Colossal Questions for Tragic Times: Tsunami, Catastrophe, and Christian Faith

Colossal and perennial questions assault us during times of unspeakable anguish. Although it has been several months since a devastating tidal wave pummeled southern Asia, its still behooves us to ask those haunting questions, since the punishing after effects of this catastrophe continue. Moreover, we can be certain that other catastrophes—both manmade and natural—will devil our days and render sleepless our nights in this world of woe. Yet if you were to enter “tsunami, philosophy, and religion” on Google, you would not find simple answers to why this or any natural disaster should wreak such devastation for so many human beings. Despite the instant information available everywhere, wisdom about deeper matters seems to elude our grasp.

The New York Times gave a secular, naturalistic answer, claiming that “the underlying story of this tragedy is the overpowering, amoral mechanics of the earth’s surface,” which operate “with profound indifference to anything but the pressures that drive them.” Meaning is exhausted by geology; tragedy is reducible to physics and chemistry. Yet the same plate tectonic system that permits tsunamis makes life on earth possible, along with dozens and dozens of other fine-tuned factors not known to exist anywhere else in the universe. The probability that this panoply of life-supporting elements was birthed by chance and impersonal natural law is vanishingly small. Moreover, the mechanics of life itself reveal highly complex and purposeful systems that defy mindless materialistic theories of origin. Our genes are brimming with vast amounts of highly specified and complex information. DNA is a code, a living language of symbols that cannot be reduced to the laws of chemistry or biology.

Secularism cannot explain this tragedy. A world without design is a world too small. Secularism is hard-pressed even to provide the moral categories necessary to support the very concept of tragedy. If we are nothing but the result of physical particles and forces, what’s all the fuss about human death? The earth’s plates shift, and deaths occur. Yet our response to human loss betrays what we know: we human are unique among the living. Even when it comes from nature (and not other humans), the doom of our fellows jars us as unnatural, not the way it is supposed to be. Some higher animals note the deaths of their offspring or mates with some feeling, it seems. But we lament death. We cry out to heaven as our tears fall to earth. This language of lamentation is indelibly enshrined in our literature and sacred writings.
However, there is no generic “religious” answer. Religions offer different answers, depending on their view of the cosmos. After many years of study, I am still left with unanswered questions—and I join others on the mourner’s bench. Nevertheless, there is an ancient and globally appreciated narrative that gives meaning to tragedy and sparks hope even amidst desolation.

Yet the biblical worldview provides the categories that make the best sense of human suffering and offer solid hope for a better world to come. Nature is not a self-enclosed system. The cosmos was designed by a personal and moral being, who deemed it “good.” Yet our first parents—reckoned “very good” by their Author—rebelled against their Creator, thus fracturing and fragmenting creation, both for themselves and for their progeny, whom they represented. The Creator, however, did not abandon his erring creatures. God continued to reveal truth through nature and through his prophets, whose message engaged both Israel and all the nations. Despite the fractures and fissures of a world in rebellion, God remains involved in creation and concerned for it, even sending his one and only Son to rescue it from futility. History is played out on God’s watch. God attends to every detail according to his unlimited wisdom and matchless power. As Jesus said, “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. . . . So don’t be afraid.” Jesus himself knows the worst that this world has to offer, having experienced it on a cruel Cross for the sake of humanity’s redemption.

How does God relate to this catastrophe? The deadly tsunami neither surprised nor outsmarted the Ancient of Days. It was no random, impersonal upsurge devoid of meaning. If it were, hope would be vanquished for both the living and the dead. But we, with clouded vision and bounded intellects, witness but a microscopic part of the cosmic narrative. Evils inscrutable to us play a significant part in the divine economy of this bent and broken world, we are told. The Apostle Paul claimed that even after the world-shaking achievements of the crucified and resurrected Christ, the whole cosmos groans together in travail, awaiting its final redemption. We all groan with it; but we may groan with hope and work hopefully for the world’s healing, if we entrust our lives to the one who said he was “the resurrection and the life.”