Marshall Brain - How God Works: A Logical Inquiry on Faith

IMAGINE THAT YOU AND I ARE SITTING POOLSIDE AT A BEAUTIFUL RESORT NEAR BANDA ACEH, A CITY IN NORTHERN SUMATRA. The beach is nearby and we are enjoying drinks as our children splash happily in the shallows. It is a stunning, sunny day with a light, balmy breeze rustling the palm treesa perfect day to be on vacation in this little slice of paradise. It is also the day after Christmas. Everyone is happy and smiling with the joy that surrounds the Christmas season.

Then we feel the earthquake. It rattles the furniture, shakes the buildings, knocks things over in the bar, and causes ripples to form on the surface of the pool. It lasts for what seems like an eternity but in reality is just a minute or two. There is something completely unnatural about the earth itself shuddering underneath you. And then it is over, as though nothing has happened. The sun is still out. The children return to their play. The birds continue singing. Earthquakes happen and life goes on. This one does not seem to have been that destructive.

Unfortunately, this has been no normal earthquake. It is so powerful that, over a thousand miles away, buildings are shaking in Bangkok, Thailand. It is one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded, and it has caused a gigantic tectonic plate deep under the ocean off the coast of Indonesia to quickly shift upward by as much as six feet (two meters). This shift will force many cubic miles of seawater upward as well, and in just a few seconds. All of that displaced water has to go somewhere. It spreads out in all directions and, over time, will crash upon many shores in the form of tsunamis.

Banda Aceh is the closest major city to the epicenter of the quake, and about twenty-five minutes later it is the first to feel the impact of all of this uplifted water. In the distance, the oncoming wall of brine is easy to see. Several waves, one as high as thirty feet (nine meters), will rush onto the shore, flooding inland up to two miles (four kilometers). Over 150,000 people in the city will die on December 26, 2004. There are many videos available on the Internet to help you understand what a disaster like this looks like if you are on the ground to witness it. What the videos cannot do is convey how horrific it is to actually be there as a participant.

If you and I are Christians or Muslims or members of another organized religion that advocates the belief in a higher power, and if we happen to be lucky enough to survive the tsunami with our families intact, we may sit down together afterward feeling a combination of shock, nausea, and anguish. We will feel relief because of our survival, certainly, but given that 150,000 fellow human beings are dead all around us, it may be impossible to feel any gratitude. If we were to become philosophical and ponder the utter destruction we have just witnessed, a disaster like this may cause us to ask legitimate questions. We are smart, rational people after all, and it is impossible to ignore such immense tragedy when we are located right in the middle of it. A catastrophe like this should logically raise questions about the God whom we pray to and worship. We would legitimately want to know: How does God work?

For example: Why would any loving God allow an unmitigated disaster like this to occur? It is an obvious question and anyone in such a situation would ask it. Since our God is all-knowing and prayer-answering, surely He knew this tsunami was coming and had the ability to prevent it. So why did He allow such an amazing cataclysm to unfold? The unfortunate thing about a question like this is that God will not answer directly. God will never sit down beside us and offer a clear, definitive explanation for why 150,000 people died in Banda Aceh. We know and accept that God does not materialize to do interviews when requested. But the questions remain.

Therefore, an alternative is to turn to some proxy for God Himself. We might, for example, open a holy book like the Bible or the Quran. God may offer some insight here. Or we might ask religious leaders for their interpretation of events and Gods reasoning. We might try praying, with the hope that God will speak to us internally with answers. Or we might rely on introspection and speculation to arrive at answers to our questions. Using the information available, we might try to develop several different explanations to help us cope with the disaster that has unfolded before us.

It could be that this truly is an Act of God. That is how insurance companies and many commentators are going to classify it. Perhaps God, in his infinite wisdom, may have decided that a tsunami needed to take place and that hundreds of thousands of people needed to die for some reason on that day in Indonesia. Or perhaps, as some believe, an event like this is a precursor to the end of time. It really isnt possible to argue with a supreme being, and there is not currently a way for human beings to stop a natural disaster of this magnitude. Whether it is a hurricane, a tornado, a volcano, a blizzard, a massive hailstorm, a flooding river, a drought, a monsoon, or an earthquake/tsunami like this one, any Act of God that arrives in the form of a natural disaster can cause a huge amount of suffering, pain, and death. Perhaps someone or something upset God? Maybe God needed to smite a person, a city, or an entire nation for some reason? Or perhaps the tsunami is Gods punishment for a social evil festering in the region? God is known to snuff out entire cities in the Bible. For that matter, in the book of Genesis, God flooded the entire planet at one point. If God has His reasons, who are we to question Him?