Every couple of months, another natural disaster hits the headlines. In recent years, we’ve seen wildfires in California, hurricanes in the Caribbean, earthquakes in Turkey, flooding in Pakistan, and cyclones in Bangladesh, to name just a few.
Some disasters stand out in our memory, such as the tsunami on December 26, 2004, that decimated coastlines in Indonesia, Thailand, and southern India, causing 230,000 to lose their lives and nearly 2 million to be displaced. Or Hurricane Katrina in 2005 that submerged and destroyed parts of New Orleans, along with many other cities in the southern United States, leaving 1,833 dead and 600,000 displaced.
When a natural disaster strikes, all kinds of questions can arise, like “If God exists, why do these disasters happen?” Some argue that such widespread and needless suffering disproves the existence of a God who claims to be good and have power over the forces of nature.
Natural disasters are different from other kinds of large-scale disasters such as wars and global conflicts. They seem to happen despite humans, not because of them. Our insurance policies protect us against “acts of God.” Is this what they are? What kind of God sanctions an earthquake or hurricane? If God has the power to part seas and calm storms, surely he could stop them from happening. Or better still, he could create a planet without them altogether.
To call something a ‘disaster’ is to make a moral judgment, to imply that something is wrong with the world, that things could or should be better than they are.
To call something a “disaster” is to make a moral judgment, to imply something is wrong with the world, that things could or should be better than they are. What kind of universe makes the best sense of this moral intuition? Is it a godless universe from which moral intuitions are an unexpected anomaly? Or a universe that has been moral from the beginning because it was brought into being by a good God?
Christians believe that God, out of his goodness, created a good and beautiful world, and that world has gone wrong. We live on a broken planet. Perhaps our grief, sadness, and anger at natural disasters don’t point away from God but toward him.
To answer why we live on a broken planet, I’ve found it helpful to take a multipronged response to the question, one that involves natural, human, and spiritual factors. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach, but every natural disaster combines multiple components. These can be condensed into two non-mutually exclusive viewpoints.
Not Nature but People
The first perspective is to say that the brokenness isn’t so much with nature as with people. Of course, nature does play a part. Geologists would remind us that some of the mechanisms behind natural disasters are also crucial for sustaining life on earth. Plate tectonics are vital for recycling carbon and other minerals from deep within the earth back to the surface. The stunningly beautiful mountain ranges, which result from plate tectonics, play a crucial role in the hydrological cycle, distributing fresh water to vast swaths of land. Volcanic eruptions release pressure and essential minerals back into the atmosphere and surrounding soil, making it incredibly fertile.
There’s also a case to be made that every natural disaster combines natural factors and human factors. Whatever the cataclysms of nature, humans always seem to make the fallout worse, whether through a failure to heed warning signs and evacuate, or a failure to build earthquake-proof buildings. So, this first approach would argue that we are vulnerable to natural disasters because of other people’s action or inaction.
What sort of human factors are important? One of the biggest contributors is poverty. When a natural disaster occurs in a low-income country, the number of deaths is several orders of magnitude greater than if the same catastrophe had struck a high-income country. For example, we could compare the California 1989 and Haiti 2010 earthquakes, both a similar strength. Sixty-three died in California compared to more than 230,000 in Haiti. People in poverty are uniquely vulnerable to natural disasters.
Another human factor many cite is climate change. Of course, perspectives vary on this highly charged topic. During the 20th century, the earth’s temperature notably increased, contributing to our experience of natural disasters. Polar ice caps have melted, causing rising sea levels and increased flooding and landslides; wildfires are burning hotter and longer; and hurricanes have increased in frequency and severity. If these scientists are correct, then government policy and human lifestyles have contributed to global warming—and the natural disasters we endure.
Maybe volcanoes will still erupt in the new heavens and the new earth. But we won’t be vulnerable to them any longer. Poverty will be gone, and the earth will be restored.
Creation Is Groaning
But nature and people provide only a partial answer, which brings us to the second perspective. Some cataclysms of nature appear to have no beneficial effect and no human involvement. Nature is broken in such a way that everyone is affected—like when you add a drop of ink to a glass of water and it diffuses through the whole vessel. The apostle Paul, in his letter to the Roman church, said,
The creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. (Rom. 8:20–22)
There are forces beyond simply cause and effect working within nature to cause “frustration” and “groaning.” The brokenness we see also has a spiritual cause.
But how was creation subjected to frustration, and by whom? The traditional Augustinian view roots the spiritual causes of natural disasters in a human fall. The rebellion of early humans from their Creator dragged nature along into the brokenness. This is certainly part of the story as the Lord tells Eve that her pains in childbirth will greatly increase and Adam that the ground itself will be subject to a curse, making it unpredictable and hard to work (Gen. 3:16–17).
Nature is fundamentally broken in such a way that everyone is affected.
The “human fall” view does, however, face challenges in making sense of the geological record that documents earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, and so on as vastly predating the arrival of humans. In response, some argue that the pre-human, angelic fall also affected the natural world. After all, the serpent is in Eden already (3:1). In other words, nature was somehow broken before humans even entered the scene.
Every view has its challenges. Why would God allow destructive forces to play an integral role in a creative process deemed “good” in Genesis 1? Either way, both views claim spiritual roots to the brokenness we see and experience in nature.
God in the Mess
But where is God in a natural disaster? And what kind of God are we talking about? My book, Broken Planet, relays stories from those on the front line of humanitarian efforts and rescue work. Time and again, they share how God, in the person of Jesus, has been present with them as they have gone to be present with others in deep brokenness and tragedy.
There are no neat and tidy answers. But the Christian story is that God relates to the people he has made not just by sending information on how to cope with disaster but by entering human history himself. In Christ, God has come to be with us and help us in all of our pain and grief, and especially when our worst nightmares come true. The basis of humanitarian aid and helping others in times of disaster finds its roots in the incarnation.
Jesus has come to us, but we can also choose to go to him. We can take our anguish to him, and he doesn’t ask us to ignore or bury it. Jesus is acquainted with sorrow and grief. He’s suffered like us and for us on a brutal Roman cross so that we can come to him in every tragedy and know his comfort, peace, and very real help even if surrounded by chaos and carnage.
Where is God in a natural disaster? He’s right in the midst of the mess.
If it’s true that Jesus rose from the dead, then natural disasters, and the suffering they cause, are not the end of the story.
History records that the time of Jesus’s death and the time of the stone being rolled away from the tomb three days later were both accompanied by earthquakes. Is this a coincidence? Or does it point to the centrality in human history of that first Easter? I’m drawn toward the latter––that the death and resurrection of Jesus were literally earth-shattering events that command our attention.
Story Isn’t Finished
If Jesus rose from the dead, then natural disasters and the suffering they cause aren’t the end of the story. There is life beyond the grave and beyond cataclysmic events. The Bible speaks of a time in the future when God will make everything new and will wipe every tear from our eyes (Rev. 21:4). A time in which the brokenness and disaster we see today will be put right in ways that go far beyond anything that we can imagine or that can be captured with words. And the darker the disaster here and now, the brighter that day shines.
Will there be cataclysms of nature in heaven? Some say there won’t be, and nature’s brokenness and need for plate tectonics will somehow be fixed. Others say there will be earthquakes but that people will no longer be vulnerable to and harmed by them. Either way, it won’t be a ghostly, floaty existence somewhere in the clouds. The Bible speaks of a future reality that isn’t only supernatural but also every bit as natural as the one we currently inhabit. Christians don’t believe just that they’ll go to heaven but that heaven will come to earth and that the suffering caused by natural disasters will come to a decisive end. If that’s true, there’s hope for us all, and especially for all devastated by disaster.
