To consider an act of God (or a failure to prevent some occurrence) as evil, the perspective of the person making such a judgment about God must be taken into account. Let me illustrate the point this way:

One day, a friend of mine and I attended a Bible study. In the administration of the Bible study, three men had been appointed to enforce certain rules regarding the distribution of the weekly lesson’s lecture notes. These rules were unknown to my friend, but known to me. My friend had needed to leave the study early and asked the men who distributed the notes if he could have his set as he was leaving. The men began asking my friend why he was leaving, telling him that he could not have the set of notes and, in general, giving him a hard time. My friend left the Bible study empty-handed, perplexed and irritated. Later we discussed the incident. I explained that the notes were offered as an incentive for participants to stay for the entire lecture and that because of the rule, people who left the lecture before it concluded were not entitled to a copy of the lecture notes. As a result of the strict adherence to similar rules, the Bible study had become quite popular and successful. My friend commented to me that, in retrospect, the rule made sense, but at the time, he wasn’t aware of the reasoning behind the rule and he didn’t appreciate the way he was treated. He suggested that, had he been a black man or a member of some other minority, he would have considered the incident racially motivated as the three men had all been white. I noted that while he was just venting his aggravation, his observation was somewhat insightful.

The men standing guard over the lesson’s lecture notes had good intentions and did not act immorally. But from my friend’s perspective, they appeared to be rude, and inconsiderate for no apparent reason. My friend incorrectly judged the motives of these men. Thus, one must recognize that the judgments of God may not appear just from the perspective of man because man has limited knowledge and understanding of God’s motivations and character.