Some Theological Reflections on Japan’s Earthquake part 1

In the midst of Japan’s national catastrophe, I find myself pulled in two directions: to speak, or not to speak. On the one hand, Jesus taught us that the proper response to suffering is to "mourn with those who mourn”. Suffering demands the response of compassion. In the midst of that, speaking alone can do more harm than good. Stories abound of suffering people who have been brought theories as a remedy to their pain, rather than comfort. Therefore, I’m inclined to keep practical and quiet.

Yet, suffering does raise the question of theory, especially in regards to God: where is He in the midst of suffering? There is also a large crowd of atheists in the blogosphere who have been very quick to point out that this earthquake is a very strong argument against the existence of God. This is a theoretical question, and needs a theoretical response. In way, we can say that we are theoretical creatures: when suffering happens, we plug those events into our network of understanding of how the world works. We need theory to make sense of our lives, and so we theorize rather intuitively. It's part of being human.

As one final excuse to write about this when I kinda feel rude doing so, I would like to confess that though bringing a big plate of theology to the disaster scene offends some, it also comforts some. In fact, in my own darkest hours of suffering (when I almost lost my wife several years ago) I found theology one of the greatest comforts available. God was the solid rock in my own personal tsunami. He is real, and what we think about Him does have a significant bearing on how we react to our suffering.

Addressing the Atheist

I have no particular atheist in mind here, but “atheists in general” have been quick to jump on this quake as a salient demonstration of the non-existence of God. Atheists as people have every right to raise this excellent objection. However, they do not have the right to raise it as atheists anymore than a man has a right to raise the question; “How may I relieve my menstrual cramps?” Atheism simply lacks the proper equipment to make sense of the question. Unfortunately, they have raised the question of evil so often that it is no longer apparent just how ridiculous atheism looks doing so.

For a Christian, human beings are made in the image of God, and the suffering of God’s image-bearers is a palpably bad thing. However, humans only have this value placed on them because of their relationship to God. If you remove God from the picture, humans lose their value. It is no understatement to say that no philosophy or worldview in the world gives human beings the honor and dignity that the bible does, and this high view of humanity is what generates the problem of human suffering. This worldview provides ample equipment to legitimately criticize any mistreatment of humans, and provides the framework necessary to ask questions about the justness of their suffering. The question of suffering is thus an explicitly Christian (or Jewish) question, for it is a question that is raised by our view of the world.

By contrast, atheism has no such resources. A bunch of hairless hominids decided to build a country near a major geological fault line -end of story. Suffering cannot be related to the dignity of humans, for theoretically, they have none. Suffering is the activity of nerves that send unpleasant signals to our brains when tissue is damaged, or social relations are terminated by death and disaster.

Other than the new atheists like Dawkins and Hitchens who resolutely avoid this question, this is plainly acknowledged by more responsible atheists themselves: Kai Nielsen and Jonathan Shook are good examples of intellectually honest atheists who have freely confessed their lack of ability to explain the existence or nature of what we call “good and evil”. Notice it’s not just the inability to explain its existence, they don’t even know what it is! This is why atheism looks ridiculous asking this question; if you have no idea what the subject under discussion is, how do you figure you have anything coherent to say about it?

Let me be careful to note that I am addressing atheism as theory: as theory, the question is incoherent coming from within atheism. However, the question is valid for atheists as people, for they are made in the image of God. Though their worldview doesn’t equip them to make any rational sense of the dignity of humans, they nevertheless know it, for God has put that knowledge in us all. This simply needs to be pointed out to them, because most atheists have a high regard for evidence.

Here it can be said that the strength of a theory depends on its ability to account for a wide array of evidence: in science, the more a theory can regularly account for the data, the better the theory is. This criteria can likewise be applied to philosophy, and here atheism is the philosophical equivalent of flat-earth science. It is unable to account for a massive array of data. The entire field of ethics is, en masse, unexplained. People and society cannot function without ethics: we need ethics in the workplace, in politics, in our hearts. Atheism thus remains ignorant about matters that pertain to almost every area of life. How much less then, does it have anything to say about suffering caused by earthquakes.

Addressing the Christians

Christians I’m afraid, haven’t always done the best job of addressing this question either, but at least we can claim that is it our question, and we have a right to ask and answer it: we are consistent in doing so. Let’s look at some of those answers, because some of the answers often given could use some internal criticism.

The "Natural Law" Answer

One answer I heard a few nights ago on the radio came from the influential Christian apologists and former US politician, Chuck Colson. Basically, he gave a Christianized version of the atheist answer: “Rational image-bearers of God built a country on a faultline, and God has commanded us to take account of the order of creation and act accordingly: in this case, we took a calculated risk. Now that choice has resulted in catastrophe, and our ethical response is compassion.” (My rough paraphrase) Colson is right as far as pointing out that the Christian worldview provides the rational grounding for the existence of earthquakes, but this seems to me to be avoiding the question of why a good God permits such suffering.

Basically, the answer to suffering is this: “The earthquake was caused by natural laws that God designed.” Sure. But we’re not questioning physical laws, the question is: “God being all-powerful, why would he deliberately create a universe with suffering?” or “Why doesn’t he intervene to prevent those laws from causing suffering?” Colson’s answer points to the mechanism of suffering, but fails to even address the nature or purpose of suffering. It is a non-answer, being roughly the same answer a thoughtful atheist gives: "natural laws caused this, let's get on with practical matters." The only difference is that for the Christian, God made those laws, whereas for the atheist, the laws just exist.

I have more to say about Christian answers to the problem of evil but due to length, I will save it for the next post.