The heavens declare the glory of God...

...as do Tunamis

People reckon evil is simply inconsistent with a God I would claim it’s only inconsistent with a moral God, so the Tsunami is not an argument for atheism, whatsoever. At its strongest, it merely calls into question the “goodness”(whatever that means) of God. I say that because really I think our recognising of suffering and evil is actually an embarrassment for atheism. Notice how silent atheistic philosophers like Richard “it’s-all-just-DNA-and-we-dance-to-its-music” Dawkins have been in the light of the Tsunami. Its because it really isn’t a problem for the atheist. As Bertrand Russell pointed out, on that view, talk of meaning or value is crazy talk!

So atheism can’t say there’s ANYTHING wrong with the world, ever, at all. So there’s no such thing as “goodness”, or “badness”. When I say anything even as simple as, “man, that sucks”, or “Auschwitz was not right”, or “man utd are awesome” etc, I am not communicating anything meaningful to an atheist. Put simply, atheism simply does not correspond to the reality of our world where things matter.

So I reject atheism. It has nothing to say, and doesn’t match up to the real world. But if we are here on purpose, if we have been create-d, then what are the intentions and character of that creator? And if we say that the creator God is good, and that awesomely there’s nothing outside his power or knowledge, as the God of the Bible says of himself, then we get a problem: given the suffering in the world, the intense pain and hurt and evil that we and others suffer...

Either: God is unaware of it (not all knowing), or God is indifferent towards it, and doesn’t care (not all good), or God knows about it, cares about it, but cannot do anything about it, (not all powerful). Therefore there is no good, all knowing, all powerful God.

But ironically, as you probably know, I now actually worship someone who was tortured to death on a Roman Cross. At the very heart of Christianity is an example of the most intense suffering of an utterly innocent man. So surprisingly enough, it looks like the Christian response is that yes: God knows about evil, God cares about evil and HAS DONE something about it, to destroy it.

Briefly, I think like this:
1) I don’t expect to be able to have all the answers. If there’s one thing I’ve become convinced of by the Tsunami its that I’m pretty small and fragile in the grand scale of things, and I will not have complete answers to everything.
2) But the fact that I am framing questions like this shows me that I’m living in a world where things matter. Lives have worth, dignity, value...
3) I have 2 options: atheism or not atheism
4) Atheism tells me there is no value/worth/dignity. Nothing matters. This can’t explain the real world, it doesn’t correspond to reality.
5) That leaves me with “not atheism” How then can we make sense of things. How can I live with such intense suffering?
6) Uniquely among all world religions and philosophies, the cross of Jesus, and in fact the whole story of the bible is of God himself, so moved by a world gone wrong, people walked out on him, so hating all the injustice, coming into that world himself, and taking the full force of his justice - hatred of all that is wrong - on himself, to sort the world out, and deal with evil once and for all. Basically, you will never find anything like that anywhere else. Buddhism denies the problem. Islam says its all Allah’s will. Hinduism tries to say the pain is illusory. The cross of Jesus, God dying, is God saying NO! there is something BADLY wrong with the world, and BADLY wrong with us. He comes in to that hopeless situation to sort it out himself. Total rescue. This gives me a sure and certain hope in the midst of terrible pain.

I don’t understand fully why Tunamis happen, but if God was doing something as I monumental as I suggested in taking the full force himself of his own anger at it all on the cross, then he has a MORALLY JUSTIFIABLE reason to permit some tragic things still to happen now. C.S Lewis said this: “God whispers to us in our pleasures, he speaks to us in our consciences, but shouts to us in our pain. It is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world”.

Yes - He allows suffering to teach us. Suffering shouts at us to change our minds to realise that we live in a world that God made... where things matter; that it’s gone wrong and we need rescue; that we are not innocent, but part of the world gone wrong; and thus (as the most valuable part of all creation is the personal relationship people like me and you can have with God) God is rightly angry and condemns us as responsible people, with dignity for walking out on life with him, rejecting his goodness, pretending we can be God, & re-writing good and bad however which way suits us.

In other words, it seems that Jesus’ death will put the whole world right, eventually, but mean time, we need to make that count for us. God SO loves us that he offers to take the punishment we deserve. But either way, justice will be done, God will not let evil and suffering flourish. Jesus’ challenge to me & you is whether his justice will be (rightly) on me & you, or whether we’ll accept his offer to take it on himself instead.

(Thanks Oldskool - you're quality!)