Thursday, August 04, 2005

The Tsunami, the Fall, and the Wall Street Journal

Mysterious Ways: How do Christians explain a tsunami. By Paul J. Griffiths.

This article (link below) was published in todays Wall Street Journal, and is from a book review.
The tsunami that swept over southeast Asia in December left in its wake not only death and destruction but a profound and vexing puzzle. What kind of a God would allow such a thing to happen?
[snip]
In "The Doors of the Sea," David Bentley Hart, an Orthodox theologian, tries to provide an answer.
[snip]
From a Christian point of view, Mr. Hart notes, such events are quite easy to explain, if difficult to accept. They are dramatic instances of the fact that the world is profoundly out of joint, damaged in deep ways by the fall of Adam and Eve and the rebellion of man. This fall, brought about by the exercise of human freedom, has altered the very physical order of the cosmos so that what God had intended to be a world of harmony and peace, free from suffering and death, is now a world running red with blood.
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2 comments:

  1. kj4:04 PM, August 05, 2005

    Very interesting. What is YOUR opinion...did God cause the tsunami, did he merely allow the tsunami, or???? This entire issue is so complex that it surprises me that Griffiths tries to explain it so simply. Those who do not yet believe in a Creator God who has absolute power and cares for His creation are not satisfied with such an elementary answer. And yet Griffiths speaks the truth. What is YOUR take on it?

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  2. Rooted in Him8:23 PM, August 05, 2005

    KJ - I posted it without a comment, partly just to think about, partly
    because I am pleased this is being debated on a national site like the
    WSJ.

    But I will think about, and maybe post some other time.

    Yours, "rooted"

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