Is the coronavirus a punishment from God?

I think we can all agree that the coronavirus is punishing.

We can certainly agree that it's an evil.

Indeed, it's causing terrible suffering and death, and these are absolutely evils.

It's causing not only physical suffering and physical death, but it's causing all kinds of anxiety and a lot of distress to many people.

It's causing terrible economic effects.

Even if you're just healthy but stuck at home, you're probably going a little stir-crazy.

So it certainly seems like there are plenty of punishing evils going

around here with the coronavirus. But the question that we're asking tonight is, does God cause

this evil? Now, that's a provocative and a difficult question, and it's something that many

people are asking. It's not easy simply to answer that question in a straightforward way. You need some distinctions.

Many people are offering those answers, and you find some of them in the secular media. Some of the in the secular media would want to say,

you know, religious people who want to immediately jump to a religious explanation for what is just a scientific fact are barking up the wrong tree. They're actually

making the problem worse because what we need to do is focus on the scientific and medical

things that we can do to ameliorate the effects of the virus or to find a vaccine and talking

about questions about, you know, whether God is causing this or whether it's because of our sins or whether our spiritual attitude could change the situation.

That's just not helpful. In fact it's positively misleading. You would certainly find some people who would take a view like that.

You also find some, even some in the church, in fact even some bishops, who have just answered flatly no to the question.

They've said, no, this is not a punishment from God.

So the German bishops conference recently issued a statement that read,

As Christians we are of the firm conviction,

sickness is not a divine punishment.

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