Japan had a massive natural disaster recently. And because of this, there are going to be some folks who want to know what God’s role was in the disaster. Did He cause it, or not? Could He have stopped it, or not? Was there some purpose or meaning behind it?
The knee-jerk reaction of most Christians is immediately to defend God. This is called theodicy: Trying to get God off the hook whenever terrible things happen. ’Cause we love God, and don’t want to see Him get blamed for bad stuff.
The arguments are pretty predictable, and each of them is a reaction to the no-God argument that atheists regularly trot out: “Clearly such disasters prove that there’s no God, ’cause if there were a God, He’d be all over this. ’Cause that’s what I would do.”
Okay, apologists, go to town:
The passive-God argument. “God didn’t do it, and doesn’t do that sort of thing. It was nature acting on its own. God didn’t create the world to work that way, but we live in a fallen world, so nature will do that from time to time. Yeah, He could have stopped it, but He doesn’t interfere with nature like that. He feels bad, though.”
The sovereign-God argument. “Not only did God do it, He wanted to do it. Not because He’s mean or angry or anything, but because while it looks absolutely horrible from our end, there are all kinds of good results that are going to happen as a result. We just can’t see those outcomes. We have to trust God that they’re there.”
The vengeful-God argument. “God wouldn’t allow this to happen unless somebody deserved it. There must have been all sorts of wickedness and perversity going on in that disaster area; stuff we just don’t know about, but didn’t escape His attention. So He just opened up a can of wrath all over it. Yeah, there was some collateral damage—some innocent people and kids got killed—but hey, they should’ve left before the smiting started. You remember Lot’s wife.”
The limited-God argument. “Look, God doesn’t get involved in this sort of stuff anymore; He’s waiting till the End Times. He’ll sort this stuff out at the Last Judgment. Meanwhile, we’re on our own. Go love the disaster victims; go preach Jesus to them and give them bibles, and teach them to wait for God to come back.”
The opportunity-to-love argument. “Christians previously weren’t paying any attention to the people in this disaster area. They were dying and going to hell without Jesus, and we didn’t care about them. So this disaster forced us to pay attention, and forced us to care, and get off our lazy behinds and go love these people, so that they could experience our love and turn to God. It’s not a disaster; it’s an opportunity.”
The God’s-beyond-me argument. “God’s behind this. But I have no idea how, or why, or what its purpose or meaning is. His ways just aren’t our ways. It looks like a disaster to me, but He’s got His reasons for it… whatever they are. We just have to trust that God is good, and loves us, despite anything that appears to speak for the contrary.”
The I’m-staying-out-of-this argument. “I’m staying out of this. Ask someone else.”
Certain arguments are particularly popular with certain Christians. Reform Christians love the sovereign-God argument; dispensationalists tend to use the limited-God argument; Christians who are angry at sinners like the vengeful-God argument; Christians who are angry at apathy like the opportunity-to-love argument. Everybody else bounces between the other three: passive-God, God’s-beyond-me, or I’m-staying-out-of-this.
Each of these arguments—even the I’m-staying-out-of-this argument—have some verses from the bible to back ’em up. ’Cause in some bible stories God was behind a disaster… and in some bible stories He wasn’t. The one thing the bible stories tend to have in common is that God’s role in those disasters has been revealed to us. This particular disaster? No revelation. Has He told you anything? Me neither.
When God offers no comment, we guess. We feel we’re kinda forced to guess. So we do. But we don’t have the best track record at guessing. Most of the book of Job consists of the wrong guesses of Job’s friends. (I don’t think anybody could have guessed the real cause behind Job’s disasters.) If Job teaches us anything, it generally should be the God’s-beyond-me argument. There’s a reason; we don’t know it; that should be enough.
See, humans like to assign meaning to things. We want to know why. And if we don’t like the reason why, we want to be able to critique that reason. And if God isn’t going to play along… well, we’ll go with the no-God argument, and that’ll show Him.
I’m no nihilist, but I personally think sometimes there is no reason why. Bad stuff happens. It’s part of life. God doesn’t bail us out of every disaster. That’s also part of life. Don’t try to assign blame or cause or meaning; just do what a Christian ought to do when disaster strikes. Pray for people. Help the needy. Love our neighbors. And when people ask you where God fits into the whole scheme, flip it around: “Why do you care? You looking to understand Him better, or you just want to bash Him? If you want to bash Him, I have better things to do. But if you want to know Him more, help me help them.”
(Oh, and don’t forget to help them. Send donations to the Salvation Army, or text “JAPAN” or “QUAKE” to 80888 for a $10 donation.)