Why does God allow natural disasters to happen?
Moral Maze
BBC
4.4 • 623 Ratings
🗓️ 16 February 2023
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Why does God allow natural disasters to happen? The devastation following the recent earthquakes in Turkey and Syria has been appalling. Already more than 41,000 people have died. Extraordinary stories have emerged as people have been rescued after spending days trapped under rubble. Those small moments of respite have been greeted with heartfelt prayers of thanks for each life saved. The blame for the earthquake and the shocking loss of life has been placed not on God’s shoulders, but on the planning officials and builders who allowed fragile homes to be built. But if God really is almighty and good, why does he allow natural disasters like this to happen? It’s a recurring moral conundrum, but if God is given credit for the splendour and beauty of nature, why then isn’t he also held responsible for the destruction and suffering caused by forces completely beyond the control of people? Some see this as a compelling argument against the existence of a good and almighty God. Others suggest that we can never fully understand divinity and it makes no sense to apply such crude moral questions to God. What is certain is that religion provides many believers with great consolation in times like this, when sorrow and suffering are all around. Also, many of those providing support in the rescue effort do so inspired by their faith.
Producer: Jonathan Hallewell Presenter: Michael Buerk
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:04.9 | Good evening. According to reporters, the survivors of last week's terrible earthquake in Turkey |
| 0:09.5 | sat in the ruins of their homes chanting alaim, alaim, my God, my God. |
| 0:15.7 | The quake struck a god-fearing part of the world. |
| 0:18.8 | President Erdogan, himself leader of an Islamist political party, |
| 0:22.7 | was quick to call for God's mercy on the living and the dead. To some, though still astonishingly |
| 0:28.7 | being pulled out of the wreckage alive, are evidence of that mercy. Others can surely be forgiven |
| 0:33.9 | for asking how a benevolent God could let so many be killed, currently 40,000 and |
| 0:39.2 | still counting, 100,000 injured, maybe half a million homeless. Religions have struggled for millennia |
| 0:45.6 | to explain the existence of misfortune, suffering and evil in a world supposedly created |
| 0:50.6 | and overseen by an all-good, all-powerful and all-knowing God. |
| 0:55.5 | Some see it in terms of human agency. |
| 0:57.9 | Some that the question, like the divinity itself, is beyond human understanding. |
| 1:02.3 | Others that it conclusively proves there is no God. |
| 1:05.9 | Two questions tonight. |
| 1:07.3 | Why does God allow such things to happen? |
| 1:09.6 | Second, does religion have a utility beyond |
| 1:11.9 | truth as a consolation or a motivation? Is God good for us, even if he or she doesn't exist? |
| 1:18.9 | That's our moral maize tonight. The panel, Anne McElvoy, columnist and now executive editor |
| 1:22.7 | with the Politico Media Organization, Ash Sarka from the Navarra Media Group, |
| 1:28.3 | Mona Siddiqui, Professor of Islamic and Interreligious Studies at Edinburgh University |
| 1:32.3 | and the priest, vicar of Q, Charles Fraser. |
... |
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