Summary of text [comment] pages 43 and 44

Is evil necessary?

[Look at natural selection.  Natural selection occurs when one natural subject puts another natural subject to the test – occasionally pushing it to the limit – so to speak.  The nested form containing both natural metaphysical and physical evil is built into the system.  Disorder and failure accompany every spontaneous order and success.

Consider the way that we use the terms “environment” and “ecology”.

“Environment” associates to “physical evil”, the source of the test, the situation.

“Ecology” associates to “metaphysical evil”. For example, the consequences of an environmental challenge is seen in the survival of populations. Certain adaptations will reduce the cost of that particular challenge.  But the price is always being exacted.

And yet, we regard both the “environment” and the “ecology” as good, perhaps sacred, spontaneous orders.

Given this, is it any wonder that Schoonenberg turned to Pierre Tielhard de Chardin for an answer to the apparently insoluble problem of natural evil?]