If There Is A God, How Could He Let The Hatian Earthquake Happen?

In the past 10 years, natural disasters have been a big part of our lives. The media has broadcast staggering reports of:

• The cyclone in Myanmar (Burma) that claimed as many as 100,000 victims.
• The 2004 Indonesian earthquake and tsunami in which more than 200,000 perished.
• Hurricane Katrina and the unbelievable destruction not only to the city of New Orleans, but the Louisiana coastal regions.
• Most recently, the heart breaking stories in the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake.
  

To try and make sense of it all, we must first recognize that there is an existential evil in this world. It comes in two forms: natural evil and human evil. Every culture has some word for it. Webster's dictionary defines it as "something that brings sorrow, distress, or calamity... The fact of suffering, misfortune, and wrongdoing." Human evil is evidenced in the evil deeds of human destructiveness that we witness every day in its various subtle and no-so-subtle forms. But, natural evil strikes in suprahuman, transpersonal, cosmic occurrences of drought, disease, and tragic accidents that bring death and destruction to multitudes of innocent victims. It is this evil we have been witness to.

I do believe there is a God, but I do not believe He intervenes to stop natural evil. I also do not believe Pat Robertson's commentary on Haiti's "pact with the devil" is the reason for this tragic catastrophe. Following that line of theology has some terrible problems. Here's a quote from the Hot Air blog:

"If you’re trying to divine Divine will by tracing a cause-and-effect line between certain historical data points, how do you know which data points to select? Does Haiti get no credit in the heavenly ledger for overthrowing a slaveholder regime and thereby bringing about the conditions for the U.S. to purchase the Louisiana territory? If not, if that’s spoiled by their, ahem, “pact with the devil,” does that mean the U.S. has some sort of reflected retribution coming because it profited from the deal (or was Katrina that retribution)? Or was the “pact with the devil” actually a good thing because God wanted the U.S. to have Louisiana — in which case, why are the Haitians supposedly being punished? If we do have retribution coming, how do we know when it’s finished — i.e., that Katrina wasn’t just part one of many?"

After a while, it just becomes silly. Actually, good theology states that God placed the judgement for all evil on His Son, Jesus Christ. When Christ was crucified, the judgement of God was carried out so that its now no longer up to us to try and make sense of natural evil through random finger pointing. So, when an earthquake strikes, even though it may be referred to as an "act of God," it is because natural evil is a very real part of our world.

So how do we make sense of this? In Haiti the earth's tectonic plates shifted releasing stored up energy and a 7.0 earthquake occurred. Because of the nation's poverty, building codes and materials were inferior. Each day the media reveals new horrors of Port Au Prince's destruction. If there is a theology to embrace at this time it should be based on the words of Jesus...

The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
      because he has anointed me
      to preach good news to the poor.
   He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
      and recovery of sight for the blind,
   to release the oppressed,
   to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

So, let's set aside our need to figure out WHY and instead figure out HOW we can ease the suffering of thousands of people who have experienced the horror of Haiti's worst natural evil in over one hundred years.

That's what I believe.