Why are there natural disasters?

What the Bible says

After a tsunami sweeps away a town, people ask: why here, and where was God? If you are reading this after losing family or home to a disaster, this is no theory for you. Scripture does not pretend to know every reason, so let us begin with what it refuses to say.

In Jesus' day two reports were going around: Pilate had killed some Galileans at their sacrifices, and a tower in Siloam had fallen and crushed eighteen people. One was human evil, the other an accident. People wanted to believe the victims had been worse sinners. Jesus rejected that thought head on.

Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam collapsed on them: Do you think that they were more sinful than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you. But unless you repent, you too will all perish.

Luke 13:4-5

To those who survive, Jesus says that life is fragile, so do not put off turning to God. The call to repent is to the living, not a diagnosis of the dead. Jesus also said that God sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous (Matt 5:45). Nature does not pick its targets by merit.

Why, then, the destruction in nature? Paul says that the whole creation is not as it should be.

For the creation was subjected to futility, not by its own will, but because of the One who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until the present time.

Rom 8:20-22

Genesis says that humanity's turning from God affected the ground as well (Gen 3:17-19). Christians differ about how far this reaches. Many read the curse on the ground with Romans 8: before the fall there was no death or destructive upheaval, and all creation now shares the fall's ruin. Others, accepting a long history of the earth, hold that moving plates and the cycles of life belonged to a "very good" world from the start, good but not yet complete (see Is Genesis history?). Both agree on the centre of Romans 8: the world as it is now is not what God finally means to give.

Scripture also says that God stands above nature's rough forces. He set bounds for the sea (Job 38:8-11), and though the mountains topple into the seas, he is a refuge (Psalm 46:1-3). This declares his authority; it does not explain disasters.

And the Gospels show frightened disciples in a storm. The boat is filling, and they wake the sleeping Jesus.

“Teacher, don’t You care that we are perishing?” Then Jesus got up and rebuked the wind and the sea. “Silence!” He commanded. “Be still!”

Mark 4:38-39

Their protest is recorded raw. Jesus calmed that storm, yet much remains that he does not yet stop, and Scripture does not smooth over that tension. It carries on to a final promise.

‘He will wipe away every tear from their eyes,’ and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the former things have passed away.

Rev 21:4

The church's witness

On the morning of All Saints' Day, 1 November 1755, a great earthquake struck Lisbon, followed by a tsunami and fires. Most of the city was destroyed and tens of thousands died, many while gathered in church. Some preachers declared it God's punishment. Across Europe, thinkers pressed the question against the optimistic claim that everything is for the best. Voltaire wrote a poem attacking it, and Rousseau replied that nature had not made people crowd into tall houses, so much of the toll came from human choices. Afterwards many grew more careful about reading a disaster as punishment on particular people, though not all believers reached the same conclusion.

Matthew Henry, on Romans 8, writes: "The miseries of the human race, through their own and each other's wickedness, declare that the world is not always to continue as it is" Matthew Henry. On Luke 13 he says that Christ "cautioned his hearers not to blame great sufferers, as if they were therefore to be accounted great sinners" Matthew Henry.

In the original languages

"Creation" in Romans 8:22 is ktisis (κτίσις), a word that can mean everything created. Paul says that this creation "groans together" and "suffers birth pains together." The Greek verbs are sustenazo (συστενάζω) and sunodino (συνωδίνω).

The image of birth pangs matters. Labour is painful, but it is pain moving toward new life. Paul does not make light of destruction; he calls it groaning, but a groaning with a direction. Present sufferings, he says, are not comparable to the glory to be revealed (Rom 8:18). That does not make them small; what is coming is simply far greater. Interpreters differ on who "the One who subjected it" is. Many take it to be God, some Adam or Satan.

Common objections

"If God is almighty, he could have made a world without earthquakes that kill. The designer is responsible." If God is the creator of everything, the laws of nature are his responsibility too. No answer dissolves this entirely, but some things can be said. Earth scientists explain that the movement of plates, which causes earthquakes, is bound up with the processes that build mountains, continents and fertile land. A world of regular laws may be a condition of a world where life can flourish and people can choose and learn. Yet this does not justify the scale of the harm, and why regularity must include so much destruction Scripture does not say. What it does say is that this world is not the final one.

"The Bible itself has floods, Sodom and plagues as punishments. Then are disasters punishments for sin?" Scripture does present some disasters as God's judgment: Noah's flood, Sodom, the plagues of Egypt. But in those cases God himself named the judgment, usually with warning beforehand. Jesus forbade concluding, after the event, that victims were worse sinners. Interpreting a disaster after it has happened is what Job's friends did, and God rebuked them (Job 42:7). No one can know that a particular disaster is a judgment on its victims, and it must never be said to those who are suffering. The question continues in Is sickness a punishment for sin?.

"Then where was God in the disaster? I prayed, and he did not stop it." The Bible's answer is presence more than reason. The LORD is near to the brokenhearted (Psalm 34:18). Many Christians testify that they met God's presence through rescuers, people sharing food, someone weeping beside them. This does not end the question. But the God of Scripture is not one who looks down on the afflicted from above; he is one who is in the boat in the storm.

Going further

The most honest summary may be this. Those who die in a disaster were not worse sinners than others. The creation is groaning and not yet made whole. God is with those who suffer in it. And he has promised a new heaven and a new earth (2 Pet 3:13). This does not rebuild the ruins. But it spares the victims any blame and says that comfort and help come before explanations.

You might ask yourself: When I hear of a disaster, do I pray and look for a way to help before I argue about reasons? Before someone who is suffering, are my words comfort or verdict? In hope of what I cannot yet see, what can I do today for a neighbour in need (Rom 8:24-25)?

To read further, see Why does a good God allow evil? and Is God in control of everything?. Reading Job 38-42 and Psalm 46 slowly is also a good place to start.