Why God Punishes Us

Here is a citation of five ways that God sends us punishments, according to Saint Gregory, as cited by Saint Thomas in his commentary on John 9, the man born blind (Ch. IX, Lect. 1, 3 [1302]) It seems to me that this would answer in the negative the question about whether there is technically natural "evil." All natural evil is a punishment from God, and, therefore, good.

Regarding evil, there are two aspects, guilt and punishment. God has none of the former but he does impose all of the latter, and that for the reasons given below.

First, my brief summary, then my translation, of the text.

God sends scourges to (punishes) men in five ways:

1. As the beginning of damnation (a novitiate for Hell).
2. As correction for past wrongs.
3. As prevention for future wrongs.
4. To promote virtue (a more ardent love, out of gratitude for God's forbearance in withholding, or saving one, from the aforesaid merited corrective or preventative punishments).
5. To manifest the glory of God (e.g. by Christ's miracles).

Plinthos translation:

...[A]s Gregory says in 1 Moral., God sends scourges to men in five ways.

1. As damnation initiation: Sometimes the punishment is the beginning of damnation, according to Jer. 7, 18: "to crush them with a double crushing." And with this scourge the sinner is struck in this life in such a way that he is punished in the other life without retraction or end, as Herod, who killed James, was punished in this life, and likewise in Hell: cf. Acts. 12, 23.
2. As a corrective measure: Sometimes it is for correction, to correct past wrongs: and of this it is said in Ps. 17, 36: "Your discipline itself will teach me."
3. As a preventative measure: Sometimes a person is scourged, not for the correction of the past, but for the preservation of the future: as we read in Paul, 2 Cor. 12:7: "lest the greatness of the revelations should lift me up, there was given to me a stimulus of my flesh, an angel of Satan, who would crush me."
4. As a school of charity: Sometimes divine punishment is for the promotion of virtue: namely, when in someone neither a past fault is corrected nor a future one prevented. When unexpected salvation follows persecution, and the virtue of the savior is known, he is more ardently loved; 2 Cor. 12:9: "virtue is perfected in weakness;" James. 1:4: "The probation of your faith worketh patience."
5. As a manifestation of divine glory: Sometimes God scourges to the manifestation of His glory: whence it is said here "that the works of God are manifested in him." John 9:3.