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No Good Answers
For Katrina
Pastors
get asked a lot of questions by a lot of well meaning people.
Typically, the questions are good questions, which deserve good
answers. The problem is, more often than not, the pastor does
not have a good answer. Difficult questions always come when great
and terrible tragedies take place, like hurricane Katrina. Why
is it that hurricanes can become so huge and so forceful? Why
is that people can peacefully live for years along a beautiful
ocean coast, and then, overnight, massively devastating destruction
takes place and washes away entire towns and communities? How
can it be that a huge city such as New Orleans, with 430,000 in
population, can be so flooded and contaminated that the entire
city has to be completely evacuated? How can such large levees
that are buttressed with concrete and steel, made to withstand
tremendous ocean forces, be broken apart in one storm so that
80% of the city literally goes under water? Why does it have to
be that so many people can escape, while so many other people,
who have no means or place to drive out of the city, have to stay
in the city and, if they don’t die, go through such suffering
and morbid conditions, not knowing if it will ever be possible
to return to any kind of normal life again, anywhere? These questions
don’t even engage the most important issues. Why do people
have to die? Why do people have to suffer? Why do people have
to lose everything they have? Why do people have to lose their
homes and leave their homeland?
Pastors
cannot answer these questions because no one can answer such questions.
If anyone says to you that he has the answer, don’t trust
him. By faith, we may believe that God alone holds the answer.
However, God will not reveal the answer to most of us, at least,
not in this life. There are those who will tell us that these
same questions have asked by untold numbers of people in all generations,
ever since the world began. There have been a number of philosophers
who have made feeble attempts to explain the problems of evil,
suffering, and death, but perhaps very few have been satisfied
with their answers.
Since
we must depend upon God for the answer, how we handle the problem
directly relates to how we handle our belief in God. Generally
speaking, there are at least three main viewpoints that one can
take regarding his or her belief in God. The first is atheism,
the belief that there is no god. The second is deism, the belief
that God made us and then abandoned us. The third is theism, or
better yet, Christian theism, the belief in the God of the Bible,
Who revealed Himself through His Son, Jesus Christ. How does each
of these options weigh out in terms of understanding a terrible
natural crisis such as hurricane Katrina?
The
atheist will insist that his position is the most practical, the
most responsible, and the most believable when it comes to life
and existence. After all, the atheist alleges, science has proven
that the universe started with a big bang and that life started
with a lightening strike to some green glob and eventually we
all evolved into what we are today. Furthermore, the atheist will
tell us that if there was a God, especially a loving God, he would
never allow people to go through such pain and suffering as what
hurricane Katrina has caused to perhaps hundreds of thousands
of victims. Maybe the atheist has a point. The only problem is,
if he is right, where does that leave us? If there is no god,
then there is no basis for morality. The atheist would quickly
say, but we must be good, kind, decent, and law abiding toward
other people for the good of the human race. But I must ask him,
why? Why is the human race more important than I am? Why should
I not loot, and rob, and pillage, and steal? After all, there
is no real meaning in life anyway. There is no life after death.
There is no reason I should even be alive. These are the conclusions
the atheist would force me to make. Actually, I am convinced,
these are probably the actual conclusions reached by the lawless
looters and shooters in the New Orleans catastrophe. There is
no God and life is absurd, why not take what little is left in
life by violence?
Then
there is the “deist” who believes God created the universe,
wound it up like a clock to let it run down, and then walked off
and abandoned it. This viewpoint is not as popular as it once
was before Darwin wrote about evolution, and the advance of scientific
knowledge has eliminated the need to believe in God, supposedly.
However, there are many people today who admit a belief in God,
but they feel that He is distant, that He no longer watches over
the world, but instead, leaves man to flounder in his own ugly
messes. They also believe that God has created a very imperfect
earth, which will eventually crumble and fall to pieces under
its own imperfections, taking man into peril and suffering along
with it. As such, disasters like hurricane Katrina will take place,
and there is nothing we can do but suffer. Again, this viewpoint
leaves us no hope. Where is the escape? Why are we here? What
reason are we given to continue to live?
Finally,
there is the Christian theist, who believes in the God of the
Bible. The believer in Christ, it is said, has the most to answer
for, because it makes no sense that the loving God of the Bible
would bring such suffering to men. Maybe such a conclusion is
justified, but maybe not. It occurs to me that I am a free person
and I choose to do what is morally good or bad. If I do bad, I
may suffer, or I may cause others to suffer because of what I
have done. All other men are exactly like me. If enough men commit
enough evil acts, it will cause many people over the earth to
suffer. Certainly we know this has played out to be true. The
Bible has explained this scenario exactly in this way. The Bible
has also explained that the loving God is also holy, and He will
not tolerate sin among men forever. The God of the scriptures
has done a great deal to get the attention of mankind in order
to teach what is right, but if man does not listen, the Bible
teaches that God can, and will, resort to disaster to get our
attention.
My
wife and I were in the doctor’s office earlier in the week,
just after the news about the devastation of Katrina. We were
talking about the disaster, and a nurse said, “Well, I guess
the Lord was trying to teach them a lesson.” My wife replied,
“I think the Lord was trying to teach us all a lesson!”
There is no question about the fact that America has already crossed
the line; she already seared her conscience with a hot iron. America
is in deep moral trouble in this generation. God is calling out
to us, demanding that we turn back to Him, before it is too late
for us all. When some Jews began to talk to Jesus about how God
used a disaster to punish people for their sins, Jesus made this
statement: Those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell,
and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that
dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye
shall all likewise perish. (Luke 13:3-4) Such a Christian viewpoint
for a disaster is still not good, and it continues to tear at
our souls. Certainly it still does not provide a satisfactory
answer for Katrina, but unlike the other two viewpoints, perhaps
the faintest resemblance of a reason is present, and even in that,
perhaps there is hope.
James
Sanders
Pastor,
September 1, 2005
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