Explaining disasters

OSV.com ^ | 05-29-16 | Msgr. Charles Pope

[Salvation]

Explaining disasters While the loss of life stemming from tragedies is heartbreaking, we can’t fully understand God’s plan

Msgr. Charles Pope May 29, 2016

Question: Given God’s mercy, how do we explain devastating earthquakes and other natural disasters? It certainly tests our faith!— Gerald Olesen, Fortuna, California

Answer: Part of the answer we must accept is that we cannot really know the full answer since there is so much we don’t see or understand. This was the basic answer God gave Job, who asked the meaning of suffering in his own life. In effect, God challenged Job to explain how the stars were made, or the seas or any other natural wonder. And if Job could not understand those things, how could he think he would understand the meaning of suffering.

And thus, in understanding the suffering of natural disasters you mention, recall that in the natural order there is a cycle of life and a remarkable way that many of the troubles of creation also bring blessing. The molten and fiery center of our planet is responsible for earthquakes and volcanos. But it also has a critical role in creating a magnetic field around the earth that protects us from the harmful radiation emitted from the sun. Thus, were God simply to answer our prayer and stop some of these upheavals, other blessings might be lost and the loss of life might be far worse — even total.

God is like a master artist whose canvas is all of creation. We cannot see the whole picture. And thus, one dark pixel of the painting might alarm us, but if we could see the whole painting, we could see that it is an interplay of light and darkness that makes for a beautiful masterpiece.

We might also recall that God offered us paradise, but Adam and Eve (and we who have certainly ratified their choice) sought to live apart from that sheltered paradise, which existed only through trusting and obeying God. For Adam’s sin affected not only him but the whole of creation. God said to Adam: “Cursed is the ground because of you” (Gn 3:17). And while it is not certain if the Garden of Eden would have had no natural upheavals, it seems fair to say that our sin intensified the chaos of creation in some mystical way.

[Salvation]

Your comments~~

[Salvation]

Monsignor Pope’s OSV column Ping!

[who_would_fardels_bear]

This is the stock reply that never really satisfies anyone.

And since Job's time scientists have pretty much figured out how stars work and where our seas came from, but haven't really figured out why all the natural disasters.

Here are some other "problem of evil" ponderables:

1. Why create thousands of species and have them suffer and die over eons of time, only to have them go extinct?

2. What about intelligent near-human creatures such as neanderthals, the "hobbits", etc. Why allow them to thrive for hundreds of thousands of years only to have them die off?

3. Why the nastiness and crippling capabilities of certain bacteria, viruses and insect bites?

For over a century now physicists have had to deal with some real strangeness when it comes to their line of study. Rather than just throwing their hands up and saying "Wow that's crazy," they have worked hard to come up with some explanations and put some bounds on the craziness of quantum mechanics and relativity.

There seems to have been no similar effort on the part of theologians to come to terms with the "problem of evil".

The stock answers are:

1. Free will. But this doesn't explain natural disasters.
2. Secondary effects. But physics has turned out to be so weird that it's not obvious that we need earthquakes in order to have a magnetosphere.
3. Original sin affected the natural world as well. But as far as we can tell there were earthquakes and meteor strikes, etc. before Adam and Eve.
4. God moves in mysterious ways. So it's OK for theologians to spend centuries working out the philosophical problems associated with Jesus being both God and Man, the nature of the Trinity, etc. but not particularly interesting to attempt to grasp some of the details associated with the problem of evil?

More work needs to be done here.

[Izzy Dunne]

Or just accept the simple answer to all of it: There is no god, and we live on a cooling earth, where plates move, snag, and let go with tremendous violence. Volcanoes come from the molten center pushing on the breakable crust. Air masses move and interact with large consequences of wind and water.

[Arthur McGowan]

If we saw and understood everything that God sees and understands, we would realize that when a bus full of children plunges into a ravine, it’s not that important an event. They were all going to die someday, anyway. Ultimately, the only thing that matters, as with all people, is whether they went to Heaven or Hell.

[Salvation]

Sorry,

There is a God or we would not have an earth at all. Read Genesis 1 and 2 and believe.

[Salvation]

**Ultimately, the only thing that matters, as with all people, is whether they went to Heaven or Hell.**

Amen. And we should all be prepared (with a clean soul) and no disobeyed Commandments) to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.

[TexasKamaAina]

"More work needs to be done in this area."

I agree. As a believer, I usually find Msgr Pope thought-provoking. In this instance, however, I think a simple "I don't know" would have been the best response to the question.

[Izzy Dunne]

when a bus full of children plunges into a ravine, it’s not that important an event. They were all going to die someday, anyway.

Or when somebody gets aborted, either. They were going to die anyway, so what's the big deal?

Wow.

[GreyFriar]

There is an old Army saying: “Stuff happens.” (polite version). When it comes to natural disasters, for me, God created the world and set it moving. It has its patterns and happenings that are probably its own version of the free will that God gave to us, His children.

Perhaps that is to simple, but I consider it under: What can I influence/worry about or what do I just have to accept as having happened. e.g. hurricanes and earthquakes.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

That answer is not quite so simple.

Why is there something rather than nothing? Some physicists have tried to answer that question (Lawrence Krauss, Hawking, etc.) but their efforts have been universally panned.

There are a number of good proofs for the existence of God, none of which to my mind have been successfully refuted. Atheists claim their counterarguments are bulletproof, but they are flawed either by attacking a weak version of the actual proof or by equivocating on terms they don't fully understand such as 'necessity'.

So from my limited point of view we are living in a world created by some very powerful (or maybe infinitely powerful) being that appears to have more senseless suffering than necessary.

Ethical philosophers are busy addressing lots of detailed ethical questions about what we should do in specific instances or how we should live our lives. They disagree among themselves, but at least they are engaging the questions "at the ground level".

If someone knows of a theologian or Christian philosopher who is engaging with specific forms of seemingly senseless suffering and working to show where the meaning is, or how this suffering works for good in the plans of an all-powerful and hopefully all-loving God, then I would be interested in reading that.

[CyberAnt]

GOD doesn’t plan disasters.

If you receive Christ as your Savior, no disaster can keep you from the LOVE of CHRIST. Whether you survive or not, the goal is to KNOW CHRIST; then, you don’t have to worry.

[Arthur McGowan]

If people didn’t build houses in rivers, there would never be “floods.”

[Arthur McGowan]

You have completely twisted what I said.

I was talking about an accident. You are talking about murder.

[GreyFriar]

And the corollary: Why do hurricanes do more damage to cities and towns along coast lines today than 150 years ago? Answer: because people have built more towns along the coast lines than there were 150 years ago, thus more cities and towns to destroy and more population to be affected.

[annalex]

The stock answers are partial indeed. For example, the Free Will answer only applies to quandaries like "why God lets a sinner's soul perish rather than convert him?". It does not apply to the generalized problem of evil.

Expanding on Arthur McGowan's point; natural events are neither good or evil in themselves. They are good when they lead men's souls to salvation and bad when they don't. The spectacle of animals going extinct, even creatures very similar to the man dying off are all lessons to us for our spiritual benefit. A disaster that leads the person to repent of his sins and grants him even a brief moment of conversion and proximity to God during his natural life may be the best thing that would happen to that soul in absence of a natural disaster.

So long as it is understood that the works of the created worlds serve no other purpose but turning our wills to God, the problems of evil cease to be problematic.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

What you are arguing is a corollary of the concept that spiritual "matter" is infinitely more valuable than plain matter, i.e. one saved soul is more valuable than the entire Earth or even our entire galaxy.

Or as Newman put it: "I said, "The Catholic Church holds it better for the sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions on it to die of starvation in extremest agony, as far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will not say, should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should tell one wilful untruth, or should steal one poor farthing without excuse."

But we are also told that as humans we are special in that we are material bodies unified with and/or by souls, and that for Christ to suffer and die for our sins He chose to suffer and die in a human body. We are also told that angels are to look up to those humans that die in the grace of God as being more in some profound way than "mere" angels.

So it seems as if plain old matter has some value and Newman might be overstating his case. There might be some assaults on matter that are on a par with those upon the soul, especially if they lead people to question the existence or goodness of God.

[Izzy Dunne]

That answer is not quite so simple.

The answer is exactly that simple. There are quakes on other planets, there are storms on other planets, there are meteors on other planets, there are volcanoes on other moons. The only thing that makes them "disasters" is the fact that human lives are affected.

Is there a god steering these events on Earth for some "plan" to tweak the lives of us earthlings? Or isn't it more likely that it's part of the natural universe and we're better off trying to find better ways to predict things, and better medicines to repair the damage, rather than finding someone to blame, or some thing to pray to to make it stop?

[Izzy Dunne]

You have completely twisted what I said.

You said "when a bus full of children plunges into a ravine, it’s not that important an event. "

Would it be important if it was YOUR child on that bus? or maybe your wife driving it ?

Either a life is a valuable thing, or it isn't. If god steered that bus into a ravine as part of his "plan" then god also steered the mother to go to the clinic as part of his "plan". Isn't it more likely that the bus driver suffered from bad brakes or bad judgement and the mother suffered from bad decisions, bad advice or bad judgement?

[Izzy Dunne]

If people didn’t build houses in rivers, there would never be “floods.”

Not so. That is plainly not so.

Floods occur whether there are houses there or not.

Whether they are disasters depends on whether there are people there or not.