REDEEMING THEODICY

Why the giant waves were acts of a benevolent God (Paul Johnson, The Spectator, January 15th, 2005)

Things are stirring on the God front. A leading atheist recants his disbelief, provoking cries of anguish from the Darwinian fundamentalists crowded on to their isolated bandwagon, now stuck in the mud of events. On the other hand, the giant waves in the Indian Ocean shocked the Archbishop of Canterbury — not one whom Jane Austen would have called ‘‘a sensible man’’ even at the best of times — into doubting the existence of a deity, or at least a benevolent one. The question of whether the notion of God is compatible with the existence of evil or calamitous events in the world is a very ancient one, and was pondered by Plato and the Stoics, and most of the early Christian philosophers — such as Origen — and later by Thomas Aquinas. The Manichees got worked up about it, believing as they did that the universe was governed by evil as well as noble forces; obviously, a major earthquake would tend to suggest that evil has got the upper hand, if only pro tem. [...]

The notion, put forward by the Darwinian Central Committee, that the Indian Ocean disaster should persuade us to turn our intellectual backs on a God-directed universe, seems to be puerile. Why did God kill so many people? But God kills people all the time, millions every day. For that matter, God creates people, millions every day. The big waves killed no more than the Lisbon earthquake, and a much smaller percentage of the total population than in 1755. Against a total of 150,000 or so, we have to remember that four billion have been added to the number of people in the world during the last 70 years. That 150,000 is only the tiniest ephemeral blip on the world’s demographic radar. Sri Lanka, which suffered heavily, has a population of 20 million; 11 million will be added to it by 2050. Sumatra, another chief victim, will double its population by that date. Despite the losses, there are already considerably more people in the world today than there were in Christmas week. We are asked to draw transcendental conclusions from this event because of its scale. But the scale, in terms of the magnitude of the world and its inhabitants, is puny, almost insignificant. [...]

The true theological or philosophical point to be made about the Indian Ocean wave --if, indeed, there is one -- is that it is a timely reminder of the fragility of our existence in this world, the ease with which life on a sunny holiday beach can be snuffed out in a few torrential seconds, and the awesome power which nature still wields, and will always wield, in a world where science and engineering make such boastful strides in subduing her. And any reminder of the ultimate and total powerlessness of human beings, made always necessary by our arrogance and boasting, must be an act of God, and a very sensible and benevolent one too. It can also be argued —and this is what our bishops, if they had any sense, would be arguing — that such events make us think about transience and death, and our own preparedness for our extinction and the life to come. So the calamity —so distressing for those individually involved — was for humanity as a whole a profoundly moral occurrence, and an act of God performed for our benefit.

If secularists think that natural disasters like the tsunami are evidence against the existence of God, it is hard to understand why they wouldn’t say the same thing about death itself.