Science and the Church
ASSOCIATE Vicar Lyndon North has organised a series of 'Science and the Church' lectures at St Andrew's.
The latest saw Cambridge University professor Robert White lead an intense discussion on a mysterious subject: Why does God allow natural disasters to happen?
Why did over 230,000 die in Haiti in January, or another 230,000 perish in the 2004 tsunami, or hundreds of thousands Pakistanis fall foul of those recent horrific floods?
Prof. White is a devout Christian but has demanded of himself: if God is the sovereign of the entire universe, can nothing happen without his knowledge or control - including the causes of suffering.
Does this mean that God wants such horrible things to happen? Can it even mean that the surfing a person experiences is God's punishment for their own sin?
"We don't know precisely why such things happen - our thoughts are not God's thoughts.," said Prof. White. "But we can hold on to the knowledge that in the midst of this confusing and often painful world, God is indeed perfectly just and loves us so much that he was prepared to die for each one of us."
"However...it is often human greed and selfishness that exacerbates the deaths and suffering from these natural phenomena. Often humans turn a natural process into a natural disaster.
"Buildings fell down and crushed many in Haiti because they weren't built properly in a place fully understood to be earthquake territory. An almost identical earthquake in California in 1989 caused just 50 deaths simply because building codes were enforced.
"Brutal dictators had dragged Haiti down to become one of the poorest nations while rich western countries refused to cancel debts to ease it's depressed economy.
"In Bangladesh in 1970 over 500,000 people died in dreadful floods. In 1999 144,000 perished.
"However, in 2007 in similar circumstances only 3,000 died because they had put in cyclone centres and mango swamps as natural buffers, and there were mobile phones to warn of impending doom.
"Simple things save lives.
"So the fact that human behaviour is so often involved in the pain of natural disasters underlines the bible's assertion that sin is at the root of all suffering, whether or not we can see an obvious connection of cause and effect in human suffering.
"All too often it's a case of not 'thy will be done, but mine will be done' - we've turned our back on God. Humans have used the world for selfish reasons, spoilt it and not looked after it like God intended.
"Remember, man is just as capable of building an MRI scanner as he is of making a bomb."
Prof White added: "But the biggest disaster, the Bible says., is to die alienated from God. We all deserve the death that is separation from God because of our rebellious sinfulness. None of is innocent. It is only through repentance and the acceptance of God's forgiveness that this will be reversed.
"But let's remember that for Christians we have the certain hope of a renewed creation where there will be no mourning or crying or pain. A place where God will come down to live with his people ,where we shall live in the loth of his unmatchable glory."
