Did God Cause the Tragedy?

by Gardner Hall

Did God cause the tragedy in the Dominican Republic?

The roof collapse at Jet Set Nightclub in the Dominican Republic resulted in over 200 deaths and sent shockwaves through the Dominican community in New York City. Many in our West Harlem congregation lost friends or relatives.

As in every disaster, some point the finger of blame at God. They say, “If there is a God, why didn’t He stop this catastrophic event?”

When God created the universe, he not only established moral laws but also the laws of physics. Just as ignoring God’s moral laws results in moral disaster, ignoring the laws of physics will often result in physical catastrophes. If a person jumps from the roof of a tall building, gravity will cause them to fall to the ground, and if the impact is strong enough, it will result in death. If excessive weight is placed on the roof of a structure not designed to support it, gravity will cause the roof to collapse.

Expecting God to suspend His law of gravity to save the one who jumps from a high building is unreasonable. Blaming Him for not suspending the laws of physics to save those in what was perhaps an improperly constructed building is equally unfair. He has only suspended such laws on the rarest of occasions during the age of miraculous signs. Jesus did walk on the water! We should not expect such today.

Another irrational statement heard in such tragic circumstances is: “God had another plan for the victims.” Such presumes that God has an intricate step-by-step plan for our lives where every action, no matter how insignificant, has already been preordained to happen since before the world began. In other words, God planned for the victims of the tragedy in the Dominican Republic to die the way they did before they were ever born!

Such speculation overlooks Scripture's statements that describe a much broader plan that God has for all people—that they leave their sin and rebellion to allow Him to mold their lives into something beautiful—a life like Jesus’s. Then, His plan is for those who love Him to live eternally. However, He gives us free will to accept or reject that plan or adjust our lives even as we live within it.

I Corinthians 7 illustrates that God has no overly rigid plan for our lives, but a broader one in which He gives us many choices. For example, in I Corinthains 7:39, He gave widows the option to stay single or marry who they wanted to marry as long as they did so, “in the Lord”, that is, according to His priorities. He did not have a hyper-specific plan for the Corinthian widows to marry one particular individual. Instead, he offered a broad framework allowing them to select from several acceptable options.

Jesus commented in Luke 13 on a disaster that was like the one in Santo Domingo, the collapse of a tower in Jerusalem that killed 18 people. He told his hearers in Luke 13:3, 5 that instead of judging the victims, pointing fingers of blame at others, or speculating about “other plans,” they should look introspectively at their own lives and repent, making needed changes in their own lives. He wants us to do that now as we try to respond to the tragedy in Santo Domingo and others worldwide.