Archbishop of Canterbury admits: This makes me doubt the existence of God

Telegraph ^ | 04 January 2005 | Chris Hastings, Patrick Hennessy and Sean Rayment

[Catholic54321]

The Asian tsunami disaster should make all Christians question the existence of God, Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, writes in The Telegraph today.

In a deeply personal and candid article, he says "it would be wrong" if faith were not "upset" by the catastrophe which has already claimed more than 150,000 lives.

Dr Rowan Williams: Prayer provides no 'magical solutions' Prayer, he admits, provides no "magical solutions" and most of the stock Christian answers to human suffering do not "go very far in helping us, one week on, with the intolerable grief and devastation in front of us".

Dr Williams, who, as head of the Church of England, represents 70 million Anglicans around the world, writes: "Every single random, accidental death is something that should upset a faith bound up in comfort and ready answers. Faced with the paralysing magnitude of a disaster like this, we naturally feel more deeply outraged - and also more deeply helpless."

He adds: "The question, 'How can you believe in a God who permits suffering on this scale?' is therefore very much around at the moment, and it would be surprising if it weren't - indeed it would be wrong if it weren't."

Dr Williams concludes that, faced with such a terrible challenge to their faith, Christians must focus on "passionate engagement with the lives that are left".

His comments came as Tony Blair finally broke his silence on the tragedy, branding it a "global catastrophe" that would take the world "years" to deal with. The Prime Minister, who has faced criticism for not cutting short a family holiday in the Egyptian resort of Sharm El Sheikh, also insisted that the United Nations should lead the international aid effort. He praised the "extraordinary generosity" of the British people, whose donations topped £60 million last night. The Government has thus far pledged £50 million.

Interviewed by Channel 4 News, Mr Blair said: "At first it seemed a terrible disaster. But I think as the days have gone on people have recognised it as a global catastrophe.

"It is not simply the absolute horror of what has happened and how many people's lives have been touched in different ways, it is also the fact that the consequences are not just short-term and immediate but long-term and will require a great deal of work by the international community for months, if not years, to come.

"We've got millions of people displaced, we've got the potential of disease coming from this and we've got whole areas of that region that will have to be rebuilt."

He shrugged off claims that he should have come home to take charge of Britain's aid effort, adding that he had been in touch "practically hourly" with Downing Street.

Mr Blair said that one of his key tasks during Britain's year-long presidency of the G8 group of leading industrial nations, which started yesterday, was to liaise with other leaders. His faith in the UN seemed undimmed despite the international rows in the months prior to the war in Iraq and he dismissed as a "misunderstanding" claims that President George W. Bush had tried to snub the organisation by setting up a four-country task force with Australia, India and Japan.

"When I spoke to President Bush a short time ago he made it very clear that he wanted the UN to be in the lead and that he sees the work that the US is doing as very much supportive of that," he said.

Mr Blair's intervention was made as it was disclosed that Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, would lead Britain's international anti-poverty drive by going on a three-nation trip to east and southern Africa later this month.

Meanwhile, a 10-man British military reconnaissance team arrived in Sri Lanka to assess how British Armed Forces could best assist the stricken country which, with Thailand, Indonesia and southern India, has borne the brunt of the disaster.

The team will report back to the Permanent Joint Headquarters in Northwood, Middlesex, in the next 72 hours. The main focus of Britain's effort is likely to be directed towards Sri Lanka and the Maldives.

Two Royal Navy ships, the frigate Chatham, currently on patrol in the Gulf, and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessel Diligence, already in the Indian Ocean, are heading for Sri Lanka. A C-17 Globe Master transport aircraft, which can carry 100,000lbs of cargo, has also been allocated to supply aid.

The Pope in his New Year message yesterday led prayers for victims at St Peter's Basilica in Rome, and a prayer vigil for victims, survivors and families was being held at Central Hall, Westminster, last night.

On Wednesday, a nationwide three-minute silence will be observed across Britain.

[reformedcrat]

You wrote: "The only solace in the temporal world is Jesus Christ.


"These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." -- John 16:33"

Thanks for the lovely reminder. I love this verse and I simply must commit it to memory.

--Marty

[aruanan]

The Asian tsunami disaster should make all Christians question the existence of God, Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, writes in The Telegraph today.

What a dolt. What it should make everybody wonder is whether or not human insistence on continued individual existence as the be-all and end-all of existence isn't another form of idolatry.

People have looked at the accounts of God using the Israelites to wipe out entire city states as adequate reason to question the existence of God. Why not, rather, ask whether people don't have too easy-going an attitude toward sin that causes them to judge God harshly who may very well have been doing the most merciful thing he could do under the circumstances?

Man to God; "Ooooh, I wouldn't have done things this way if I were you! Therefore, I have good reason to believe you don't exist."

As far as the tsunami being divine retribution: God makes the rain fall on the good and the evil; the same is true of natural disaster. We live in a real world with real consequences, some of them deadly. Water is good, but not if you try to breathe it. Air is good, but not if you inject a large amount into an artery. A common orifice for esophagus and larynx is pretty good, unless you try to inhale food. But the fact that you can die if you step in front of a truck doesn't mean that God doesn't exist.

[Frumanchu]

The clean up horrifies those left living, but all the dead are resting peacefully.

Well, I don't know that I'd say all are "resting." (Heb 3:18, 4:1-11)

[Taggart_D]

So glad to hear a voice of truth. Great comment.

[suzyjaruki]

The fundamental error is the assumption that we are good, deserving of good. We so take for granted the goodness and forbearance of God that when He sends judgments upon us we see it as an injustice. A matter of bias, really...

Hi Lexinom,
I just listened to Franklin Graham on Hannity & Colmes. He offered that God is Love, but that God is also Angry, intimating that this was a judgement. He went on to say that Satan is in control of the world right now, implying that it was Satan's work. Last he said that this is a sign of the end times. What can you make of all that? He was all over the place.

[NZerFromHK]

This attitude is predicted by God Himself and He is in fact not surprised by such apostasy. Listen to what Paul says:

"Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables." - 2 Timothy 4:2-4 (NKJV)

My friend, one another sign of God's existence is through His prophecy that there will be apostasy in much of the established Christendom (which, although considered "Christian" in the world, was and is never the same as the true Church). That this prophecy is fulfilled is yet another sign that God exists.

Ping!

[jwalsh07]

Nothing new here, another apostate man of the cloth. They are a dime a dozen.

[DBeers]

The Asian tsunami disaster should make all Christians question the existence of God, Dr Rowan Williams

? ? ?

kookoo -apparently for him Faith is a concept?

[Lexinom]

The predominance of such weak doctrine is a sign of the end times: "When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith upon the earth?"

What else can they say? The alternative is to accept the sovereignty of God. Next they'd be saying God punishes/hates sinners...

We in Athens are not used to such frank talk; everything must be sugar-coated, massaged... Many value the orator more than the achiever/doctor/expert, which is why so many spoke during the campaign such things as "You idiot! Can't you see Kerry is obviously smarter?" As you know, it's the same way in most of the churches (and hence in religious aspects of life): style over substance.

[sr4402]

Excuse me, but I just don't see why. I see it as validation of our own fallen state and how creation groans under our nature.

Well said. It looks like Dr. Rowan Williams does not believe in the Total Depravity of Man and does not understand the terrible curse of sin mankind is caught up in. For Adam's sin, it would be right for God to have wiped out all mankind and, indeed, God was right in destroying the Earth with a flood during the time of Noah.

When Adam sinned, he plunged the human race and creation into futility and we should not be surprised, or our faith shaken when sin erupts or the creation groans; it can be expected (and indeed, some times even predicted).

With the sound doctrine of the Total Depravity of man, one can face such things without trepidation and loss of faith. Instead, being founded upon the Rock, which is Christ, we can stand and be of service.

Pray that a leader of faith, who follows the narrow path of Christ would be given this denomination or that the lampstand would be taken away and given to another.

[George W. Bush]

I read somewhere that 1.8 people die every second. That's 150,000 a day. Earthly life is short, folks. So, 300,000 die that day instead of the usual 150,000 and people start questioning God? This may sound crass but if doubling the death rate for a single day puts God on someone's radar screen, something good will come out of this. God uses all things for good, even that meant for evil.

Actually, given that your 1.8 p/second figure is an average, this temporary spike in mortality due to the Asian disaster is actually already figured into it as such numbers are a rolling average. Think of it as a statistical speed bump.

Were it not for a global media, hungry for every story to draw viewers in order to maintain its rates for commercial advertising, we would hear a great deal less of such matters.

It raises the question of whether such a disaster would even exist if we did not have a profit-oriented mass media hawking this product (Asian disaster) to us. After all, if a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, then did it really make a sound? Essentially, the physical phenomenon of sound was propagated regardless of whether anyone was present to perceive it but from a human perspective, if no one heard the sound and was able to carry the news to others and communicate it, the event simply did not occur.

Anyway, we do have such a mass media who enjoys moralizing endlessly from a liberal political perspective to hand down guilt to us because we are so evil as to fail to share every noble sentiment and heart-rending bit of anguish they so love to parade as their most esteemed professional credential. There is literally a competition among these crying liberal slobs of who can write the most maudlin liberal drivel in concise prose to hawk to the general public.

As far as the pagan bishop of Canterbury, it is clear he worships the flesh. He should be far less concerned that these people died, as far more do every day from other causes, but that they lived and died without Christ and under the sway of false religions or dwelling in godlessness. Again, he is concerned with the flesh and not with a person's eternal spiritual destination. In short, he holds no confidence in eternal life in Christ and his every word makes it apparent.

The false bishop is an anti-Christ and his own words convict him of heresy and usurpation of his post under false pretence.

[HarleyD]

"There is literally a competition among these crying liberal slobs of who can write the most maudlin liberal drivel in concise prose to hawk to the general public."

Isn't that the truth. I wonder how many babies are aborted in the world on a given day?

[George W. Bush]

I just listened to Franklin Graham on Hannity & Colmes. He offered that God is Love, but that God is also Angry, intimating that this was a judgement. He went on to say that Satan is in control of the world right now, implying that it was Satan's work. Last he said that this is a sign of the end times. What can you make of all that? He was all over the place.

Though there is reason for concern with Franklin Graham, it is clear he has not yet followed his father Billy into apostasy.

I think it is fair that we continue to hold some hope that Franklin Graham will hold to Christian orthodoxy over his career and offer proper doctrine. In the theological muddle over 9/11 and all the false ecumenism at the time, he was a rare voice among the best known clergymen who condemned the false ecumenism with Islam being promoted by his own father and by our theologically muddled president who seemed to think that Allah is the God of Bible. But to embrace Islam is to deny Christ Himself, something that Billy Graham certainly knows and even our president should know.

Franklin Graham has pretty good instincts and has resisted considerable pressure to join in the false ecumenism that is rampant among the clergy and the political/media class.

[George W. Bush]

I wonder how many babies are aborted in the world on a given day?

We generally say that 40 million have died since Roe, about 1 million per year. However, there has been a reported decline in abortion since 1995. Here is a page that lists 1995-2000 CDC data. Going by this, the most recent year reported is 2000 when there were (supposedly) 857,000 reported abortions.

That would be about 2,347 abortions per day. Don't hold your breath waiting for the New York Times to start lamenting these murders, a far greater human tragedy as it occurs as a direct result of man's own choices. So much easier to wail at God's cruelty in a natural disaster. Moreover, a disaster whose tremendous loss of life could have been largely mitigated had the local authorities required proper building codes and emergency planning.

But it wouldn't do to condemn these governments, would it? No liberal reporter would dare bark at his master.

[George W. Bush]

Oops, here's the link to CDC data:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/abo_fact.htm

[Piers-the-Ploughman]

I like your analysis. It is a fallen world too, and it does rain on the good and evil.

"And why do you suppose that tower fell and killed 18 people? Was it because they were more guilty than the rest? Not in the least!" a paraphrase from the Gospels

[aruanan]

"And why do you suppose that tower fell and killed 18 people? Was it because they were more guilty than the rest? Not in the least!" a paraphrase from the Gospels

This was one of the texts my pastor used when talking about the tsunami. He pointed out that even in the days of Jesus people like to point to the disaster of others as evidence of their own right relationship with God. Ooops, apparently it doesn't work that way.

[verity]

It's not the existence of but the nature of God he does not understand.

[Jerry_M]

Hopefully my FRiends have seen the response of both John Piper and R. Albert Mohler to the recent disaster.

Question the existence of God? I think not.

[RnMomof7]

I posted pipers , it is on this site.

Happy New Year Jerry!