Date: 7 November 2005
Subject: Tsunami

As we come into a new year of 2005, the Boxing Day Tsusami will be in many of our minds. What are we to make of it all as Christians?

Firstly, the science.

Nineteenth century geologists (like as Adam Segdwick) were aware that mountains are in ranges with some kind of apparent pattern. They speculated about how these were formed (eg there was a theory by Ellie De Beaumont, favoured for a while by Sedgwick, which thought of comparatively sudden formation) In 1915, the German scientist Alfred Wegener wrote his book On the Origin of Continents and Oceans. This proposed a theory of “continental drift” in which parts of the Earth's crust slowly move across a liquid core. There did seem evidence for this but it remained controversial. In the 1960’s, however, the two ideas were developed together in the theory of “plate tectonics”. On the earth’s surface there are 21 large and solid “plates” moving relative to each other at between 1-10cm per year. Where these separate (as in the mid Atlantic) there is a deep sea trench, and a line of potential volcanic activity as the earth’s magma comes through the cracks. Where one impacts against or slides under the other (as in India impacting Eurasia) a mountain range or high Plateau form (as in Tibet and the Himalayas). Where one slides under another there is also friction, and this can build up until there is a sudden jolt of movement, which is experienced as an earthquake.

On December 26th in the Indian Ocean just north of Simeulue island, off the western coast of northern Sumatra, Indonesia, the Indian and Australian jolted against each other and an undersea earthquake was set off which registered over 9 on the Richter scale. The earthquake set off a tsunami devastating parts of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, South India, Thailand etc with waves up to 100 ft, and enormous human and economic costs.

Human Involvement

Many disasters have a large element of human blame involved. Some famines are due to the way we have destroyed forests, or failed for political reasons to utilise natural resources. But what about the effects of Tsunami?

One question is whether such geological effects are part of the divine design for planet earth. I some ways of thinking, particular some young-earth creationists (yec), the planet as originally created was idyllic with no physical death, no animal suffering, etc. Presumably the planet then had no plate tectonics, no earthquakes, and no tsunami would be possible. Now in Genesis God does say to the man: “Cursed is the ground for your sake; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life.” (Gen 3:17) In context this seems to be saying that the man will relate to the earth in a different way. He was actually put there to till it and keep it – but now the work will be burdensome. This yec view has to press this statement to imply that at this moment the entire ecology of the earth changed. From this point on, deep-sea fish began for the first time to eat each other, the ichneumon wasp began (or started to evolve?) its often unsavoury life-cycle, and, presumably, the whole structure of the earth changed so that for the first time plates began to move and earthquakes occur. All this is, of course, possible, but it seems a lot to read into a statement about the man finding thistles in the crops. It also makes a nonsense of supposing that the creation (as the yec think) took place in six literal days which were already past. So much re-creation must have taken place at this point, that the earth must hardly even resemble what was made in the official original six days. “Where were you”, God asks Job, “when I laid the foundations of the earth?” (Job 38:4). There is no indication that, having originally laid them, God completely redid them after the man sinned – in which case Job might have claimed that in a sense a human representative was there. All this is absurd. There is simply no indication in the Bible that any such vast redesigning of the earth and nature occurred after man arrived and began sinning. There are fundamental biblical, as well as scientific, reasons to believe it mistaken.

So we are left with the truth that God put mankind onto an earth with moving plates. So where does that leave us?

One suggestion might be that the tsunami was a direct act of God in judgement. Christians believe both that the universe and its laws are continually maintained by God, and also that God can act through nature. The Noachic flood is a biblical example of such judgement of a universal wickeness – though in general (in the words of Abraham) we don’t seem to find God “destroying the righteous with the wicked”. There was no “ark” or “House of Rahab” through which the unfortunate victims of the Tsunami could escape, and But are all natural disasters to be taken thus? Doubtless there may be some Christians who find some strict Islamic sect affected by the Tsunami (just as there was newspaper reports of one Islamic imam who thought it all due to a beach party somewhere in the region). One has to say that in a region where there were so many diverse people from evangelicals to strict Muslims, then whatever one’s version of “fundamentalism” it seems extraordinary to suppose that God used so blunt an instrument as a Tsunami to devastate so much and kill so many people.

We don’t of course, know exactly what relationship humankind were supposed to have in having “dominion” over the world. We don’t know what kind of relationship we could have had with the Father. We can note also that Job faced the mystery of suffering – and the answer given him was a deeper encounter with God rather than an intellectually satisfying set of propositions. Paul in Romans 8:29 comments that the whole creation groans with birth-pangs even until now. Birth-pangs herald the arrival of something new and wonderful, and the Christian hope is for a new creation where there will be no sorrow or hurt. But all of this cannot fully answer our questions. It has to leave us, as it has left any believers through history, with a certain mystery concerning suffering.