The Lisbon earthquake of 1755 changed everything. In minutes, this thriving, affluent city was brought to its knees. Roughly 50,000 people died. The sky turned black. Fires raged. Then tidal waves washed over the port, drowning hundreds more.<\/p>\n
Later, Voltaire wrote a poem challenging the prevailing view that this was a divine act of judgment. \u201cWhilst you these facts replete with horror view, will you maintain death to their crimes was due?\u201d he penned, adding, \u201cCan you then impute a sinful deed, to babes who on their mother\u2019s bosoms feed?\u201d<\/p>\n
Voltaire did not challenge the existence of God. He simply asked what kind of deity would create a world with such design flaws. It\u2019s a question other thinkers of his day dared to ask as well — a question taken up by today\u2019s ardent atheists and carried to the extreme conclusion that God does not exist.<\/p>\n
The earthquake and tsunami that devastated Southeast Asia in 2004 and similar disasters that struck Haiti in 2010 and Japan in 2011 are more recent examples of what may be described as natural evil. While many atheists concede that moral evil exists in the world, the idea of natural evil seems to prove either that God does not exist or, if He does, He is not a compassionate all-powerful God worthy of worship.<\/p>\n
Not so fast.<\/p>\n
Plate tectonics<\/p>\n
It is only in the last century that modern science has discovered the cause of earthquakes: plate tectonics, or the movement of giant masses of rock beneath the surface of the earth and the ocean floor.<\/p>\n
As these colossal plates move and bump into each other, they sometimes rupture the surface of the earth, causing earthquakes. When these collisions take place beneath the ocean floor, the result is seaquakes followed by tsunamis.<\/p>\n
In their book \u201cRare Earth,\u201d Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee observe that Earth \u201cis still the only planet we know that has plate tectonics.\u201d They further show that plate tectonics is a \u201ccentral requirement for life on a planet.\u201d It\u2019s also largely responsible for differences in land elevation that separate the land from the seas.<\/p>\n
But there\u2019s more. Plate tectonics recirculates carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and without carbon dioxide we would not have life.<\/p>\n
Dinesh D\u2019Souza writes in \u201cWhat\u2019s So Great About God?\u201d: \u201cThe whole tectonic system serves as a kind of \u2018planetary thermostat,\u2019 helping to regulate the earth\u2019s climate and preventing the onset of scorching or freezing temperatures that would make mammalian life, and possibly all life, impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Plate tectonics also aids the formation of minerals deep in the earth and their availability near the surface.<\/p>\n
Finally, the tectonics system contributes to the earth\u2019s magnetic field, without which earth\u2019s inhabitants would be exposed to cosmic radiation.<\/p>\n
So, in a sense, we owe our existence to plate tectonics and the earthquakes it produces. Of course, earthquakes often cause great destruction and claim the lives of many people. These are real tragedies that must not be minimized.<\/p>\n
Creation\u2019s labor pains<\/p>\n
However, to make the leap from tragic consequences of natural disasters to accusations that God is aloof, petulant or non-existent fails on numerous counts. People die of heatstroke and skin cancer but that doesn\u2019t make the sun — or its Creator — our enemy. Fires often devastate property and take innocent lives, but without fire many technological advances such as smelting, metals would not be possible.<\/p>\n
In addition, floods and hurricanes cause tragic death and destruction, but these natural disasters would be impossible without water, without which no living creature could survive.<\/p>\n
The point here for Christians is not to concede the atheist\u2019s viewpoint, or to admit that God is fallible simply because natural disasters occur with great force and frequency.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s true that something is wrong with the created order — and this has been the case ever since the man\u2019s fall in the Garden of Eden. The apostle Paul writes that \u201cthe whole creation has been groaning together with labor pains until now\u201d (Romans 8:22).<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s also assuring to know that God works through our unbalanced world — and its tragic outbursts — to protect and preserve life. He may choose to use nature as an instrument of judgment, as with the sons of Korah (Numbers 16:32). But mostly He works through the sinful and fallen world in which we live to keep it in check for our benefit.<\/p>\n
________<\/p>\n
Rob Phillips is director of communications for the Missouri Baptist Convention<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Lisbon earthquake of 1755 changed everything. In minutes, this thriving, affluent city was brought to its knees. Roughly 50,000 people died. The sky turned black. Fires raged. Then tidal waves washed over the port, drowning hundreds more. Later, Voltaire wrote a poem challenging the prevailing view that this was a divine act of judgment. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[58,2681,3402,1293,4828,1153,520,3404,4827],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5506"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5506\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}