How do viruses fit into God's plan, and where do you believe they come from? Also, do you believe they are living? -- B.M.
Virology is simply not addressed, even indirectly, in the Bible. Genesis 1 affirms that the creation is good, yet some viruses seem evil (Ebola and Hantavirus, for example). And selfish. Anyway, there's the rub!
I would approach the problem by stepping back. First, viruses are amoral; we ought not to attribute personality to them. Second, even if they always caused trouble, that would not mean they were an optional component of the biological world. In the same way, pain is... well, painful!, but it serves important roles neurologically. Forest fires are not necessarily bad. Etc...
I'm not sure everything in the following article is true, but overall it raises a lot of good questions. I think you may appreciate it. (Interestingly, the publishers are associated with a group known to be old earth creationists -- I do not share their interpretation of the scriptures, but the differences between us are perhaps not so great.)
The article I found is http://www.trueorigin.org/virus.asp.
