Tsunami Question
During the last month many of us have been asking the question ‘why’. The answer is simple: The Tsunami happened because the earths tectonic plates moved as they have been doing since creation. This is straight forward science! I suspect however that is not the ‘why’ that most people have been asking. I suspect also that by now you will have dismissed me as a heartless evolutionist technocrat.
The early Genesis account however is somewhat similar. It begins with the reality of cosmic creation and the creation of mankind. It does not ask or answer the question as to why the waters and firmament shifted other than to say that it happened as a consequence of God speaking. There is no emotive ‘why’. In the narrative that follows it is God that asks the questions:
Gen 3:9 Where art thou?
Gen 3:11 Who told you that you were naked?
Gen 3:13 What have you done?
Gen 4:6 Why are you angry?, Why has your countenance fallen?
Gen 4:9 Where is your brother?
I suspect that in the wake of Tsunami, God still asks these questions with the same emotive passion that he spoke to the Adam and Eve family. These are the questions that people ask in the mayhem of disaster.
Research by Kohlberg into the moral development of children in particular, suggests that moral character is developed through the presentation of conflict and the attempts by people of different ability to resolve that conflict. He found that the only effective intervention in the process was by teachers who continually ask the question ‘why’.
We will never have moral answers for the consequences of natural or physical events. Rather these events will always give us the opportunity to hone our moral compasses and develop our character. It is through these events that the Great Teacher asks us the question ‘why’.
Paradoxically the answer to the question ‘why’ is the privilege and eternal importance of asking the question ‘why’. The answer is in ‘the still small voice’ that has been active in the consciousness of every thinking world citizen. The answer is in the still small voice that discovered a well of generosity that none realised they had.
“ And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. “
1 Kings 19:11-12 (KJV)