Two Friends Ponder the Question:

“Where Was God During the Tsunami?”

Mano Singham, Ph.D.

Case Western Reserve University

Department of Physics 

Kim A. Hauenstein, D.Min.

United Protestant Campus Ministries in Cleveland

Executive Director

Exchange of e-mail messages – March 7-8, 2005

Where was God during the tsunami?  (Mano Singham)

Last Thursday I moderated a panel discussion (sponsored by the Hindu Students Association and the Religion Department at Case) on the topic of theodicy (theories to justify the ways of God to people, aka “why bad things happen to good people”) in light of the devastation wreaked by the tsunami, which killed an estimated quarter million people.

The panel comprised six scholars representing Judaism, Islam, Jainism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism and the discussion was thoughtful with a good sharing of ideas and concerns.

As the lay moderator not affiliated with any religious tradition, I opened by saying that it seemed to me that events like the tsunami posed a difficult problem for believers in a God because none of the three immediate explanations that come to mind about the role of God are very satisfying. The explanations are:

1. It was an act of commission. In other words, everything that happens is God’s will including the tsunami. This implies that God caused it to happen and hence can be viewed as cruel.
2. It was an act of omission. God did not cause the tsunami but did nothing to save people from its effects. This implies that God does not care about suffering.
3. It is a sign of impotence. God does care but is incapable of preventing such events. This implies that God is not all-powerful.

These questions can well be asked even for an isolated tragic event like the death of a child. But in those cases, it is only the immediate relatives and friends of the bereaved who ask such things. The tsunami caused even those not directly affected to be deeply troubled and it is interesting to ask why this is so.

Some possible reasons for this widespread questioning of religion are that the tsunami had a very rare combination of four features:

1. It was a purely natural calamity with no blame attached to humans. Other ‘natural’ disasters such as droughts and famines can sometimes be linked indirectly to human actions and blame shifted from God.
2. The massive scale of death and suffering.
3. The rapidity of the events, the large number of deaths on such a short time-scale.
4. The innocence of so many victims, evidenced by the fact that a staggering one-third of the deaths were of children.

Of course, although rare, such combinations of factors have occurred in the past and all the major religions are old enough to have experienced such events before and grappled with the theological implications. It was interesting to see the different ways in which the four theistic religions (Judaism, Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam) and the two non-theistic religions (Buddhism and Jainism) responded. But whatever the religion, it was clear that something has to give somewhere in the image of an all-knowing, all-powerful, benevolent God, whose actions we can comprehend.

As one panelist pointed out, the last feature (of the ability to comprehend the meaning of such events) is dealt with in all religions with an MWC (“mysterious ways clause”) that can be invoked to say that the actions of God are inscrutable and that we simply have to accept the fact that a good explanation exists, though we may not know it.

Each panelist also pointed out that each religious tradition is in actuality an umbrella of many strands and that there is no single unified response that can be given for such an event. Many of the explanations given by each tradition were shared by the others as well. In some ways, this diversity of explanations within each tradition is necessary because it is what enables them to hold on to a diverse base of adherents, each of whom will have a personal explanation that they favor and who will look to their religion for approval of that particular belief.

The possible explanations range over the following: that things like the tsunami are God’s punishment for either individual or collective iniquity; that they are sent to test the faith of believers (as in the Biblical story of Job); that God created natural laws and lets those laws work their way without interference; that God is “playing” with the world to remind us that this life is transitory and not important; that the tsunami was sent as a sign that the “end times” (when the apocalypse arrives) are near and hence should actually be seen as a joyous event; that it was a sign and reminder of God’s power and meant to inspire devotion; it was to remind us that all things are an illusion and that the events did not “really” happen.

All of these explanations posit a higher purpose for the tsunami, and some definitely relinquish the notion of God’s benevolence.

The non-theistic religions have as their explanatory core for events the notion of karma. Karma is often loosely thought of as fate but the speakers pointed out that karma means action and carries the implication that we are responsible for our actions and that our actions create consequences. Thus there is the belief in the existence of cause-and-effect laws but there is no requirement for the existence of a law-giver (or God). The karma itself is the cause of events like the tsunami and we do not need an external cause or agent to explain it. The MWC is invoked even in this case to say that there is no reason to think that the ways the karmic laws work are knowable by humans.

The non-theistic karma traditions do not believe in the existence of evil or an evil one. But there is a concept of moral law or justice (“dharma”) and the absence of justice (“adharma”), and events like the tsunami may be an indication that total level of dharma in the world is declining. These traditions also posit that the universe is impermanent and that the real problem is our ignorance of its nature and of our transitory role in it.

The problem for the karma-based religions with things like the tsunami is understanding how the karma of so many diverse individuals could coincide so that they all perished in the same way within the space of minutes. But again, the MWC can be invoked to say that there is no requirement that we should be able to understand how the karmic laws work

(One question that struck me during the discussion was that in Hinduism, a belief in God coexists with a belief in karma and I was not sure how that works. After all, if God can intervene in the world, then can the karmic laws be over-ridden? Perhaps someone who knows more about this can enlighten me.)

Are any of these explanations satisfying? Or do events like the tsunami seriously undermine people’s beliefs in religion? That is something that each person has to decide for himself or herself.

Dear Mano,

   I am so sorry to have missed this panel. 

   The idea of God and disaster is one that I had to resolve for myself before I could finally take my vows in ministry.  It was definitely a crisis of faith during my college and seminary years until finally it made sense to me through the writings of Alfred North Whitehead, Charles Hartshorne, and John Cobb, Jr., in what is now known as process theology (and in Whitehead's case, process philosophy).  This system of thought does not provide any great sense of comfort for the victims or for those who continue to live with the pain of loss, but it does, for me, explain God's role in a much better way than simply God's being "missing" in one way or another.

    I believe that process thought also associates with the Hindu concept of karma in certain ways and its bent toward other eastern philosophies has caused it to be held in much suspicion by western philosophers and theologians.  I have not found it to be a problem.  But, as with karma, it stresses the free will and the repercussions coming from our decisions. If we decide to start a war, or produce an act of violence against another human being, it is our responsibility, not God's, nor is it God's will for us to act violently.  The best explanation of this I know is Charles Hartshorne's The Divine Relativity in which he defines God in this way:  God is omniscient, omnipresent (process theology understands God in the eastern way of being fully present in all of nature and at the "atman" of all things), but not omnipotent.  This is the major difference from traditional theology.  Orthodox theology does see God as all three and if God is omnipotent, then God does have the power and responsibility to produce disasters and for whatever reason to kill innocent people.  That was a problem for my faith and the major one I had to resolve in seminary, where I came into touch with Hartshorne.  If God is that capricious and unreliable in terms of God's love (which I believe to be the basis of God's presence), then how can one trust, or have faith, in such an unpredictable God and how can one ask others to have trust?  It appears that in the discussion, it was said that this is a must:  that we must trust God, no matter what terrible things happen.  But if our basis for trust is God's love, and all of a sudden God is wrath, how can that be?

     For process theology, the only value in a disaster is viewing it in retrospect and gaining some sense of reassurance from the way people respond lovingly to crisis, and things like that.  The disaster itself is seen as nothing but what it is:  pure terror, pure accident caused by the freedom of even the smallest creatures in the universe to act in a way that is contrary to God's will of love.  In other words, atoms themselves have freedom and karma, even though it might be understood differently as the karma that humans possess with a better understanding of the possible results of their actions.  The atoms might not know the results of their actions, but they still possess the freedom to react in ways other than beneficent.  They might combine in ways that create a tornado or a hurricane or a tsunami.  What is God's part?

      As mentioned previously, God is seen, in process theology, as knowing everything that has ever happened, everything that is happening now, and all the POSSIBILITIES of what could happen in the future; that is understood as God's omniscience.  However, in process theology, God is DEPENDENT on the creatures to make the proper decisions so that the future will be in line with beneficence and love rather than violence and hate, or even natural disaster as caused by some out-of-control natural causes.  At one time, God was blamed for terrible illnesses, for instance.  Science (and this is why science and religion work so closely in my own philosophy, even though I know very little of science) produced cures for those illnesses and they are largely eliminated.  The illnesses were not God's will, all along.  God's will was for us to find the answer to eliminate them.  So it is with natural disasters, as far as I understand process theology.  We have not found the answers to hurricane or tornado or tsunami; the furthest we have gotten at this point is to be able to predict them and protect people in that way from their destruction.  I think one of the issues in the current tsunami was that some scientific predictors were not yet in place in that area and that many lives would have been spared if there had been appropriate warning.

      So the argument in process theology is that God's power is, indeed, limited to what can best be described, I think, as persuasion... persuading us through God's manifestations in all of the religious traditions of how to live in a way that leads to peace and well-being for all people and for the creation.  If we understand God’s omniscience to be unlimited in terms of knowing all the possibilities of the future, there is still the part of our own personal responsibility on behalf of individuals (and even extending to the smallest in the created order) to be co-creators of the future in a way that is more in line with the beneficent spirit that has manifested itself through the various religious traditions.   If we believe that God gives the creatures both freedom and the responsible use of that freedom, as I do, then the only alternative for understanding God is that God is dependent on us for making right decisions.  That provides the reason for the belief that this God cannot force us to do the right thing, but can only persuade us to do so.  And that, by its very nature, limits God's power.  For better or worse, God is dependent on us to use our freedom responsibly and in a way that benefits rather than harms the creation.

     Process theology is certainly not the dominant or orthodox theology of either Christianity or Judaism, primarily because of this limit that it places on God's omnipotence.  But, to some of us, it makes more sense than the belief in a supreme being who is sometimes love, sometimes wrath  -- sometimes loving and at other times smiting innocent people.

      Thanks again for your willingness to lead that panel, which must have been quite a challenge not only in coordinating the various presentations, but also in realizing the tremendous emotional trauma of particularly the Hindu students who undoubtedly had friends and family who were affected by the disaster.  And thanks also for your concise report of what happened and your own response.  I appreciated it very much.

       All the best,

              Kim

Kim A. Hauenstein, D.Min.
Executive Director, United Protestant Campus Ministries
Adjunct Faculty in Religious Studies, Cuyahoga Community College
11205 Euclid Avenue
Cleveland, OH 44106
(216) 231-2260, ext. 1
Fax: (216) 791-2228 (attn: Kim H)
preferred e-mail: kim.hauenstein@sbcglobal.net

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