Can God Intervene? How Religion Explains Natural Disasters

by Gary H. Stern

The death and devastation wrought by the tsunami in South Asia, Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf states, the earthquake in Pakistan, the mudslides in the Philippines, the tornadoes in the American Midwest, another earthquake in Indonesia-these are only the most recent acts of God to cause people of faith to question God's role in the physical universe. Volcanic eruptions, wildfires, epidemics, floods, blizzards, droughts, hailstorms, and famines can all raise the same Can God intervene in natural events to prevent death, injury, sickness, and suffering? If so, why does God not act? If not, is God truly the All-Loving, All-Powerful, and All-Present Being that many religions proclaim? Grappling with such questions has always been an essential component of religion, and different faiths have arrived at wildly different answers.



To explore various religious explanations of the tragedies inflicted by nature, author Gary Stern has interviewed 43 prominent religious leaders across the religious spectrum, among them Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People; Father Benedict Groeschel, author of Arise from Darkness; The Rev. James Rowe Adams, founder of the Center for Progressive Christianity; Kenneth R. Samples, vice president of Reason to Believe; Dr. James Cone, the legendary African American theologian; Tony Campolo, founder of the Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education; Dr. Sayyid Syeed, general secretary of the Islamic Society of North America; Imam Yahya Hendi, the first Muslim chaplain at Georgetown University; Dr. Arvind Sharma, one of the world's leading Hindu scholars; Robert A. F. Thurman, the first American to be ordained a Tibetan Buddhist monk; David Silverman, the national spokesman for American Atheists; and others―rabbis, priests, imams, monks, storefront ministers, itinerant holy people, professors, and chaplains―Jews, Roman Catholics, mainline Protestants, evangelical Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Atheists-people of belief, and people of nonbelief, too.



Stern asked each of them probing questions about what their religion teaches and what their faith professes regarding the presence of tragedy. Some feel that the forces of nature are simply impersonal, and some believe that God is omniscient but not omnipotent. Some claim that nature is ultimately destructive because of Original Sin, some assert that the victims of natural disasters are sinners who deserve to die, and some explain that natural disasters are the result of individual and collective karma. Still others profess that God causes suffering in order to test and purify the victims. Stern, an award-winning religion journalist, has extensive experience in this type of analytical journalism. The result is a work that probes and challenges real people's beliefs about a subject that, unfortunately, touches everyone's life.

240 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 5, 2000

Reviews

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are many factors that contribute to certain conclusions we reach when we consider the major questions of Life. As a long-time Christian, I had a real crisis of identity after a devastating tsunami struct the coasts of the Indian Ocean the day after Christmas, 2004. This one particular disaster resulted in the deaths of 250,000 people—men, women, and children—and it caused me to began a lifelong quest to answer the question: How can a loving and powerful God allow such a disaster to happen? The only logical answers to this question could be: 1. God caused or allowed this disaster to occur for some divine reason; 2. the disaster was simply a natural occurrence of nature and God was not powerful enough (or motivated enough) to stop it; or 3. There is no God—the disaster was simply a natural occurrence brought about by the indifferent, unconscious laws of nature.

I wish I had had this book when I began my quest, and the irony is, it was published in 2007 and was available near the beginning of my quest, but I didn’t find it until December, 2022.

"Can God Intervene?" surveys the opinions/conclusions of 43 well-known spokes-persons of nine world religions (including three atheists), many of whom answer, “Yes, God can intervene.” The one answer I thought most thought-provoking was that of Tony Compolo: “I believe that God has chosen not to be all-powerful. … If God were in control of everything, there would be no such thing as human freedom. Without human freedom, … we would have no capacity to love, either God or other people. Love requires freedom. … The loving God, in order to give us the capacity to love, has limited power. It was a choice. God made it.” (pg. 115). Thus, according to Compolo, it wasn’t that God couldn’t intervene, God is powerful enough to intervene, but he chooses not to in order for humans to have true freedom. I thought this was an interesting answer, however my own personal conclusion has not changed: There is no God; there is only the Universe.