Earthquakes and God - why does God allow natural disasters?

As I said in a previous post, even if it's possible to explain why an all-powerful loving God allows natural disasters that wipe out millions, no explanation is likely to satisfy us emotionally.

The overall problem of evil and pain is difficult enough - and will have to wait for another occasion - but natural disasters come into an even harder category because they seem so random and so indiscriminate, and because they cannot easily be blamed on anyone apart from God.

There are many ways people have tried to understand natural disaster in the light of their faith in God.

1. God's wrath. It seems hideously insensitive even to mention in the light of the current tragedy, but some (rather scary) people have indeed interpreted such disasters as acts of God punishing the wickedness of humanity (citing the biblical Sodom and Gomorrah for example). I personally can't accept this. Yes, you only need to read the newspapers or look hard in the mirror to see that humans aren't shining examples on the whole, yet all of Jesus' teaching and example would seem to argue against the idea that God would indiscriminately wipe out whole populations - including many of his followers - for the sins of some, or even of all. And why does Robert Mugabe remain alive and well while children die in Haiti?

2. Evil. Some want to blame that other convenient scapegoat, Satan, or let's just say the great primal forces of evil and chaos loose in the universe. There's certainly a strand of Christian thinking that Satan was present and active from the outset in creation, well before humans ever came on the scene, and Charles Foster (mentioned in an earlier post) believes that Satan was responsible for selfishness-driven natural selection and predation. However, these are murky waters - and is evil really responsible for the plate tectonics which shape our planet and yet also lead to earthquakes, volcanoes and tidal waves? (The question of why God allows evil to remain present and active in the universe will have to wait for another time.)

3. Human responsibility. A third possible culprit is seen to be humanity - that somehow all the sins and selfishness of mankind disturb the natural order and balance of the planet, leading to natural calamities. Certainly we're all increasingly aware of the environmental damage we're doing to the planet and the disastrous ecological consequences this could unleash. And if Chaos theory is right and the flapping of a butterfly's wings could ever lead to a hurricane on the other side of the globe, who knows - perhaps my sin could lead to a natural disaster somewhere. All a bit imponderable and impenetrable though.

4. Natural order. A fourth and, to my mind, more likely option is that natural disasters - like pain and death - are simply a necessary part of the complex geological, biological and climatological systems of our planet, systems which allow life to exist and flourish at all.

We are fragile beings in an immense universe and our lifespan is short, whether cut off abruptly by a natural disaster, war, disease or violence, or allowed to play out to a full natural lifespan. I may not have died in this week's Haitian earthquake but I may be hit by a bus tomorrow or by cancer next year, and I will certainly die sometime within the next 70 years or so. Perhaps the real issue is whether we - whether I - can learn to live well here and now, ready to face death whenever and however it may come.

I realise this is a very partial and provisional response, and it costs me nothing to theorise from the comfort of my non-earthquake-damaged armchair (well, slightly human-damaged swivel chair to be precise - the back-rest keeps falling off). To my mind a far more important response is active compassion in the face of human suffering, anger at the evil in the universe and in ourselves, humility in the face of mystery, and prayer in the darkness.