Abstract: It is a good thing that humans should have the opportunity to choose freely between good and evil; and hence the “free will” defence to “moral evil”, that God has reason to allow such evil. There are two substantial reasons why God should bring about natural evil – to give us the knowledge of how to bring about good and evil consequence ourselves; and to give us the opportunity to react to it with courage, sympathy etc. and to do virtuous acts of a kind, which we would not otherwise have such opportunity to do.

Keywords: free will, moral evil, natural evil, problem of evil, theodicy,