Tsunamis and Other Natural Catastrophes
At 7:58 a.m. on Dec. 26, just west of the northern tip of Sumatra, the ocean floor moved violently. Within eight hours, the resultant tsunami struck the coasts of Indonesia, Burma, Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, the Maldive Islands and Africa. More than 200,000 people were killed, with many more expected to die from disease or starvation. Meanwhile, where was God?
Suffering on such a large scale — brought on by a natural event — seems to call sharply into question the goodness, if not the very existence, of God. If a good God created the world, and if he is all-powerful, then how could such a terrible tragedy occur?
Explaining evil is easier when it was caused, not by nature, but by human beings. Christian theologians and philosophers generally attribute such evil to human free will. When we choose to do bad things, then we are the author of that evil, not God.
But how can we explain evil that is caused by nature? After all, wasn’t nature created by God, and isn’t he able to control it? Indeed, the existence of such “natural evil” is considered by many to be one of the strongest arguments against God’s existence.1
As evangelical Christians, we must affirm certain truths. Above all, God is completely good. He is not fickle in his dealings with his creation, not capricious in ruling nature. Because he is supremely good, he does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 18:23).
And God is absolutely sovereign. Nothing in all the world is outside his control. (Psalm 93 is but one passage that explicitly asserts God’s mastery of the seas.) His providence upholds the entire cosmos.
But, when it comes to God’s control over nature, Christians have also affirmed the distinction between those events he directly controls and those events he indirectly controls. That’s because God created the world to operate by the law of “cause and effect” (meaning that one event in nature causes another). In other words, the world God made is such that sometimes the earth quakes and waves kill — and God didn’t do it.
Yet God also made the world to be an “open system” (meaning he can intervene whenever and wherever he chooses). So, in God’s sovereignty, he can prevent tsunamis when he decides to. And, while we also affirm that sometimes he does cause natural disasters (Isaiah 45:7), even then his purposes are wholly good (Romans 8:28).
Back to my earlier point. Since God created the world to run by cause and effect, our world contains many interrelated, complex systems that can be altered for good or ill, such as plate tectonics, weather systems, and ecosystems. These systems can be pushed out of equilibrium, resulting in wildly erratic behavior.
But what causes the “pushing?” Evangelical scholars see three possibilities. First, such systems may naturally go chaotic without God’s continual intervention. According to this view, God provided such intervention before the Fall, but withdrew it afterward. But this seems unlikely since God pronounced his creation “very good.”
Second, the disequilibrium may be the result of sinful or ignorant human actions. While this may be true in some cases — for example, the destruction of ecosystems by pollution — it does not adequately explain events like tornados and hurricanes.
The third — and, I think, best — explanation is that when Satan and his hoards were cast out of heaven to earth (Luke 10:18; perhaps also described in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28), the result significantly disturbed the equilibrium of natural systems. Perhaps this is what Paul alludes to in Romans 8:19-22 when he says the earth was subjected to frustration.
We must remember that God created the world “very good,” but it was corrupted at the Fall. Yet, in the fulfillment of all things, the new heavens and new earth will be perfected. For now, we live in the “in-between time” when evil — moral and natural — can occur.
The Book of Job helps give us perspective during this time. There we find that not all suffering is caused by God (Satan and evil persons are often responsible), nor is it always punishment for sin (as Job’s three friends maintained), nor employed by God in a severe pedagogy (as Elihu claimed). In fact, Job never learned the reason for his suffering. Instead, God exploded into Job’s life, greatly enlarging Job’s understanding of God. And Job was satisfied.
Job’s lesson should be ours. When natural disasters strike, the most important question is not “Why?” but “Who?” Events like the tsunami should propel us not to look for reasons, but to learn more of our God, who alone is our hope and solace.
Garry DeWeese is associate professor of philosophy and philosophical theology at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University. In addition to his teaching and scholarly publication, he speaks frequently on apologetics topics in churches and on college campuses. His Ph.D. is from the University of Colorado.
1It is striking to realize that the number of deaths caused by natural disasters in the past century pales beside the number caused by human evil. The deadliest disaster in modern times, the 1976 earthquake near the Chinese town of Tangshen, claimed perhaps 750,000 lives. Contrast that to Hitler’s 6.5 million or Stalin’s 20 million.
© Biola University 2005