Why Does God Allow Disasters?

Posted on Jul 6, 2011 in God | 5 comments

By:  Hobie Wood

 

The recent tornadoes across the Southeast and in Joplin, MO as well as the tsunami in Japan bring up questions for many people.  Did God do this?  Why would He allow this?  Is He punishing these people?  The relationship between natural disasters and the Divine is an old question.  It’s usually described as the “problem of evil,” and we will not solve it fully in one article.  However, we need not fear asking the questions and seeing what the Bible has to say.  We need to establish some biblical boundaries for our thinking, then we need to think through some of the purposes God has for these types of disasters.  Finally, we ourselves need to develop a biblical response to disasters.

What does the Bible say about God’s relationship with natural disasters?  Does He cause them?  The Bible gives us a few things on this topic.  First, the Bible affirms that nothing happens apart from the will of God.  Ps. 115:3 says, “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.”  Ephesians 1:11 says that God “works all things according to the counsel of his will.”  Nothing happens apart from the purposes and plans of God.  If this is true, then we cannot say that God has nothing to do with natural disasters.  God is sovereign, even over all natural processes.  Of course, there are primary and secondary causes in all things.  When it rains, we believe that God ultimately brought the rain; yet, he chose to bring it through the secondary cause of the weather patterns of the area.  God’s will is the primary cause; the weather patterns are the secondary cause.  It is the same with natural disasters; God is the ultimate cause of all things, and yet there are secondary causes like weather patterns.

Secondly, we need to understand the condition of the world and of ourselves.  Not all is well in the world, as any observer can tell.  We see problems all around us – some we cannot solve, others that are very difficult to solve.  The world is broken it seems.  We are broken.  Even at our best, we are very weak people.  The Bible attributes this to something called the fall.  When our first parents, Adam and Eve, were in the Garden of Eden, they sinned by disobeying God’s commandment not to eat the fruit of tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  They disobeyed and the world has been broken since.  Man is disconnected from God and from each other.  Besides that, the world is broken too.  Whereas in the Garden, the world was perfect and had no danger or infertility, now the world is dangerous and infertile and broken.  Thus, when natural disasters happen, we know this is not how the world is supposed to function.  The world, nature itself, is fallen and broken.  We are broken, fallen, and thus, we deserve God’s judgment and wrath.  The punishment must fit the crime, and we have offended a holy, perfect God infinitely.  Therefore, we deserve a judgment and condemnation worse than just death.  When we consider that God does not completely destroy the world because of our sinfulness, we should marvel at his patience.  He could destroy the entire created order because of the fall and be totally just and righteous.  But he didn’t.  This is where the goodness of God intersects with the sinfulness of mankind.  He sent Jesus to provide a way for sinners to be brought back into right standing and relationship with Him.  This is the good news of the Gospel.

So why does God allow natural disasters?  We’ve seen that nothing happens apart from God’s will and what the earth really deserves is condemnation and death.  So the better question really is: why wouldn’t God allow natural disaster?  The answer to that is that He is gracious and is on a mission to save for Himself a people.  Now we come to the issue of God’s purposes for natural disasters.  His mission in the world is to save sinners, so how do things like natural disasters work into that plan?

We could say a lot of things about how God uses hard things to accomplish His purposes.  Here are a few.  First, God often uses hard things like personal trials and natural disasters to expose our need for Him.  Think about it, when a tornado hits and destroys all that we have and all that we’ve worked for, we have a choice – we can turn to God or we can be miserable.  God uses such catastrophes to turn people to Him.  Often we are so proud and arrogant that the only thing that will humble us is to lose everything; then we turn to God for help.  God calls people to turn to Him in trouble in Ps. 50:15, “call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”  Indeed, when the day of trouble (whatever it may be) comes upon us, the proper response is to call upon the Lord for help.

Another of God’s purposes for disasters is to show His power and judgment.  When we see a hurricane or tornado powerful enough to destroy a whole city, we see just a shard of God’s power.  We see his judgment not necessarily toward a particular place because of particular sins but more as a picture of his final, eternal judgment.  When some who were around Jesus asked about the suffering of some Galileans at the hand of Pilate, the Roman governor, Jesus gave a key to understanding this purpose of God in such suffering.  He said in Luke 13:2-3, “do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way?  No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”  Just because something horrible happens in a particular place does not mean that those people are any more sinful than any others.  However, the point is clear.  God’s judgment is coming upon all eventually.  God’s purpose in allowing such disaster is to show that we need to repent, lest we perish in the ultimate judgment to come.  Every small disaster whether tornado, hurricane, earthquake, etc. is a tiny foretaste of the ultimate judgment to come when Jesus returns and sets all things right.  When we see disasters and the power of God, we should be reminded of our own sin and need for grace.  We should repent.

So what should our response be to natural disasters?  One thing is obvious: we need to make sure we have repented of sin and trusted Jesus as Savior and Lord.  Only then will we be able properly to endure such hardship.  As Christians, we should respond to natural disasters with faith in our Lord.  He is good.  He is sovereign.  Nothing catches Him off guard.  He is able to comfort and sustain and strengthen His people as they suffer.  We can also trust that His purposes in bringing about such trouble are good, even though we might not understand all the reasons.  Our God is with us; he can give us the strength we need.  Also, disasters should cause us to long for heaven where all things will be made right and suffering will cease.  We keep one eye on the world around us and one eye aimed toward heaven, our ultimate home.  Lastly, Christians should respond to natural disasters with mercy and deeds of service.  God is gracious to those who suffer; we should be as well.  Let us respond with faith and longing for our real home, but let us also be quick to try and ease the suffering of those around us.  This is what Jesus did for us when He came and walked among us.  He eased our ultimate suffering by going to the cross in our place.  Let us be quick to ease the suffering of others.