Under the Microscope/Prof William Reville: The recent tsunami disaster in south-east Asia raises the question of how a loving God can allow natural disasters to visit such a terrible fate on innocent people.
Some prominent commentators have concluded that such disasters show there is no God. I don't accept that argument, but I admit that this is a difficult issue. Science shows the nature of the world to be both lawful and flexible. Certain latitudes and freedoms of behaviour are inherent in the world. If the world was created by a caring God, this is what one would expect. But one cannot have flexibility and freedom without concomitant risk. It will be clear in what follows when I am speaking scientifically. The rest is my informed Christian opinion.
The Christian God is a personal loving God. The New Testament tells us that he gave up his only son to demonstrate solidarity with humankind and raised his son from the dead to demonstrate the reality of an afterlife. He has "numbered the hairs on our heads" and he "knows when every sparrow falls". So where was he when the wave crashed onshore at Phuket?
Holocaust survivor Elie Weisel (Night, Penguin, 1981) tells the following story. In a concentration camp in the second World War, he was one of a crowd who stood witnessing a young Jewish boy hanging twisting and dying in a Gestapo noose. The boy was so light that it took him an agonising 30 minutes to die. From the crowd one of the boy's fellow Jews cried out, "Where is God now?" Weisel said that he felt the answer inside himself: "He is there, hanging in the noose."
This is where I believe God was when the tsunami struck. He was on the beach. He was swept away and drowned. His children and loved ones were lost. He was left homeless and with terrible injuries. Christians believe that God is our fellow sufferer and that this was historically acted out in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
The New Testament also tells us we must always be ready to die because "we know not the day nor the hour" when we will be called. If we are called in a sudden, cruel manner, God promises that he sympathises with us and that the books will be balanced up later. But wouldn't it be kinder of God to prevent natural disasters in the first place? In my opinion, this would be out of line with the nature of his creation.
Science tells us that the world began about 15 billion years ago at a single point in a massive explosion of energy called the Big Bang, and it has been expanding outwards ever since. During the expansion, the structure of the universe gradually developed. We know how the 92 natural elements were formed - hydrogen and helium in the Big Bang and the remaining elements later, mostly in the interiors of stars. We know how the stars and planets formed. We know how our solar system was born about 5 billion years ago.
We know in principle how life began on Earth about 3.8 billion years ago as a simple single form and how all the diverse forms of life that now populate the Earth evolved from that original form. We understand the four basic forces that account for everything physical that happens in the universe. We understand the structure and behaviour of the Earth, including the movement of the tectonic plates that caused the recent tsunami. We know that 5 billion years from now our Sun will die and human life will no longer be possible on Earth.
The amazing thing is that, apparently, all these developments took place under their own steam. The universe bootstrapped its way from pure energy in the beginning up to its present vast complexity. If God created the world, he created a world capable and free to create itself. The world could evolve in a number of different directions depending on chance happenings but within limits set by physical law. The nature of the basic stuff of the universe is sufficient to account for everything that has happened. As to why this basic nature has been so amazingly fruitful, Christians will answer God and atheists will say that's just the way things are.
The exact way the universe develops depends on two things, law and chance. Consider biological evolution. New biological varieties arise through mutations, random changes in the genetic information, and are then sieved through natural selection (law). The mechanism for faithfully copying and transmitting genetic information from generation to generation (law) ensures that those varieties chosen by natural selection robustly survive.
The necessary novelty in evolution is introduced by chance mutations. However, mutations can also cause cancer. In other words, we cannot enjoy the benefits of evolution without suffering the risk of cancer. Of course, overall, the benefits far outweigh the risks. We all know from personal experience that we cannot make advances without taking risks. Similarly, a God who has endowed the world with freedom will not capriciously intervene to frustrate that freedom.
Christianity deals with the tragedy of human suffering in a profound way by pointing to God our fellow-sufferer and by assuring us that the tragic death of a loved one in a natural catastrophe is not the end of the story. On the other hand, if you take God out of the picture the tragedy is the end of the story.