Why Does God Allow Tragedies Caused by Natural Disasters, Accidents, and Diseases?
Introduction
We saw in our last post that much of the pain and suffering we see in the world is due to the misuse of our own moral freedom, or free will. That is, we are the cause of the terrible things that we do to each other. And this is called Moral Evil.
But what about all of the tragedy caused by natural disasters, accidents, and diseases that don’t seem to be anybody’s fault? This is called Natural Evil, and Christianity has an answer.
The short answer is that God never meant for the world to be this way. In fact, in the beginning it wasn’t. But due to heartbreaking events that unfolded between Adam and Eve and God, we live in a very different world unfortunately.
What Happened?
To understand, we need to go back to the very beginning of human history. I describe the story more fully in a prior post, and I’ll borrow from some of that post a bit here.
When God created the universe and the earth, everything was a perfect paradise. There were no bad things at all, and no evil. There was no sickness, no pain, no violence, not even death. The Bible tells us that at that time, the animals didn’t even eat each other (Gen. 1:29-30). And when God completed his creation, he surveyed all he had made and declared that it was very good (Gen. 1:31).
Adam and Eve, the first two human beings that God created, had a wonderful relationship with God. It appears that God would even come down to the garden of Eden where they lived and walk and talk with them “in the cool of the day” (Gen. 3:8).[1]
God loved Adam and Eve, and all he ever really wanted was for them to love him as well.
By the way, God still loves everyone to this day, and all he wants is for us to love him too. And each other. But God doesn’t force anyone to love him, does he? Why? Because a forced love is really no love at all. Due to the very nature of love, love needs to be a choice.
So God gave all of us a very good but powerful gift: the freedom to choose. And if we choose other than God, he leaves us alone.
I guess that Adam and Eve must not have loved God very much because they didn’t want to honor his wishes. All he asked was that they not eat the fruit of just one of the trees in the garden. He warned them that if they did, they would die. But they did eat it. And when they did, they were choosing to take life on their own terms, away from God. That’s when everything changed.
That’s when sin and all of its terrible consequences entered into all of creation, and Adam and Eve, for the first time. Christianity calls this The Fall.
I think of it like pouring a tablespoon of red food coloring into a beautiful fish aquarium. The dye will quickly spread and get into everything—the rocks, plants, gravel. Even the fish will take it in. This is how sin contaminated the world. This is when suffering, sickness, disease, viruses, violence, all bad things, including death, came into the world for the first time.
Adam and Eve betrayed God’s love and trust, and destroyed the amazing relationship they had with him. God cursed the ground and sent them out of the garden of Eden, preventing access to the rejuvenating power of the tree of life (Gen. 3:17, Gen. 3:23-24).
As a result, Adam and Eve would die, just as God had warned. God did not specify when or how. It could be within eight months, eight years or eighty years; from accident, drowning, or disease. But they did eventually die, and so do all of the rest of us (Rom. 5:12).
Is that fair?
Sin is a corruption of what was previously good. Since Adam and Eve could not pass on what they didn’t have anymore, they passed this corruption of sin onto their children, and eventually on to all of the rest of us. You could say that none of this was any of our fault. But we participate. We all sin, don’t we?
So in a real sense, Adam and Eve ruined everything. They brought a sinful nature into themselves and into all of the rest of us; and brought corruption into all of creation (Rom. 8:20).
Nevertheless, this isn’t the end of the story. We’re in a desperate situation for sure, but God has already provided a way for us to be rescued from this horrible sin. Christianity calls it the Good News, or the Gospel, and I’ll let you read all about it in this other post.
Conclusion
So the Christian view is that most Natural Evil, that is, the suffering due to natural disasters and violence, accidents, sickness, and disease, is a result of that original sin by Adam and Eve. Their betrayal of God brought a corrupted sinful state into themselves, all of the rest of us, and in fact, into all of creation.
I know that sometimes this answer doesn’t help those who are hurting. For anyone who’s been crushed by grief, I know that questions remain.
Why doesn’t God just stop the bullet?
Or the accident?
Or the cancer?
We’ll discuss this question in our next post.
[1]I believe this passage may suggest pre-incarnate appearances of Jesus with Adam and Eve. See this article with more on Old Testament Christophanies and Theophanies; accessed 1/9/21.