Well, to begin, I believe any meaningful theological system has to have the ability to define terms. For instance, what sort of evil are we talking about? Natural evil or moral evil? Natural evil would be any type of natural disaster like the tsunami you mention, where as moral evil would be human agents acting immorally. So, once we have established our categories, the apologist is going to have to defend each category within its defined parameters.

Turning to natural evil first, the pastor writing the opinion piece has made a fundamental flaw in that he is mixing categories. How exactly does human free will have any bearing upon a tsunami which is a natural disaster outside of the control of any human on the planet? A person can exercise his free will all he wants, but it is not in his power to cause a 9 point earthquake that will result in a quarter million people being wiped out in flooding. The inquirer asks: "Did God send this tsunami and if so, why?" "Well," answers the pastor, "God gave men freewill so that he will love God from the heart and with the giving of freewill there is a potential for evil to happen in the world." What sort of lame answer is that? This fellow's response is irrelevant to the over all question.

Then, turning to moral evil, one will have to define what is moral, or what it is that exactly establishes morality. The so-called "atheist" objector reacting to the tsunami is himself mixing categories just like the pastor by wrongfully equating natural disaster with morality. Moreover, by his very objection, he is acting inconsistently with his own world view, because he is claiming there is some objective standard of morality outside of humaninty by which he can judge God's actions. Atheism is naturalistic, so morality is generally considered relative and coming from within individuals, so who is to really say God is acting contrary to morality? Whose morality are we talking about? The athiest has to deal with these two fundamental flaws to his own system of belief before he can genuinely offer a complaint against the theist.

I hope that has given you something to chew on. Maybe some others would like to add their thoughts?

Fred

"Ah, sitting - the great leveler of men. From the mightest of pharaohs to the lowest of peasants, who doesn't enjoy a good sit?" M. Burns