Don’t Viruses, Mosquitoes, and Cancer Make God’s Character Suspect?
Question of the Week: Doesn’t the fact that the Creator made viruses, mosquitoes, and baby cancer make the Creator’s character suspect?
My Answer: Without viruses Earth would become a gigantic bacterial slime ball. No nonbacterial life would be possible. Viruses also play a crucial role in the water cycle in that they provide many of the seeds that permit raindrops and snowflakes to form. By breaking up bacteria into smaller chunks, viruses produce additional seeds for raindrop and snow formation. Viruses make a major contribution to the deep carbon, oxygen, and water cycles, without which advanced life on Earth would not be possible.
Mosquitoes play a critical role in the food cycles for many ecosystems. Of the more than 200 species of mosquitoes only 6 bite humans. The problem for us is that we have transported deadly viruses and human-biting mosquitoes into environments that God never intended them to habitat.
Cancer and disease are inevitable consequences of the presently existing laws of physics. These laws of physics play crucial roles in God’s work of permanently eradicating sin and evil while he enhances the freewill capability of humans willing to receive his offer of redemption to receive and express love at levels exponentially greater than what is presently possible. The moment that God permanently eradicates sin and evil, he will replace the present universe with a brand-new creation where gravity, thermodynamics, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces will be replaced by different physical laws and different dimensions (Revelation 21–22). As Jesus declared in John 16:33, “In the world you will have tribulation, but take heart; I have overcome the world.” For a more in-depth answer to the question see my books, More Than a Theory and Why the Universe Is the Way It Is.