, and disease to occur. To this question, there is no clear answer except that God has a higher purpose unknown to humanity. The Old Testament Book of Job 42:2 relates Job’s thoughts: I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted (ESV). Many theologians have researched and discussed these topics in great detail. We encourage readers to make a serious study of these challenging issues.
