On free will, natural disasters, and the problem of evil:
1. As to the deductive version of the problem of evil: this is the argument that says that it is self-contradictory to assert the existence of an all-powerful, all-good God if evil exists. As used in response to this problem, the assertion of free will does not require that free will justify the evil in the world, only that it possibly justify the evil in this world. Of course, many people now use a probabalistic argument from evil: given the amount of evil, it is very unlikely that God exists. I am unfamiliar with the literature in this area.
2.
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The problem of evil works in several different ways. I think the most devastating is the "distribution" formulation. That is, it is not possible to justify who is affected by evil. Sure, other people might learn important lessons when infants in the third world starve to death, but are we to seriously believe that the infants themselves were treated justly? What kind of lesson is worth that price?
God could make it so terminally ill people cease to feel pain. He could smite murderers, rapists, and torturers moments before they caused their evil. Etc.
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Well, this is well answered by free will. If God smited murderers, etc, then free will would be a lie. "Do whatever you choose, but if you choose wrong, I'll kill you before you have a chance to do it." Moreover, this would be unmerciful. Some of these bad people will repent and go to heaven. If God killed them before they repented, they would go to hell. To the extent that babies starving is the fault of people with free will, that falls under this category.
3. Of course, natural disasters are still a problem. There's no really satisfying answer here -- or, for the agnostics, no answer even as satisfying as free will above. The best, I think, is that it is a good to have a world that operates according to rather strict rules, which God only violates very, very rarely. (Even if we think every miracle recorded in scripture actually happened, it's still very, very rare.) Others have suggested that, if we had not fallen, we would know how to avoid natural disasters. It's possible that, in an unfallen world, we would not build cities on flood plains, know when tornadoes are coming, and the like. It's also possible that natural disasters are necessary to build virtue. In a world where towers never fell, people would have no opportunity to build up their courage by rescuing people from them. The latter two, I don't really agree with (seems either silly or somewhat sadistic.) But if they help you, go for it.
3. Finally, Zyr says "Why doesn't God just put all the people he knows are going to be good in heaven?" There are a number of possible answers for this. First, before we can enjoy heaven, we must be at least a little bit good. See C. S. Lewis's the Great Divorce for a sense of what I mean here. Second, some people who are going to be good are only going to be good because of the actions of other good people. So if God took all the good people away, there would be fewer good people overall. Third, good people do a lot of, well, good. God cares about all people, both good and bad, and so wants the good people around to make things better for the bad people.