Who’s Fault Was The Hurricane?
Is it God punishing us for taking prayer out of public schools, as Franklin Graham said on Fox News? (If so, God’s awfully late.)
Is it Allah, punishing us for being Western?
Or is it just nature? Hurricanes–like earthquakes, tsunamis, tornados, floods, and other natural disasters–just happen. There’s no reason for it; it’s just nature, following the physical laws of nature–Laws like “water runs downhill,” which would seem to be evidence for not building a city below sea level.
If Hurricane Katrina was God or Allah or some other deity punishing us for something or another, I think that said god would be a little more specific about it. I mean, a god can call up mighty storms but can’t hijack the TV news stations to say “Put prayer back in schools, or I’ll do it again”?
No, I think we can safely just call it a terrible natural disaster–not the punishment of some god.
(Allah link via one of Jeff Jarvis’s commenters, Kat)
September 2nd, 2005 at 2:03 pm
It sounds as if you think some other ‘natural’ disaster for whatever reason is going to be ’supernatural’ ??? The Bible Belt Gulf State Christians along with 90 million true believer Christians in America need to start taking complete responsiblity for not only the environmental destruction and global warming they politically supported by voting for Bush-GOP, but the Bush FEMA cutbacks that end up as part of 100s of billions going to Iraq for mass murder and the disastrous national response the GOP Government they fully support provided them. Any finger of blame they want to point as responsible for this Katrina disaster points directly back at their own faces of religious contempt for truth and reason.
When future 21st century historians place blame for devasting early and likely middle as well as later 21st century hurricanes in the Gulf States, sufficient empirical evidence will then be available to prove it can be leveled solely onto the preponderance of Christians living there and throughout America who fully supported the Bush-GOP regime responsible for unprecedented destruction of the environment directly causing the planet’s global warming.
September 2nd, 2005 at 2:59 pm
I sincerely hope that your comment was in jest, because I have the same contempt for people who use natural disasters towards their own political ends as I do for those who use them towards their own religious ends. This is not about global warming. God isn’t punishing us for not adopting Kyoto or for going into Iraq anymore than he is for being Western or not having prayer in schools.
Although I’m not particularly interested in getting to the global warming debate at the moment, I’ll tell you what I think: The world is getting warmer, and that much can be scientifically verified. What can’t be verified is why: Is global warming a man-made phenomenon, or is it a natural cycle that we’ve only recently been able to detect? Is the sun getting hotter? Is there more volanic activity contributing to greenhouse gasses? There are a number of explanations for global warming other than Western industry.
What I’m saying in my post is that if a disaster is the from God, then he’d tell us so. In the Bible, when God sent a disaster, he claimed responsibility for it and generally told the people he was punishing why he sent it. Since he hasn’t done that here, we can attribute the hurricane to natural causes, not divine intervention.
September 2nd, 2005 at 5:49 pm
I’m going to have to heartily disagree with your “natural disaster” theory. How can God tell us he’s sending calamity/evil/disaster/whatever it’s called in your favorite version? Back then He had prophets and such. Now there are no prophets. Is He going to stick His head down out of the clouds and say, “Remember that storm? That’s me.” Maybe those black billboards are worth something after all? “Meet at my house after the game. –God”
While it may be comforting to think that the storm suddenly showed up and took God by surprise and that he’s now grieving in heaven because he wasn’t fast enough to stop it, that’s a heresy called “open theism.” While it may likewise be as comforting to think that God set everything in motion way back when and is not sitting back in heaven watching events unfold on Heaven’s News Network, occasionally “stirring the pot” towards his own ends, that’s also not a view found in Scripture. In fact, the statement “There’s no reason for it” frankly leaves God checked with the coats at the door. Here is an extended quote that I found well-balanced (From “In the Nick of Time” by Kevin Bauder):
September 2nd, 2005 at 6:03 pm
If God was punishing New Orleans his/her timing was off. This weekend is Southern Decadence - not last.
September 2nd, 2005 at 9:37 pm
If I have to lay blame, I would blame it on the human beings as a whole. We burn up non-renewable resources and heat up the atmosphere. We will see more of these violent weather conditions when we do not drastically cut back on our fuel consumption. There are still people do not believe the green house effect.
September 2nd, 2005 at 10:34 pm
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/30/national/30cycle.html
So - from 1995 to 2003 the rate of hurricanes striking North America has been about 1 in 10 vs the historical average of 1 in 3. So much for global warming as the cause.
Weather happens, folks.
September 2nd, 2005 at 11:22 pm
Mounty: If I take your viewpoint, then I have no choice but to conclude that God caused the hurricane, which is far worse than saying that the hurricane just happened and God allowed it, I’d think.
The world runs in an orderly fashion. When you let go of a ball, it will fall to the ground every time. Unless you believe in intelligent falling, you attribute that falling to the law of gravity, which doesn’t change barring divine intervention. Why should the weather, the shifts in tectonic plates, or the waves of the sea be any different?
People die. It happens. Couldn’t God save every cancer patient and every car accident victim? If he won’t stop them, why would we expect him to stop big events like tsunamis and terrorist attacks?
God lets people die. He lets horrible cruelty and suffering go on in his world, both natural suffering, like the people in New Orleans are enduring, and man-made suffering, like the people of Darfur are enduring.
Why? Either God doesn’t see it, he can’t stop it, or he’s unwilling to stop it. None of the options leave God in a particularly good light, but that’s his bed to lie in.
September 3rd, 2005 at 9:15 am
This is an age old question–why do bad things happen?
Wonder why God always gets the blame! I thought about this passage. (Perhaps it proposes a fourth option to the prior post.)
It seems to me that Satan and man’s rebellion resulted in turning a perfect world into a cursed world with hurricanes, etc.
It also seems appropriate to think just a bit beyond the immediate and consider the future ages to come.
September 3rd, 2005 at 10:01 am
One of the reasons God caused the events in Exodus was to get people’s attention and to show that their gods were no gods, that He alone was God. He did get their attention, and there are signs some believed.
In some of the calamities God will cause in the time frame Revelation tells us of are designed to get people’s attention, for He says often in that book, “Though I sent this and did that, yet you still did not repent,” indicating that that was His purpose, or at least one purpose, behind the events.
There are instances of natural disaster as judgment in Scripture (being without rain 3 years in Elijah’s time), but not every natural event is judgmental (just as sometimes individual illnesses are judgmental — Asa being diseased in his feet, Miriam being turned leprous), not every illness is judgmental for that person (i.e., the man born blind in John 9) except in the sense that evil happens because sin is in the world.
People are too quick to jump on the “judgmental” bandwagon when these things happen. Just like 9/11 — some said that was because of America allowing abortions. But why would God strike one area of one city for something the whole nation does? Southern Decadence was certainly prevented with these events, but I certainly don’t think that was the whole reason for the hurricane.
There are usually multiple layers of the “whys” for these things, but whatever God actually causes and whatever He allows, He’s not sitting on the sidelines wringing His hands. He has His reasons. Just speculating, some of the reasons might be to cause people to realize they need help beyond themselves, to reveal the sinfulness of their own hearts (speaking of some of the unspeakable acts going on), to raise up others to minister to them…..who knows. I know a lot of stories came out of 9/11 of God’s grace manifested to individuals — I am sure we will hear some of those in time to come as well.
September 3rd, 2005 at 3:02 pm
What is this?? False trichotemy, if such a thing exists. What about bringing things about to show His power? Is it really so hard to believe that God would deliberately do things that we as relatively stupid creatures couldn’t understand? Proverbs 16:4 says “The LORD has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble.” Has made. Past tense active and completed. There’s no room for a “blind watchmaker” God, and I’d strongly argue from Scripture that such a god is no god at all. Whether it’s specific judgment on some sin or not is not mine to understand. In the broadest of senses I believe that it is a judgment on sin in general, another act of God to show what sin has done to the world. But to say that God was powerless over this event, whether willingly or unwillingly, says that God isn’t omnipotent.
September 3rd, 2005 at 3:07 pm
And yes, I would say that He did cause the hurricane; and though I don’t know why, I do know He was behind it. Remember that reference to Amos? Read Amos 3:3-6 - “(3)Do two walk together, unless they have agreed to meet? (4)Does a lion roar in the forest, when he has no prey? Does a young lion cry out from his den, if he has taken nothing? (5)Does a bird fall in a snare on the earth, when there is no trap for it? Does a snare spring up from the ground, when it has taken nothing? (6)Is a trumpet blown in a city, and the people are not afraid? Does disaster come to a city, unless the LORD has done it?” The point here in this passage is that everything happens with a purpose - there are no incidents without causes. And just as a mousetrap won’t spring shut at random on its own, so disaster won’t visit a place without being sent by God for some reason.
September 3rd, 2005 at 3:29 pm
If God has to kill people by the thousands to show off his power, then I don’t want to follow that God.
If God has to create suffering in order to relieve it, and that’s the only way he can show his grace, then I don’t want to follow that God.
If God’s punishment for sin is so indiscriminate as to kill innocent children who’s only crime was the inability to get out of the way, I don’t want to follow that God.
What possible reason could justify sending hurricanes and floods against the city of New Orleans?
I can’t accept “I’m too stupid to understand God’s will.” That is blind faith in the worst sense of the phrase, closing your eyes to the evidence leveled against God.
How can I reconcile the passage from Amos with the Biblical claims about the goodness of God? This question isn’t rhetorical; I am seeking answers for this dilemma. I can’t be the first person to ask the question.
September 4th, 2005 at 10:25 am
OK, as religious discussions tend to do, this post caught the attention of my Mom and Dad. Dad and I had a fairly lengthy discussion about this issue this morning.
I think he and I agree that God has set up the natural laws of the universe, and that, most likely, New Orleans was not the victim of God’s superceding those laws to send punishment for sin.
Again, if you examine the Biblical record, when God sends disaster as a punishment for sin, he also informs us–the survivors, the ones who wonder why–of his reasons for it.
But when disaster comes as a result of natural occurances (which are caused by God only in the sense that he set up the natural laws of the universe and chose not to supercede them), he doesn’t give us a reason.
That’s not to say that he has no reason for causing suffering; Romans 8:28 clearly contradicts that idea. But he doesn’t have to explain himself to us.
And we certainly can’t be so arrogant as to pretend to know the mind of God in the matter; we cannot say “God is punishing New Orleans for their debauched lifestyle” or “God is punishing the United States for not accepting the Kyoto Accord.” If you believe that, you need to go read the book of Job, as mounty mentioned earlier.
One other thing that sticks out about the discussion is that we tend to elevate human suffering and death to the highest level. Indeed, how can we not? But that’s not God’s perspective. To him, death is not as final as it seems to us. And since death is the ultimate destiny of everything living, is God wrong to take people in large groups instead of in small ones?
And suffering… When we take a child to the doctor, and he gets a shot, does he not suffer? Does he not wonder why his loving parent is letting this happen to him? But is he not stronger and healthier for the suffering?
Perhaps, at the end of this thing, the survivors of New Orleans will be stronger for their suffering.
September 4th, 2005 at 10:26 am
As a post script: OK, mounty, you caught me. I did leave off one option from the statement: Either God doesn’t see it, he can’t stop it, he’s unwilling to stop it for some reason, or he sent it himself for some reason. I had dismissed the final option in my earlier statements, and so I left it off of this one. My bad.
September 5th, 2005 at 6:03 pm
We can remove an option from the list… If God didn’t see it coming or couldn’t stop it, then he is not omnipotent or omniscient - oops, we that take away two main definitions for someone to be God…
I’d much rather believe in a sovereign God than something I call God but he can’t control certains, some things surprise him etc.
September 10th, 2005 at 10:13 am
I posted this on sharperiron.org, but thought I’d post it here, too:
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Death is in God’s hands, whether it is the death of an individual or hundreds of people, whether it happens in a car crash or an illness or a natural disaster.
And, for the Christian, God looks at death differently than we do. On His side of it, He is ushering us into His Presence` and nothing could be better.
To the lost and to the saved as well, these things can be a wake-up call — we all have a time limit, it is not guaranteed that we will live a certain number of years, and we need to be ready to meet eternity at any moment.
Yet I think we have more trouble with the idea of suffering than of death.
I just pulled off the shelf a book I read a long time ago, A Path Through Suffering by Elisabeth Elliot. At the back she has an appendix entitled ‘A Summary of Reasons for Suffering.” Here are a few:
1) We suffer for our own sake:
That we may learn who God is — Ps. 46:1, 10; Dan. 4:24-37; Job
That we may learn to trust — II Cor. 1:8-9
That we may learn to obey — Ps. 119: 67, 71
Discipline is a prrof of the Father’s love and of the validity of our sonship — Heb. 12: 5-11
It is the condition of our discipleship — Acts 14:22; Luke 14:26-27, 33
It is required of soldiers — II Tim. 2:4
We are being “pruned” that we may bear fruit — John 15:2
That we may be shaped into the image of Christ — Rom. 8:29
To qualify us to be fellow-heirs with Christ — Romans 8:17 (I don’t know if I would have used the word “qualify” there — it is certainly not meant in a salvation-obtaining way.)
To qualify us for the kingdom of God — II Thess. 1:4-5
To qualify us to reign with Christ — II Tim. 2:12
That our faith may be strengthened — James 1:3; II Thess. 1:4-5; Acts 14:22
That our faith may be tested and refined — Isaiah 43:2; Dn. 11:35; Mal. 3:2; I Cor. 3:13; I Pet. 1:7
That we may reach spiritual maturity — James 1:4
Power comes to its full strength in weakness — II Cor. 12:9
To produce in us endurance character, hope — Romans 5:3-4
To produce in us joy and generosity — II Cor. 8:2
2) We suffer for the sake of God’s people:
That they may obtain salvation — II Tim. 2:10
To give them courage — Phil. 1:14
That because of death working in us, life may work in them — II Cor. 4:12; Gal. 4:13; I John 3:16
That grace may extend to more — II Cor.4:15
That our generosity may bless others — II Cor. 8:2
3) We suffer for the world’s sake:
That it may be shown what love and obedience mean — Job; Jn. 14:31; Mt. 27:40-43
That the life of Jesus may be visible in our ordinary human flesh — II Cor. 4:10
4) We suffer for Christ’s sake:
That we may be identified with Him in His crucifixion — Ga. 2:20
Suffering is the corollary of faith — Ps. 44:22; Acts 9:16 and 14:22; II Tim. 3:12; Jn. 15: 18-21; I Thess. 1:6 and 3:4
That we may share His suffering — I Pt. 4:12-13; Phil. 1:29, 2:17, and 3:8, 10; Col. 1:24; II Tim. 1:8; Heb. 13:13
That we may share His glory — Romans 8:17-18; Heb. 2:9-10; II Cor. 4:17
Well, I ended up posting all of them.:smile:
There are a few I didn’t see in her list from Deut. 8:2-3: “And thou shalt remember all the way which the LORD thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no. And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live.”
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And whatever the reasons God allows suffering, we have these assurances:
Lamentations 3: 32 But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.
33 For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.
And Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
Isa. 41: 10 Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.
As one of my favorite quotes says:
“God does not waste suffering, nor does He discipline out of caprice. If He plough, it is because He purposes a crop.”
— J. Oswald Sanders
Three good books on suffering in general, by people who have suffered themselves: the aforementioned A Path Through Suffering by Elisabeth Elliot; When God Weeps by Joni Eareckson Tada; and Rose From Brier by Amy Carmichael.