Theological Reflections on Plague and Other Natural Disasters

Plagues.  Hurricanes.  Earthquakes. Tsunamis.  Volcanic Eruptions. These events can kill thousands, bring suffering to many times more, and seriously disrupt the normal course of life and society.  They cause us to pause and to ask the question: why do these things happen?

Natural Disasters and Evil

For the atheist, the answer is obvious: these events happen for no reason at all, and it is these events in particular that show that we live in a meaningless, uncaring universe, with no good or loving God.  Christians, in contrast, know that the universe indeed is created by a loving God, and that these events, or at least the suffering and death caused by these events,^[1]Nobody considers earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions that occur in uninhabited areas to be evil.  It is only when human beings come in contact with these events and are … Continue reading is a consequence of the Fall. God created human beings in His image, as His representatives in His creation, with the intention that they were to reflect God’s rule of His creation and be agents of order in it.  But rather than living according to God’s wisdom, with the grain of God’s created order, human beings chose to attempt to create their own order. The result of this choice, this sin, is that human beings have brought disorder to God’s creation and are separated from God. Having rejected their God-given role of being agents of order in God’s creation, humanity has brought about a situation in which evil, suffering, and death are daily realities.

In a Fallen world, death is a universal reality that all human beings must face.  When we ask the question, “Why does God allow so many to die as a result of this plague or other natural disaster?,” we must remember that every human being experiences death.  The only question is how and when they will face it. God grants each of us a lifetime on this earth; it is not something we have earned or deserve, and there are no guarantees it will last a particular length of time, nor can we claim we have a “right” for our lives to last a certain amount of time.  We go through life with the expectation that our lives will be of a certain length, and as long as we see death occur in a scattered, individual manner, it can be easy for us to maintain that expectation. When we see large numbers of people quickly perish from a plague or other natural disaster, though, we are shocked out of our complacency.  We are reminded that we are not really in control of things, that we live every day by God’s grace without any guarantee that we will see the next one, and that we all must consider our death and what lies beyond it. This can be especially important for us modern people, who have to such a great extent succeeded in isolating ourselves from the realities of mortality and death.

Natural Disasters and the Wrath of God

Whenever a plague or other natural disaster strikes, there are some Christians who try to answer the question of why this has happened by declaring that it is God’s judgment for some people’s specific sins (Egregiously, this often takes the form of claiming it must be a result of the sins of non-Christians, rather than the Church’s own serious unfaithfulness).  Scripture makes it clear that suffering and death are, from a cosmic perspective, a result of sin. But Scripture makes it equally clear that there is no direct correlation between people’s sinfulness and the suffering they experience (For just one example of this, read the book of Job). The Old Testament prophets make it clear that sometimes God does send calamity upon people as punishment for their sins, and we can see this happen in the New Testament as well (Acts 5:1-11, 12:20-23; I Cor 11:27-30).  But unless we are prophets, we do not have the right to confidently declare that a particular calamity is an expression of God’s wrath for a specific sin. In a Fallen world, sometimes the righteous suffer and the wicked prosper. At no time, perhaps, is this more evident than when we see a plague or other disaster indiscriminately strike down the righteous and the wicked alike.  

At one point during Jesus’s ministry, some people told him about a massacre of Galileans that Pontius Pilate had perpetrated.  Jesus’s response was this: “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered this fate?  No, I tell you. But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam collapsed on them: Do you think that they were more sinful than all the others living in Jerusalem?  No, I tell you. But unless you repent, you too will all perish” (Luke 13:2-5).^[2]If a Christian were to make similar comments today, I think most people would be offended or even outraged. But these words are straight from the mouth of the Lord Jesus Christ, so we must take them … Continue reading  Jesus’s response to being informed of a calamity, whether brought about by human initiative or natural disaster, is not to speculate about the problem of evil and why God would allow this. It is not to declare that those who died were guilty, and those who survived were innocent. Instead, His response is to use these events to direct his audience to reflect upon the urgency of repenting of their sins, turning to God, and avoiding God’s wrath on the Day of Judgment.  When the Church sees the society it lives in experience a calamity, this should not lead us to declare the calamity an expression of God’s wrath against the evil world; instead, it should lead us to humble ourselves, consider our own sins, and repent, knowing that, apart from God’s grace, we would experience a far worse fate than whatever this calamity brings.  

Natural Disasters and God’s Love

For the pagan, the answer to the question of why plagues and other natural disasters happen is: we are at the mercy of capricious and sometimes cruel deities, whose wills are often inscrutable, and, even when they are known, are often in conflict with one another.  Christians, in contrast, can face these same realities with a very different attitude. In spite of the chaos and danger around us, we can live with peace and joy, knowing that we are, ultimately, safely in the hands of our loving Heavenly Father.  

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?”  writes the Apostle Paul, “Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? . . . For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:35, 38-39).  In saying this, Paul is not at all claiming that Christians, because of God’s love for them, will not experience hardship, persecution, famine, danger, and violence, and that they will not sometimes die from these things. For in the very same breath, Paul quotes the psalmist’s lament, “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered” (Rom 8:36, Psalm 44:22), before declaring that “in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us” (Rom 8:37).  It is even as we experience suffering and death that we can know that we are not separated from the love of God revealed to us in Jesus Christ.

Christians certainly experience suffering and death as a result of natural calamities.  Our status as God’s beloved children does not grant us immunity from this.^[3]Of course, God can and does rescue Christians from suffering and death, sometimes miraculously.  But these occurrences are the exception rather than the rule. We can clearly see this whenever plagues or other natural disasters strike. Until Jesus comes again to fully make all things new, Christians must live in a Fallen world, with all its disorder and evil, just like everyone else.  But, unlike the world, God’s people have the assurance that God is present with us, no matter what we experience. In Christ, God has truly come to be with us, entering even into the deepest experience of human suffering and death, so that we could be with Him forever. Unlike the world, we have the firm hope that through Christ God has already defeated all the powers of evil, that God is making all things new, and that soon, God’s New Creation, in which suffering, disorder, and death will be eliminated, will be fully inaugurated.  And we have the firm hope that, even though we die, we will be resurrected on the last day to eternal life. This is what makes us “more than conquerors” over whatever evils we experience in this life.