J
JayBee
Guest
God and the Tsunami - A Dilemma
Since the tsunami occurred on Boxing Day, the increasingly tragic effects of the earthquake have slowly been revealed to us day by day on our television screens. The dead, missing and injured lists display a daily increase. More and more images of devastated coasts, villages and towns are made available. The media are full of stories of personal tragedy.
The scientific explanation of this disaster is straightforward. What has caused far more soul-searching is the religious one: how could a loving creator allow this to happen? Atheists , agnostics and secularists in general will dismiss the question as spurious - there is no such being as a loving creator. Therefore the question does not arise.
Theists, however, albeit of different faiths, in so far as the foundation of their belief is a benign creator, have all rushed to reconcile the apparent contradiction. Muslim clerics have declared the disaster a punishment visited by God upon its victims, something similar, I suppose, to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, as described in the Jewish sacred writings. How this explanation fits the image of a benign creator, I find hard to understand.
Jewish and Christian leaders have discouraged us from concentrating on the tragic aspects of the tsunami, and have asked us, instead, to consider it firstly as an opportunity to experience global solidarity in the way the West has come to the aid of the East, and secondly, as an opportunity for individuals to practise acts of personal generosity, heroism and perseverance in the face of suffering. All this, it is claimed, springs from the bounty of our creator, the good God, from whom we take our living, inspired by His Supreme Goodness. The question to be asked is not how could the tsunami happen, but how, with God’s help, can we overcome the problems it has created. The proponents of this approach, however, despite their welcome and salutary encouragement of people to involve themselves in genuine altruism, are simply side-stepping the deeper dilemma.
For Muslims and Jews I make no consolatory suggestion here. For Christians I suggest the answer may lie in thinking on the person of Jesus Christ, seen as the fulfillment of all that went before, and the guarantor of all that has and is to come afterwards. He is the God-Man who took upon Himself our humanity when born in Bethlehem. To think from God to His creation is thinking the wrong way round. A more salutary way is to think from Jesus Christ to His Father, from Jesus Christ to us.
I have to admit that ultimately I have no perfect answer to the dilemma. I think we just have to accept it as an aspect of the human condition which we do not fully understand. That this admission, however, should destroy faith in Jesus Christ, a faith which can console, inspire and motivate us in times of tragedy, does not necessarily follow.
Since the tsunami occurred on Boxing Day, the increasingly tragic effects of the earthquake have slowly been revealed to us day by day on our television screens. The dead, missing and injured lists display a daily increase. More and more images of devastated coasts, villages and towns are made available. The media are full of stories of personal tragedy.
The scientific explanation of this disaster is straightforward. What has caused far more soul-searching is the religious one: how could a loving creator allow this to happen? Atheists , agnostics and secularists in general will dismiss the question as spurious - there is no such being as a loving creator. Therefore the question does not arise.
Theists, however, albeit of different faiths, in so far as the foundation of their belief is a benign creator, have all rushed to reconcile the apparent contradiction. Muslim clerics have declared the disaster a punishment visited by God upon its victims, something similar, I suppose, to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, as described in the Jewish sacred writings. How this explanation fits the image of a benign creator, I find hard to understand.
Jewish and Christian leaders have discouraged us from concentrating on the tragic aspects of the tsunami, and have asked us, instead, to consider it firstly as an opportunity to experience global solidarity in the way the West has come to the aid of the East, and secondly, as an opportunity for individuals to practise acts of personal generosity, heroism and perseverance in the face of suffering. All this, it is claimed, springs from the bounty of our creator, the good God, from whom we take our living, inspired by His Supreme Goodness. The question to be asked is not how could the tsunami happen, but how, with God’s help, can we overcome the problems it has created. The proponents of this approach, however, despite their welcome and salutary encouragement of people to involve themselves in genuine altruism, are simply side-stepping the deeper dilemma.
For Muslims and Jews I make no consolatory suggestion here. For Christians I suggest the answer may lie in thinking on the person of Jesus Christ, seen as the fulfillment of all that went before, and the guarantor of all that has and is to come afterwards. He is the God-Man who took upon Himself our humanity when born in Bethlehem. To think from God to His creation is thinking the wrong way round. A more salutary way is to think from Jesus Christ to His Father, from Jesus Christ to us.
I have to admit that ultimately I have no perfect answer to the dilemma. I think we just have to accept it as an aspect of the human condition which we do not fully understand. That this admission, however, should destroy faith in Jesus Christ, a faith which can console, inspire and motivate us in times of tragedy, does not necessarily follow.
