Earthquake - Where's God?

“The most powerful earthquake to strike the East Coast in 67 years shook buildings and rattled nerves from South Carolina to Maine on Tuesday [August 23, 2011],” wrote Bob Lewis of the Associated Press. “Frightened office workers spilled into the streets in New York, and parts of the White House, Capitol and Pentagon were evacuated.”

A few injuries were reported but no deaths.

“A 5.8-magnitude quake releases as much energy as almost eight tons of TNT, about half the power of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan,” Lewis said about the recent quake.

What does God have to do with earthquakes?

The Rev. Charles Wesley reacted to the Lisbon, Portugal earthquake of 1755 with a sermon called “The Cause and Cure of Earthquakes.” Wesley indicated God uses quakes as warnings.

Wikipedia offers this information: “The 1755 Lisbon earthquake, also known as the ‘Great Lisbon Earthquake,’ was a mega-thrust earthquake that took place on Saturday 1 November 1755, at around 9:40 in the morning. The earthquake was followed by fires and a tsunami, which caused near-total destruction of Lisbon in the Kingdom of Portugal and adjoining areas.”

Seismologists estimate the Lisbon quake had a magnitude in the range of 8.5 to 9.0 on the “moment magnitude scale” and a death toll between 10,000 and 100,000 people.

Wesley said in his sermon about earthquakes, “Of all the judgments which the righteous God inflicts on sinners here in this world – the most dreadful and destructive is an earthquake. This He has lately brought on our part of the earth, and thereby alarmed our fears, and bid us to ‘prepare to meet our God!’ Earthquakes are the works of the Lord, and He alone brings this destruction upon the earth. That God is Himself the Author of earthquakes, and sin the moral cause of earthquakes (whatever the natural cause may be), cannot be denied by any who believe the Scriptures. [...] ‘He moves mountains without their knowing it and overturns them in His anger. He shakes the earth from its place and makes its pillars tremble!’ (Job 9:5-6).”

Stephen Rankin, chaplain at Southern Methodist University, says “‘The Cause and Cure of Earthquakes,’ reminds me again of how societies’ assumptions can change. The title alone strikes today’s reader as quaint, to say the least. […] Wesley’s sermon clearly indicates that God directly causes the earthquakes for the sake of judgment: a holy God uses natural disasters to judge and awaken wayward peoples. […] As I read, I was struck by how people today (in America) would likely respond. They probably would be quite offended with Wesley’s tone and claims. How could a loving God do such a thing? So, we face two conflicting worldviews. Wesley’s view, shared by many of his day, was of a holy, just, God who is Governor and Judge of the world. God has every right to use all means available to bring about God’s holy purposes. ‘Our lives are in God’s hands,’ and God can do as he sees fit. By contrast, listening to folks today, even ‘conservative evangelical’ Christians, God sounds more like an Attentive Helper, waiting to do our bidding.”

Rankin says that reading a sermon such as Wesley’s provokes questions.

“Virtually all Christians would agree that God can do things like cause earthquakes, but we likely would conclude that God does not directly cause them,” Rankin notes.

Perhaps many believe God’s loving nature does not will such evil on people. Many think God uses other, more gentle means and that natural disasters like earthquakes are an inevitable part of the kind of world God created, but not directly relatable to human sin nor to God’s direct action, Rankin says.

Rankin says, “The harshness of Wesley’s view may trouble us, but so should the God-as-Attentive-Helper view.”

Speaker Lehman Strauss says, “Look at Amos 3:6, where the prophet asked, ‘Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?’ The word evil here does not refer to moral evil, but rather a calamity. Through the prophet Isaiah, God said, ‘I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I, the Lord, do all these things’ (45:7). Again the word evil denotes any kind of a natural disaster such as a plague, drought, flood, or earthquake. Both Amos and Isaiah are telling us that nothing happens by accident. […] The supreme rulership of God is based upon the perfections of His divine being.”

There are many things we don’t understand, but God asks us to trust him. God is good and in control of all things.