Where was God when tectonic plates shifted off Sumatra? As the tidal waves gathered speed and formed? As they crashed into the shorelines of Asia and Africa? As tens of thousands of people died? As towns and cities and livelihoods were destroyed?
The God I’m talking about is the God of Christians—the One found in the Bible parting waters of the Red Sea; walking on the Sea of Galilee, saying to wind and waves, “Peace, be still!” and having them obey. Couldn’t He have done something about a tsunami?
This is the God that Christians claim to be all-loving, all-knowing and all-powerful. The One they say is good.
“How can you believe in a God who permits suffering on this scale?” is a question we should be asking, reckons the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. In fact, he says he would be surprised if we weren’t asking the question.
On the other hand, fellow Anglican and a former bishop of Carolina, C FitzSimmons Allison, replied through the VirtueOnline web site that: “Natural disasters always provoke questions of God’s goodness in the face of excruciating tragedy. It has always been so, and disasters will always continue. It has not been given to Christians to dispel the mystery of evil.”
It’s this “mystery” that Rabbi Harold Kushner attempted to understand in his book When Bad Things Happen to Good People. He concluded that we can view God as all-powerful or all-loving, but not as both. In other words, an all-loving God is not all-powerful. In defence of this position, God has, by giving humans freedom of choice, placed limits on His own power.
Not all Christians or Jews accept Kushner’s understanding. There is no neatly packaged, satisfying answer to the question about God and the tsunami disaster. This can be seen in the variety of responses to this question. They range along a continuum from God having no involvement in the disaster (it is merely a natural occurrence), to God creating the tsunami (as an act of judgment).
thinking about God
Currently a web site is offering $US1 million for proof that God exists (see www.thinkandreason.com): “All you have to do is prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that God exists. It is really that easy!” says the site. The guidelines include: “faith” doesn’t prove anything; no second-hand accounts of miracles; proof must be shown live, not in film; and, evidence must be able to undergo a double-blind test.
Their money is safe. While we may find evidences for God, there is no conclusive proof. God is much bigger than our reasoning. There’s always a step of faith involved in believing in God. You can’t cram Him into a test tube.
Of course, you could also offer a million dollars for proof that God does not exist and still keep your money. How would you prove His non-existence conclusively? There’s always the suspicion of something or someone greater than ourselves.
But some do take the tsunami as evidence that there is no God, and some that He’s an angry God, or One who doesn’t care. Even if we take the tsunami as simply a natural consequence of tectonic plates shifting, that doesn’t take away His responsibility—at least not in the sense that an all-powerful God could have prevented destruction and loss of life.
But that then raises another problem: Where would we have God draw the line on intervention? Should we expect a miracle every time an individual is about to be hurt, even if they place themselves in danger? Or will we ask Him to intervene only where there is a threat of the loss of life above a threshold—1000, perhaps, or 100, or 10? Is the pain lessened with fewer deaths? Or is it simply that fewer grieve?
We are in a world where evil is plain to see, where bad things do happen.
It’s also a place where there’s much good—the immediate and
compassionate response to tsunami victims is a brilliant example—and
joy.
Is God responsible for one or the other—or both?
biblical perspectives
The Bible begins with a perfect world and ends with the promise of another. On the pages in between, you find conflict, war and natural disasters—and the prediction of natural disasters. Earthquakes form a part of an expected litany of disasters befalling the world at the time of “the end” (Matthew 24:4-8) and establishment of God’s new kingdom.
The Bible reveals how perfection was lost when war broke out in heaven and Satan and his supporters rebelled (see Revelation 12:7-9). They were banished to this earth, where they continued their fight against God. The scene was set for continuing conflict; humans (Genesis 1-3) and the planet (Genesis 3:17, 18; also 6:7, 11-24) were both impacted.
Our world is now a place where evil lurks in the minds and deeds of humans and where the natural world can turn nasty, where death is the ultimate enemy.
In commenting on an accident where 18 men were killed (see Luke 13:1-5), Jesus doesn’t look for blame. He certainly didn’t see it as an act of judgment—those killed were no better or no worse than any others—they were, tragically, in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The biblical story of Job tells of a good man—a rich man—who lost everything, including his children, through a combination of human and natural causes. Two messages come strongly from Job’s story. The first is that bad things do happen to good people in the conflict between God and Satan, but God is not the initiator of evil, even if He allows it to take its course. Second, despite the fact that we live in a war zone, God still has overall control. Paul concludes that it’s as if the whole planet groans in pain waiting for restoration (Romans 8:19-23).
that other act of God
None of this inspires hope without one more element. Sidney Carter wrote: “But God is up in heaven/ And he doesn’t do a thing,/ With a million angels watching,/ And they never move a wing. . . ./ It’s God they ought to crucify/ Instead of you and me,/ I said to this Carpenter/ A-hanging on a tree” (cited in Philip Yancey’s, The Jesus I Never Knew).
Carter places Jesus, the Carpenter, on the cross. This is not a God of folded arms, but One of action. Here God doesn’t attempt to halt individual acts of evil or trauma, but gives Himself through His Son to bring an end to the war. “He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of his blood on the cross. This includes you who were once so far away from God” (Colossians, 1:20, 21, NLT).
Jesus lived the sinless life we couldn’t and died the death we deserved. Incredibly, He arose from the grave as the first of the crop who defeat death through Him. Then He promised to return to reinstate God’s perfect world. We’re invited to be a part of it.
This is important. Accepting what Jesus has done makes us a part of God’s new world: “We are made right with God when we believe that Jesus shed his blood, sacrificing his life for us. . . . [God] declares sinners to be right in his sight because they believe in Jesus” (Romans 3:25, 26, NLT).
While we wait for God’s kingdom, there will be further life battles and disasters, but the war that began in heaven is won.
so, where was God?
God was there in the valley of the shadow of death (Psalm 23) with the tsunami victims and survivors. Some may have cried, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” but He hadn’t. He had forsaken Another on a Roman cross so that no other would ever have to be forsaken.
God the all-loving One feels the pain. He knows the sorrow. He understands the heartache. This planet—a child of His creative power—remains close to His heart. He values the people of earth—values them enough to have died for them. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16, NLT).
In the midst of the human slaughter and destruction of World War 1, Charles Hudson, a British junior officer, wrote, “There is a God above, though it is not hard to understand how this awful war with its bereavements and suffering can make a man say in bitterness of heart that there is no God” (in Richard Schweitzer, The Cross and the Trenches).
We’re in the midst of an “awful,” ongoing war. The casualties are high, which means, while the outcome may be certain, the continually rising toll makes it difficult to see God’s hand. It takes faith to say that no matter what is happening, “God is with us!”
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