A question as we commemorate the anniversaries of Katrina and 9/11: Why would a merciful God allow disasters -- natural or manmade -- to happen?

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God With Us, Not Working Against Us

By John Bryson Chane, Episcopal Bishop of Washington

The question raises the very essence of the nature of God.

The belief that God is the causal agent in natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and the religious fanaticism of 9/11 and acts as a grand puppeteer is just plain bad theology. It is a severely flawed theology which lends itself to the belief that human beings are mere actors on the stage of life, with God sharing the roles of both producer and director.

Katrina was a natural disaster and not a punishing act of God. 9/11 was the act of a few people who chose to interpret their flawed theology by acts of violence which were clearly a contradiction of the teachings of the Great Prophet.

Human beings have no control over such devastation...unless there is proof that they have, by their irresponsibility, contributed to Global Warming by abuses of the natural environment through overuse of fossil fuels and by the by-product environmental pollution of industrialization through Globalization.

God was present in New York through the hundreds of rescue workers who risked and gave their lives following acts of terrorism that were fueled by bad theology and self righteous abuses of religions Holy Texts.

God is present even now following Katrina and 9/11 and still is active in and through the hands, the compassionate hearts, minds and hard work of the thousands of people who continue the rebuilding and healing process in New Orleans and Mississippi and continue to work in finding true pathways for peace that are the cornerstone of the ancient Holy Books of Christianity, Islam and Judaism.

God lives within each of us...not outside of us!

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Tribulation and Redemption

By Cal Thomas, syndicated political columnist

Jesus said, "In the world you will have tribulation." But He also said, "Be of good cheer for I have overcome the world." (John 16:33)

A merciful God created the world in perfect condition. Man messed it up by deciding to do things his own way. Still, a merciful God offers redemption in and from this fallen world through Jesus Christ for all those who repent of their sin and put their faith and trust in Him.

We will all die. Circumstances differ, but the end is the same for all. The question is not how many years we get to live in a broken world, but rather where we are headed after we leave it. A merciful God offers Heaven and perfection -- with no terrorist attacks, no storms and no tears -- if we accept it on His terms and not create conditions for Him to which He must respond before we exercise faith and trust in Him.

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The Theodicy Problem: No Problem for An Atheist

By Susan Jacoby, author and reporter

This question is really the only question for anyone who believes in God (loving or otherwise), and its unanswerability is the main reason why I, and every other atheist I know, can never accept the existence of any deity.

The only answer offered by believers is that God gives man free will and that it is our fault--not God's--when bad things happen to good people. This is not an answer at all because it does not address the question of why the innocent should suffer for the exercise of "free will" by the guilty. And of course, natural disasters are completely outside the scope of the free will argument--unless you believe that God gave wind, water, and rocks free will.

People always ask atheists how they can get through the pain and hardships of life without believing in a God who will one day wipe away all tears. After one of my lectures, I had a conversation with a woman whose son had died of cancer at age twelve, and she spoke eloquently on this point. She said that she had joined a support group for parents grieving over the deaths of their children and that she soon realized she was better off, as an atheist, than the religious parents who kept asking why God would take the lives of their innocent youngsters. "I saw cancer as a malignant, random act of nature," she said, "but I never had to ask why, because I don't believe in a benevolent being who oversees the universe. I didn't ask, `Why him?' or `Why me?' because there is no reason. I didn't have to be angry at God, as these people were, on top of my grief."

The gulf between believers and atheists on this point is unbridgeable. Whenever I hear survivors of natural disasters thanking God for sparing their lives and their homes, I feel nothing but amazement and incomprehension. How can anyone possibly see his neighbor's house destroyed by a tornado and think that a deity had something to do with sparing his own house? What utter arrogance is embodied in such beliefs! As for the victims, the idea that "God must have his reasons" is the embodiment of utter passivity, a survival from the infancy of the human race. There are reasons, and they have nothing to do with gods and everything to do with the human capacity for evil and the indifference of nature.

If there were a deity responsible for both human evil and impersonal natural disasters, I would hate him. I would prefer to go to hell rather than to make bargains with such a cruel, capricious Master of the Universe.

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Big Question, Bigger Assumptions

By N. Thomas Wright, Anglican Bishop of Durham, England

This is one of the big ones, of course, and if there was a straightforward or easy answer someone -- Irenaeus, Aquinas, whoever -- would have come up with it. The problem is contained in the assumptions in the question: 'a good God' and the like. We are never, repeat never, in a position where we can size up God and decide what such a being ought really to do. A lot of people today assume, vaguely, that God ought to be running things, stopping earthquakes, preventing road accidents, whatever. They seldom stop to imagine what their own world might be like if God really stepped in every time we were about to do something wrong.

The Bible doesn't pose, or answer, the question that way. It tells a long, complex narrative about a plan launched by the creator God to heal creation. This plan, begun with the call of Abraham, reaches its climax in Jesus and his horrific death, and works out from there, not to the rescue of souls from a doomed world, but to the healing and renewal of the whole creation. That is the framework within which we may be able not indeed to answer the question as posed (which is actually a very post-Enlightenment way of putting it: see Susan Neiman's brilliant book, "Evil in Modern Thought"), but to grapple with the actual world in which evil remains so powerful yet Jesus and his followers declare that the creator God is becoming king.

On all this (sorry for the plug) see my book "Evil and the Justice of God."