It seems that 2008 has been a year of unprecedented natural disasters for our nation and the world. Let’s take a brief look at some of the cataclysms that have struck us in the past seven months: the May cyclone that destroyed Burma, the devastating earthquake in China only days later (which killed 69,000), the massive flooding of Iowa and the American Midwest, the unrelenting burning of the state of California, the February rash of tornadoes throughout the Midwest, and scores more of smaller droughts, hurricanes and volcanoes have plagued all other regions of the earth. People have responded to these disasters in various ways: some have reacted quite charitably with prayer and donations to the victims, while others have done nothing out of apathetic numbness to yet another crisis. Many have attempted to draw a tenuous connection to global warming, while some have invoked the wrath of God as the best explanation.
In July of 2007 the Anglican clergyman Rev. Graham Dow of Carlisle, England drew international criticism for his remarks that the floods then devastating the English countryside were due in part to God’s judgment on the immoral lifestyles of the British people. Dow specifically cited the British government’s support of pro-gay legislation. He said,
“This is a strong and definite judgment because the world has been arrogant in going its own way. We are reaping the consequences of our moral degradation, as well as the environmental damage that we have caused. We are in serious moral trouble because every type of lifestyle is now regarded as legitimate, In the Bible, institutional power is referred to as 'the beast', which sets itself up to control people and their morals. Our government has been playing the role of God in saying that people are free to act as they want. The sexual orientation regulations [which give greater rights to gays] are part of a general scene of permissiveness. We are in a situation where we are liable for God's judgment, which is intended to call us to repentance.” 1
Dow’s comments were met by sneers of liberal and conservative theologians alike, from many Christian denominations, who asserted that God “doesn’t work that way” and that people ought not to see the judgment of God in natural disasters afflict us from time to time.
Another example: when Hurricane Katrina wiped New Orleans off the map in 2005, there were the same discussions in American (mainly among evangelicals) about the possibility that the storm was some sort of judgment on the sins of New Orleans. The Catholic popular media was quick to retort that it was a distortion of God’s love to see the storm in such a light. In the days immediately following Katrina, Al Kresta addressed the topic on his program and categorically denied that the destruction was any type of judgment on the city. He asserted that the view that God would work that way was much too “simplistic.”
Now, I am not taking any position on these disasters. Perhaps God did decide to flood England for immorality, and perhaps He didn’t, and the same can be said about New Orleans. Barring some supernatural revelation, we really have no way to tell. However, why does the popular Catholic culture seem unwilling to entertain the notion that God can “smite” places if He chooses? Furthermore, how can someone like Al Kresta assert that the idea of God destroying a city for its sins is “simplistic?” Don’t we have ample evidence of such judgments in the Scriptures?
The God of the Old Testament was a God of judgment. But guess what? So is the God of the New Testament, for He has not changed. In fact, St. Paul warns us that the judgments of the New Testament are even more strict and severe than those of the old: “A man making void the law of Moses died without any mercy under two or three witnesses: How much more, do you think he deserveth worse punishments, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God and hath esteemed the blood of the testament unclean, by which he was sanctified, and hath offered an affront to the Spirit of grace?” (Heb. 10:28-29). Therefore, we ought not to think that the types of judgments that fell upon Jericho, Sodom and Gomorrah cannot or do not happen in the modern day.
There are three good reasons to believe this: first, we know that God has not changed. Second, if anything, the punishments for disobedience are stricter in the New Testament. Finally, the amount of sin in the world today is even greater than there was in ancient Jericho, or Sodom or any other pagan nation. If anything, God has greater reason to destroy people with natural disasters today.
One argument often put forward against the reality of God using natural disasters as a means of judgment is the trite observation that not all the people killed in such judgment were “sinners.” If God were using a hurricane or earthquake to punish a region (so this reasoning goes), then we would expect only the wicked to be slain and the righteous would always escape. This argument is very deceptive because while purporting to be a theological argument it is actually an attempt to appeal to the emotions.
There certainly is no theological reason why the innocent cannot be destroyed along with the guilty. When we look at the judgments on the nation of Egypt, are we to presume that every single firstborn slain by the destroying angel was guilty of wickedness, even the infants? Surely, if every firstborn was killed, this included suckling infants as well as grown men. Jesus Himself refutes this line of thinking in the Gospels. In Luke 13:4-5, Jesus says to the disciples: “Or those eighteen upon whom the Tower of Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse offenders than all of the others who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, No, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”
The implications of Jesus’ words are very stunning. First, he reminds us that though it is tempting to think that everyone who is killed by an accident must have been guilty of some wickedness, this is not necessarily so (this is also the lesson of the Book of Job). The innocent along with the guilty often suffer. God tells us as much when He reminds us through the prophet Isaiah that He has sovereign power over human life, to do what He pleases with it:
"Woe to the one who quarrels with his Maker-- An earthenware vessel among the vessels of earth! Will the clay say to the potter, `What are you doing?' Or the thing you are making say, `He has no hands'? Woe to him who says to a father, `What are you begetting?' Or to a woman, `To what are you giving birth?' "Thus says the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker: "Ask Me about the things to come concerning My sons, And you shall commit to Me the work of My hands” (Isa.45:9-11).
There are many more verses that attest to this: “And I will heap evils upon them…in the open the sword shall bereave, and in the chambers shall be terror, destroying both young man and virgin, the sucking child with the man of gray hairs…I kill and I make alive. I wound and I heal and there is none that can deliver out of my hand” (Deut. 32:23, 25, 39). St. Paul reaffirms this in Romans 9:20-21: “But who are you, a man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me thus?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for beauty and another for menial use?” Thus it is evident from the teaching of Jesus, the words of the prophets and of St. Paul that God has sovereign control over human life, to keep it or take it as He sees fit.
Jesus also warns us that we ought not assume that only the wicked perish is such catastrophes, and that we should be aware that we will “all likewise perish” unless we repent. This underlies a very important concept: the concept of “innocence.” Though we often talk about “innocent bystanders” and “innocent victims,” Nobody is actually innocent in this world, save perhaps newborn infants just baptized and the Blessed Virgin. Even then, it often happens that newborn infants die, despite their “innocence.” Jesus’ statement tells us that our appropriate response to a tragedy should not be incredulity that God should bring about such a catastrophe, but awareness that if we have escaped such judgment, it is more than we deserve. Catholics ought not to marvel that sometimes God does wipe a city out with an earthquake, but we ought rather to marvel that He does not wipe out the entire globe with such disasters, since we so richly merit it.
But when people make the case that God cannot use natural disasters to punish nations, they are really trying to use a theological veneer to cover an essentially emotional argument. We have seen that the theological end of the reasoning does not stand up to even a cursory glance at Sacred Scripture. What this argument is really getting at is this: “You think God caused this flood? Look at all those little children killed in China! Look at all the innocent kids who died of starvation or disease in Africa! Do you really think God did that? What kind of God does that?” It is an attempt to get you to look at some tragically dead child or innocent and attempt to reconcile this seeming physical evil with the goodness of God. A difficult thing to do, especially if one has ever lost a child or loved one to some disaster!
But nevertheless, our answer must be, “Yes.” Who else would do it? Scripture and Tradition are clear that the forces of nature are firmly in the hands of God (hence, disasters are often called “Acts of God”). Furthermore, we know that everything that happens is somehow God’s express or permissive will. However you slice it, you have to get back eventually to this fundamental point: God caused the calamity.
Which brings us to this question: does God cause things for no reason, or is He a rational, good God Who does everything, even a terrible natural disaster, for some end? Clearly, God does not do things meaninglessly. Whether it is for the salvation of souls, the functioning of the natural order, the sustenance of mankind, the chastisement of His people or the punishment of sin, every act of God in the world happens for a reason. Why, therefore, exclude one potential reason for a natural disaster (punishment for sin) when Scripture actually makes use of this explanation for disasters more often than any other (as in 2 Peter 2:6, where St. Peter says of Sodom and Gomorrah that God “condemned them to extinction and made them an example to those who were to be ungodly”)? It all doesn’t add up.
In summary: God still is perfectly capable of using natural disasters to judge sinful peoples, and has even more reason to do so today than in ages past. He has done such things before and there is no indication that He has changed since then. Furthermore, God is not obliged to separate out the wicked from the innocent when He does judge (for “He makes His rain to fall on the just and the unjust”) as He has created all men and has control over them to do with His clay what He pleases. God certainly can save some elect if He chooses, but He has no obligation to. Because all men have sinned and turned from God, all persons merit judgment, and we ought to marvel more that He does not destroy all of us than to get indignant when He justly destroys some of us. All things that happen occur by God’s will to some degree, and so God is responsible for the Burma flooding, for the China earthquake and for every other disaster that plagues the life of men. Those who fail to see this have confused the relative human good (long life and good health) with the absolute good (the salvation of souls) and have come to see death as the absolute evil which must be fought against by all means, even by theologically denying that God is willing or capable of using His omnipotent power to smite one of us vain little creatures is He chooses.
Let us not be turned aside by emotionalism. While we can never know for sure this side of heaven why God permits or causes such things, we can be sure that He does, and that He has good reason. Let us hold fast to the words of the Sacred Scriptures: “The LORD kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up” (1 Samuel 2:6).
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Notes:
1) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1556131/Floods-are-
judgment-on-society%2C-say-bishops.html
Phillip Davis for Volume I., Issue 6
