Tsunami: Is there a reason?

by Editor · January 12, 2005

There is no point in waiting for the dust to settle before commenting on the tsunami catastrophe in south-east Asia. The dust is not likely to clear for, perhaps, another generation or longer. Yet this newspaper, with other forms of world media, cannot but reflect on what has happened, and what sort of reaction it has caused on our stunned planet.

Scientists can provide explanations about how the killer waves originated, how they swelled and reached a horrifying crescendo to blot out the lives of thousands of people who were no different from us. We hear continued descriptions of how survivors lost their families, livelihoods and homes, washed away into nothingness and despair.

Explanations for the tsunami can be easily digested. They offer some rational basis for a disaster that is not new in the history of our beautiful planet.

When it comes to offering a reason for this grisly shambles, we are literally on shaky ground. Christians and others who have faith in a provident and loving God, struggle to reconcile his goodness with his apparent indifference to our insecurity and loss. Does he have a specific reason for permitting the tsunami when and where it struck? Those without faith scoff at our question and label us as naive.

But those with faith in Christ must ask, because we are certain that God is infinitely good, and he cannot confuse good with evil. We look for a deeper understanding of his will for his creation.

To deny the faith now, is to be like the man who received the seed on patches of rock. He is the man “who hears the word of God and welcomes it at once with joy. But he has no root in him, he does not last; let some trial come, or some persecution on account of the word, and he falls away at once” (Matthew 13:20).

A firm faith, which we believe is a gift from God, understands that it cannot give clear reasons for itself. Although it may be derided because it appears to be locked inside itself, isolated from the real world of sophisticated minds, its speculation remains Christ-centred. Like the blessed Virgin, we ponder these things in our hearts (Luke 2:20).

Our faith gives us an optimism that completely contradicts the pessimism of those who deny divine providence. St Paul expressed it by saying: “I think that what we suffer in this life can never be compared to the glory as yet unrevealed, which is waiting for us” (Romans 8:18). For all that, many today reject this viewpoint and argue that it does not tell why so many innocent lives were cut short, nor comfort those left behind in grief and desolation.

Without appearing smug, therefore, we must admit that we cannot give a cogent reason for this traumatising natural upheaval. But in our wonderment and awe at the powers of God’s creation, we can reaffirm our faith in Christ and in what he has already revealed to us about this world and the next.

One clear lesson from this is that within a day, the event has broken down many artificial barriers among our apparently incompatible human cultures, prejudices and independent groups. Abruptly, we are faced with our common humanity. We are all equal, equally affected by the same tragedy in the same ways. For too long we have divided ourselves and neglected the poor and vulnerable. Our calling is to love one another.

“We firmly believe that God is master of the world and its history. But the ways of his providence are often unknown to us. Only in the end, when our partial knowledge ceases, when we see God face to face, will we fully know the ways by which, even through the dramas of evil and sin, God has guided his creation to that definite sabbath rest for which he created heaven and earth” (The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 314).