Natural disasters

Natural disasters, such as earthquakes and tsunamis, cause great suffering and from a Christian perspective they are more difficult to explain than acts of moral evil – robberies, thuggery and so on.  We see the terrible pictures on our television screens of people being pulled from collapsed buildings and we see the grief of people who have lost loved ones and all their possessions.

It helps a little to remember that the earth is not a static planet – it is energetic and in a state of continual change.  These changes, sometimes violent, have shaped the earth and made it able to support life as we know it. 

For example, heat rising from inside the Earth causes volcanoes and stresses the Earth’s crust until the energy is suddenly released, causing earthquakes and tsunamis.  Volcanoes have been described as “at once beautiful, dangerous, life-giving, and mysterious”.  They played a role in the early development of the Earth and volcanic activity has produced fertile soils that have supported the development of many civilisations.  Volcanoes have also had a role in the composition of the oceans and the atmosphere. (13)

Tremors and earthquakes disrupt the Earth’s crust many times every day but usually the disruption is too small for human beings to feel.  Occasionally, as we all know, they can cause huge disruption with great loss of life and destruction of buildings. (14) It’s estimated that although about 700 earthquakes each year are strong enough to cause death and damage, most of these potentially destructive earthquakes are centred in unpopulated areas far from civilisation. (15)

We shouldn’t think of natural events such as volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunamis as being evil in themselves.  They are just some of the ways in which the Earth works.  However, as we know, these natural occurrences can result in great suffering.