Natural Disasters Used by God in This Way? (+Prayer Intention!)

[Kei]

Hello. I was on a popular (at least, I think it’s fairly popular) Catholic phone application that offers various prayers (hence tagging this post under Popular Media), and seeing that there was a prayer for an approaching hurricane, decided to pray concerning Hurricane Laura approaching the southern US.
However, a particular line struck me as odd, and it reads:
“Try as we might, we know that we cannot control the oceans, the mountains, the weather. We also firmly believe that ever since the time of Noah, You do not send floods, make the earth shake, or dispatch weather formations, such as hurricanes, as warnings or punishments.”

However, I have been under the impression that, though we shouldn’t be quick to call a natural disaster or what have you as such, God could, if He so willed, use natural disasters as punishments or warnings. Yet this prayer has the author starting he or she has a firm belief that He does not do such, since the time of Noah. Immediately, you’d think of the promise with Noah, but to apply that to all earthquakes, hurricanes, etc would seem to me to expand the promise way further than it actually says. So, I would like some thoughts on that, and if this is simply an error on the part of the composer of this prayer (and if so, may this serve as a warning so as to not be misled), or if I am mistaken, etc.

(Plus, please do pray for the incoming hurricane. It is apparently expected to be pretty bad, and farms etc have already been pushed very hard this year to previous weather and the whole pandemic thing as well).

 

[Cor_ad_Cor]

I think by and large, the Church would agree with the author of the prayer. As a Cistercian monk once described it (and I paraphrase): “When you’re trying to determine if something is of God or from God, you simply remind yourself that God is Love. If the thing in question sounds like Love, perhaps it is God’s hand. If it doesn’t sound like Love, you can be sure it’s not God’s doing.”

The promise to Noah was that God would never again destroy the world — by flood. We extrapolate to an understanding that God won’t destroy the world at all out of love for us. HOWEVER, that’s not to say that you can’t hold another understanding, as the Church clearly permits via the info. @(name removed by moderator) shared above.

 

[Erikaspirit16]

God could, if He so willed, use natural disasters as punishments or warnings.

. . . .

Let’s step back and see what Jesus said about this sort of thing!

Luke 13:1-5 "Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them–do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”

Now the common belief at the time (and it’s still all too common today) was that if something bad happened to you (leprosy, dying, poverty, etc.) it was your fault. You must have committed some awful sin and God was punishing you. In the passage above, Jesus is explicitly rejecting this way of thinking. Basically Jesus is saying “Stuff happens. It’s not because you did something bad. It’s not a punishment. It just happens. Chance.”

And praying to alleviate some catastrophe is fine, but if you prayed “God, please let the tornado pass by my house and swerve to the North,” and to the North is Billie Bob’s house, I think you’re asking God to curse Bille Bob. Not a good thing.

 

[StudentMI]

This sounds like you’ve been listening to too much Fox News: The common Trump phrase “It’s possible that…” Anything is possible. Is it “possible” God could use natural disasters as punishments or warning? Sure. God can do anything. But does He? Would He?

Um, yes, he would. Read the Old Testament.

 

[Erikaspirit16]

Um, yes, he would. Read the Old Testament.

Read the New Testament. Things change!

 

[StudentMI]

Read the New Testament. Things change!

So God changes?

 

[StudentMI]

Yep. This is true.

 

[Kei]

God is Love.

Yes, and He works everything for the good for those who love Him. To the spiritual man, what seems like a curse to a man of flesh is a blessing. Love, and especially perfect charity, can easily call us to our end and out of our sins and further into high virtue.
Hence, it is difficult to ascertain some things in such manner without knowing all the relevant effects.

There is also an Augustinian strain of thought that nations are punished temporally, as unlike people, they have no Final Judgement; their justice shall be delivered in this world.

It does not seem right or just to arbitrarily “expand” a promise of God. He decides the terms, not us!

 

[Kei]

Let’s step back and see what Jesus said about this sort of thing!

He points out we all will perish without repentance; let us recognize the gravity of our many sins. Perhaps we could say it is a great Mercy we have not all perished already in such a way as those Galileans.
As I said, we shouldn’t be too quick to say some bad thing is God punishing us.
However, if God so willed, He could very easily use nature to such an end, insofar as He can make use of said act for His Purposes. At the least, He allows such and makes great use of these disasters, even if not willed positively. He turned the brutal murder of our Lord into a great act of triumph, after all!