Christians are often accused of exploiting disasters like the Japan earthquake f
or their ends. No sooner does the rubble settle than we are whipping out our Bibles to proclaim God’s judgment or the end of days. But apparently, atheists aren’t much different. Within hours of the event, the headline at Debunking Christianity read like this: Devastating Tsunami Hits Japan. You Want Evidence There Isn’t a Good Omnipotent God? Here it is. What follows is a 4:40 video containing footage of the disaster, with this postscript: “Here it is. Try explaining this rather than explaining it away.”
But who’s using this event to explain what?
Christians are often too quick to sermonize after such tragedies (who was it that suggested that the Haitian earthquake was God’s retribution against voodoo?). But couldn’t non-believers be accused of the same thing? To the atheist, natural disasters are an apologetic for unbelief.
But does such mayhem and “senseless human suffering” really prove God doesn’t exist?
Even though this is one of the atheist’s strongest arguments (“How can a Loving, All-powerful God allow such random misery and devastation to occur?”), I’ve never really followed this line of reasoning. While pain and suffering admittedly presses us intellectually and emotionally, both theist and atheist, how exactly does disaster disprove the existence of God? Natural disaster and random human suffering could prove lots of things about the nature of the Universe. Here’s three of them:
- God exists, but is evil.
- God exists, but is indifferent and morally neutral.
- God exists, but is powerless to do anything.
Couldn’t tsunamis, earthquakes, cancer, and human deformities prove that an Evil God runs the show, One who delights in watching us suffer? Or maybe the Man Upstairs is a Relativist and doesn’t believe in Absolutes and objective morality. So why lift a finger? Then again, perhaps God really is just an Impersonal Force or a Deistic Watchmaker Who wound things up, sits back, and watches things wind down. Point being: Why can’t disaster and human suffering be evidence of a different type of God, rather than none at all?
Furthermore, if disaster and human suffering point to the non-existence of a Loving God, couldn’t good luck, good fortune, harmony, health, prosperity, and order, be possible evidence for the existence of a Benevolent Being?
In other words: If cancer is evidence of No God, is the spontaneous remission of cancer evidence of a Good God? Why one and not the other?
Peter Kreeft in his Handbook of Christian Apologetics writes:
The fact that we do not naturally accept this world full of injustice, suffering, sin, disease, and death — that we spontaneously cheer the poet (Dylan Thomas) when he says, so irrationally yet nobly: “Do not go gentle into that good night / Rage, rage against the dying of the light” — the very fact of our outrage at evil is a clue that we are in touch with a standard of goodness by which we judge this world as defective, as falling drastically short of the mark.
Unlike the poet, the atheist has no “light” to “rage against.” And even if my ignorance is worth “debunking,” at some point it just won’t matter. You see, if Nothingness awaits us all, then what’s the ultimate point of debate?
Really.
Why can’t natural disaster and human suffering be evidence of an Evil God, an Indifferent God, or a Powerless God? Why must the Japan earthquake be “evidence” that “there isn’t a good omnipotent God?” Because for the atheist to even concede a deity — evil, indifferent, or powerless — is to subvert their own position. The first step toward conceiving a Good and Loving God, is to establish evidence for a god. And this is the step that atheists simply cannot take.
Good points.
Christianity has answers to the questions of evil and suffering. They are tough ones, but answers nonetheless.
As you point out, atheists have no answers – and no right to give or demand them. After all, in a God-less, meaningless, random universe, why is there any order, harmony, music, beauty at all? Isn’t disaster the ‘normal’ course of events in such a place?
The reality of evil and suffering isn’t some trump card that collapses Christianity; it’s evidence of a broken world and our need for a Savior.
There are people that say natural disasters are Mother Earth’s (Nature’s, Gaia’s, the universe’s, etc.) way of “getting back at us” for being careless about the environment. How is this different that what some Christians say about God’s use of natural disasters?
Personally, I see this as another step towards global crisis. Economies are tumbling, allies are uncertain, power is shifting and the world is ripening for a leader to emerge who will have all the answers. While critics shake their fists at God, He goes about carrying out His plans just as He said He would. Thankfully, He doesn’t deal with people en mass but works within each heart. Today, right now, He’s answering the one who calls on Him wherever they may be.
Of course, they are being careful not to say there is no EVIL or WEAK God. They are being careful to say there is no GOOD, OMNIPOTENT God. They say that God may be good or he may be omnipotent, but he cannot be both. But, of course, you are right to say that what they really believe is that there is NO God.
And it’s interesting that you bring it up. I’ve never thought of this before. What would the world look like if people believed there was an evil, powerful God? Maybe the Greeks kind of had that view. The gods were a bunch of spoiled, selfish things, weren’t they?
And who has a view of a weak God? I think most people, if they say they believe in God, believe in a weak God who can give good things, like Santa, but who is powerless against murderers and disease and Mother Nature when she gets her dander up.
What they don’t seem to understand is that if there is a good and omnipotent God he would have to be just, or he would not be good. He would also have to be merciful or he would not be good.
In natural disasters we see justice and mercy mingled. We see justice tempered by mercy. We see a powerful God who can shake the earth on its foundations, and we see a merciful God who holds all things in place by his word.
Wow. That headline makes my jaw drop. Really? Over ten thousand people are killed in one wave and that’s the atheist’s response? Seriously? Wow.
I’m still floored by that. I just don’t know what to say…
You make good points. In this case the atheist’s response seems like one more of deep seeded anger and resentment than of actual intellectual consideration. What do they have to gain by debunking Christianity anyway. Well…we know what satan has to gain.
I heard someone in my workplace talking about how the earthquake was caused by global warming. Hmm… Er, how…exactly…? Nevermind.
p.s. I thought it was caused by the movement of tectonic plates…
I know atheists and it makes my heart ache to think that they don’t know Him. An old pastor used to say that if an atheist was getting upset it’s a good sign because they are on the cusp of acknowledging that there is a God and they are fighting it.
The possibility of a speck of dust ended up at a particular coordinates in space at a particular time is no different from the possibility that a set of notes get put together to become what human perceive to be music. Even within human, what one perceives to be a heavenly creation in the history of music may be an absolutely agonizing listening experience for another. What tastes good to a dog may be absolutely abhorrent to us humans. Same applies to humans. Using human morality as an argument for God’s existence or non-existence is improper as morality judgement differs even among humans. When people says there is God, they mostly mean there is a personal God, who can intervene on their behalves. The bottom line is whether a personal God exists or not. When Christians pray, does it really change events in another isolated space where the praying person cannot make an physical or verbal influence. When people says there is God, they means there is a God who will make changes on our behalf or on behalf of what we, human, of a particular group, genetic origin or cultural background, perceive to be good or bad. The problem is that Christians like to quote an event as a qualifying event to justify God’s existence when it helps a particular group to accomplish its goal and an event that does not fit into that category as “God works in a mysterious way to test us.”
Consequently, one can easily lead to the conclusion that if there is God. God is indifferent or apathetic to any human objectives or perceptions of what is good and bad. We, as humans, need to make the decision to decide what are good and evil with the frame of behavioral reference we have. Hopefully that frame of behavioral reference is a benevolent one.
Interesting article with a number of good points. A few ideas come to mind, though:
1) While you have fended off the notion that natural disasters disprove the existence of God, does anyone actually hold to that notion? If some atheist says that the Earthquake in Japan disproves God, isn’t he indeed almost certainly speaking of the supposedly Good, Omnipotent, and Omniscient God of the various Western faith traditions? All you have really done is weakened your own position by seeming to have conceded that God cannot be All-Good, All-Knowing, and/or All-Powerful while at the same time allowing such things to happen. An immoral God is something to be opposed, an impotent God is something irrelevant, and an indifferent God is simply of no ultimate concern to us. All three possibilities only play into the secular notion that God and religion are fundamentally irrelevant to human life.
2) While good things certainly do happen in this world, you must concede that suffering and evil are far more prevalent than pleasure and goodness. Also, the degree of evil acts usually far surpasses the degree of good acts: has any mortal acted in such a way that the goodness generated would ever equal the suffering, terror, and misery generated by something like the Holocaust or the Holodomor?
“While pain and suffering admittedly presses us intellectually and emotionally, both theist and atheist, how exactly does disaster disprove the existence of God?”
GW: In exactly the way demonstrated by my “Argument from Natural Disasters for the Nonexistence of God.”
“Natural disaster and random human suffering could prove lots of things about the nature of the Universe. Here’s three of them:
God exists, but is evil.
God exists, but is indifferent and morally neutral.
God exists, but is powerless to do anything.”
GW: No, the author is mistaken since he is talking about “lesser gods.” He is not talking about the “God” as understood traditionally and by most believers. This god, i.e. God, is a hypothetical person who is all-knowing, all-powerful, and perfectly moral.
“Point being: Why can’t disaster and human suffering be evidence of a different type of God, rather than none at all?”
GW: Here the author has made the classic mistake of confusing “a god” and “the God.” “God” (with the capital “G”) is one particular god among many possible gods. Natural disasters might be compatible with the existence of some gods, but not with the existence of the God, as shown in my argument.
“Furthermore, if disaster and human suffering point to the non-existence of a Loving God, couldn’t good luck, good fortune, harmony, health, prosperity, and order, be possible evidence for the existence of a Benevolent Being?”
GW: Sure they could, but a Benevolent Being would prevent natural disasters, IF he/she were also all-knowing (or at least knowing enough to know in advance about natural disasters) and all-powerful (or at least powerful enough to prevent a natural disaster).
“In other words: If cancer is evidence of No God, is the spontaneous remission of cancer evidence of a Good God? Why one and not the other?”
GW: Because God (being all-knowing, all-powerful, and perfectly moral), if he exists, would not allow cancer in the first place. Any moral person would not allow cancer, if he knew it was going to occur and had the ability to stop it.
“Unlike the poet, the atheist has no “light” to “rage against.””
GW: Yes he does! It is the concept of a moral person. If an all-knowing all-powerful god did exist, he would not be moral because he allows natural disasters. I rage because I have a concept of a moral person.
“Why can’t natural disaster and human suffering be evidence of an Evil God, an Indifferent God, or a Powerless God?”
GW: Here the author makes the same mistake that he did earlier. He is playing word games with the words “god” and “God” treating them equivalently, when they are not equivalent.
“The first step toward conceiving a Good and Loving God, is to establish evidence for a god. And this is the step that atheists simply cannot take.”
GW: My “Argument from Natural Disasters for the Nonexistence of God” is not intended to rule out all gods. It is intended to rule out the most popular god, i.e. God. And this is a step that theists simply cannot take.
GW: Thanks for the opportunity to respond. Gary Whittenberger
Love the way you Christians..and for years I was one if you…you make excuses for your invisible make believe man in the sky not stopping cancer, letting people die in tornadoes murder, etc, encourage people to pray even though God will do what He wants anyway..without a smidgen of evidence He exists..is fighting a Devil
You people make me sick
What a load of old drivel. What most atheists actually propose is that it is precisely nature’s indifference to human suffering (and that of all other organisms) which proves there is no design, no ultimate purpose, no ultimate good or evil in the world, and hence no need (nor credible evidence) to invoke a deity of any sort as an explanation for anything. Joy, beauty, riches and peace of mind are randomly distributed – good people die young in extreme poverty or agony, while complete shits thrive to a happy old age enjoying their grandchildren. Innocent babies are dragged from their mothers’ arms and drowned in tsunamis and mudslides, whilst criminals grow fat on the proceeds of sex trafficking. There is no fairness or justice in the distribution of the earth’s fruits or its sufferings, and absolutely no evidence of an intelligence behind all of this (let alone evidence of an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent all-loving one) – all there is in the world is what we experience with our senses and process with our reason. The irrefutable result is that we come to see that nature is blindly, pitilessly indifferent, and earthquakes and tsunamis are no different from being in the wrong place in the food chain. Humanity may indeed have non-material needs owing to the way our consciousness and psychology have evolved, but to fill this with a deity or deities is a sour cocktail of intellectual high treason, moral cowardice and vapid wish-fulfilment.