Natural Disasters

The Myanmar cyclone has claimed more than 30,000 lives, in part due to the (in)action of the Junta.
Today, an earthquake in China killed more than 10,000 and many more are missing.

The presence of personal evils in the world, the suffering inflicted upon persons by other persons, is understandable. But the natural disasters of the world, or natural evil, is difficult to stomach.

Just this past Sunday I taught a class as part of a series on the so-called "Problem of Evil." How can there be evil in this world if there is a loving, all-knowning, all-powerful God?

A defense is one thing; I think I can speak with someone who wants to argue that God does not exist based upon the argument that bad things happen. The mere existence of bad things does not mean God doesn't exist. But explaining why God would allow bad things, a theodicy, would be more satisfactory.

Perhaps I should post the work that my friend and I have done for this class (it's mostly his stuff). But what I want is to be able to explain why, or failing that to explain why I cannot give the reason but still be convincing to others when I say that God is good, loving, wise and powerful. *sigh* That will be a lot of work.