Some Thoughts About Haiti and Theodicy

Bill Muehlenberg of "Culture Watch" has an excellent post up entitled Haiti and Theodicy There are a lot of good Christian commentaries on the blogs about the tragic earthquake in Haiti, including guesses as to God's role in allowing it to happen. Perhaps what is most important is what we can all learn from such a disaster. Bill's post is one of the best!

Excerpt:

Atheists will simply use this most recent tragedy as another attempt to say, “See, I told you so – of course there is no God”. They will seek to offer this disaster as more evidence that the biblical conception of a benevolent deity is untenable and must be utterly rejected.

This of course is an age-old debate, and it is unlikely that either side will willingly cede any ground here, or offer any new insights or arguments. And one can rightly ask whether either side should be seeking to score cheap points here in the face of such unmitigated human suffering.

But like the earlier quake, such disasters inevitably bring out profound questioning, from both believers and non-believers alike. Thus we have an obligation to try to make sense of all this, at least on the basis of our own particular worldview.

That certainly describes what has been going on in the comment thread of my original post about the devastating earthquake in Haiti! Be sure to go over and read Muehlenberg's entire essay.

Here is a copy of my comment there (still in moderation as of 6:34 a.m. PT):

People at my blog have been arguing over God’s role in this disaster. Your post is one of the best that I have read so far. Thank you so much for sharing it with us.

One Christian writer once summed up that the deaths of Christian believers from disasters (or any other cause of death for that matter) can be viewed as being “taken away from evil.” We know that Haiti has suffered from decades of evil influence.

We also know that God is a God of redemption. Being reconciled back to God the Father through His Son, Jesus Christ, is the most important decision a person can make on this earth. The Bible tells us to “redeem the time for the days are evil.”

The lives lost and the suffering of those who are injured, hungry, thirsty, and without shelter is truly tragic, heartbreaking, and terribly sad. But each time we experience such things, we know how God the Father must have felt when His precious Son was injured, hungry, thirsty, severely beaten, spat upon, cursed at, humiliated and despised by those whom he came to save.

But what did Jesus say about them?

“Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.”

They couldn’t murder him. He voluntarily laid down his own life “as a ransom for many.” Of course, Jesus had the added horrid experience of taking the sins of the entire world upon himself so that we could be forgiven and reconciled back unto God; a burden that believers will never have to face because of Christ’s finished work at the cross of Calvary. His resurrection from the dead is proof that He is who he says he is and He keeps his promises to those who are called by His name.

Redemption often comes out of suffering and tragedies more than when people are comfortable. Many of those who survive the Haiti earthquake of 2010 will receive the life-giving eternal message of the Gospel. Many people who are watching this tragedy unfold may re-think their current status of spiritual oblivion and will likely receive the Gospel message that they may have rejected in the past. That is the true and everlasting comfort that will come to those who have been affected by this event of natural evil.

As commenter Ewan McDonald had stated in this thread, “the length of our lives in this life is in comparison a ‘vapour.’ What matters is where we will spend eternity, not how many years we get in this life.”

More lives will be saved, spiritually speaking, as a result of this horrible devastation. Those who probably would not have been given (or accepting of) the Gospel will change their attitudes, and thus their eternal destination. That is God “redeeming the time for the days are evil.”

Hat Tip:

Culture Watch

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Update:

Joel Rosenberg has a post up that reminds us of what will occur during the end times via biblical prophecy:

Joel Rosenberg Blog: BIBLE SAYS ISRAEL, WORLD TO FACE MAJOR EARTHQUAKES IN LAST DAYS: Israel not prepared
Bible prophecies tell us to expect multiple severe earthquakes in the last days.

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Update:

Bill Muehlenberg has posted my comment and replied! He wrote:

Bill Muehlenberg
16.1.10 / 1am Thanks Christine

Yes sadly many people do not think about spiritual matters or the state of their soul until some tragedy strikes, wiping off the gloss of this world, and reminding them of eternal verities. We need to pray for all those affected, for their physical condition as well as for their spiritual condition.

Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch

Well said and I completely agree!

Help is on the way, but I have been heard via the news that it has become difficult to get the food and supplies to the victims. I pray that the distribution of food, water, medical supplies and shelter will get to the people ASAP.