In defence of God: The Tsunami and Religious Faith

While anguished questioning is inevitable in these cataclysmic circumstances, we should keep some historical perspective, and not leap immediately to the denial of God. Huge natural disasters have happened in the past, and they will likely also occur in the future. We live in a world that is as precarious as it is wonderful, and where the delicate balance of natural forces that generally work to provide a congenial habitat for us sometimes slips, to let us see the chaos, the volcanic magma, that lies not far beneath earth's crust.

As Alan Smith, the Anglican Bishop of Shrewsbury put it last week, there is a sort of "randomness" built into the fabric of creation, a potential for disaster that each generation has to come to terms with as we try to make sense of life. It is the world as God made it, and we are faced with the need to adapt ourselves to this world as best we can, using our intelligence to interpret its forces and forestall its dangers both for ourselves and others. Bishop Smith went on to say that "God is to be found in the hands of those who are helping to bury the dead, to bring clean water to the living, to administer medicine to the ill and counsel to those in darkness."

The fact is that religious faith has survived such tests many times in the course of history. In biblical times, the Jewish ancestors had to grapple again and again with drought, slavery and wars that threatened their extinction. Their belief in a personal, provident God did not spare them from this world's woe, but it did sustain them in a hope for better times ahead. They learned to see life in this world as both a divine gift and a challenge to respond. And at key moments of crisis, it was principally their belief in their destiny as God's blessed people that gave them the power to survive as a nation.

The book of Job is rich in questions and laments, on the level of individual grief and misfortune, as this poor man grapples with God about the meaning of his misfortunes. Quite rightly, he rejects the facile explanations proposed by his comforters: there is no obvious connection between Job's behaviour and his misfortunes. It is wrong to imagine that virtue is always rewarded in this life, and that all earthly misfortune is a direct punishment for sin. And yet, Job clings stubbornly to to his belief in a God whose purposes are merciful and who knows the secret meaning of all things.

Neither the exile of the Jewish people to Babylon 6 BC nor their total defeat by the Romans 70 AD nor their many subsequent afflictions up to and including the dreadful "Shoah" holocaust under Adolf Hitler's regime in the 1940s has extinguished their belief in a saving, merciful God. No more did the Great Hunger of the 1840s wipe out the Irish people's faith. Somehow, they clung to the belief that God still cared for them, and would bring new life even out of the bleak calamity they endured.

It is not helpful to say, baldly, that God "caused" the tsunami, either as a punishment to the people of southern Asia; nor as a warning sign to the rest of us. Rather, (using the notion of God's permissive will) that God allowed it to happen, within the normal chain of physical cause and effect, that rules within this complex, unstable and evolving world of ours. But it does give us occasion for taking stock or our position in this world. The fact that human life is so fragile, and our earth so vulnerable, is all the more reason to entrust ourselves to God's providence; to pray each day for that day's needs; to say thanks for the time given to us. And, very acutely, the need for restoring decent living conditions for people overwhelmed by this tsunami is a challenge to all believers, and Christians especially, to roll up our sleeves and follow the splendid lead of the Good Samaritan.