Originally published November 10, 2013
Archive note: I originally wrote this article in the immediate aftermath of the 2013 Bohol earthquake and Super Typhoon Yolanda. It has been revised to preserve my Christian conviction while expressing the problem of suffering with greater theological care and humility.
One of the oldest and most difficult questions raised against belief in God is this:
If God is good and all-powerful, why does He allow suffering and evil to exist?
The question becomes especially difficult when suffering is not theoretical.
On October 15, 2013, a magnitude-7.2 earthquake struck Bohol and shook much of Central Visayas. Less than a month later, Super Typhoon Yolanda devastated communities across the central Philippines.
Homes were destroyed.
Families lost loved ones.
Communities were changed in a matter of hours.
In circumstances like these, saying simply that “God is good all the time” can sound painfully inadequate.
Yet I still believe God is good.
The harder question is why.
The Problem Cannot Be Solved by Counting Survivors
When I originally wrote this article, I pointed to circumstances that seemed merciful to me: the Bohol earthquake occurred in the morning rather than while most people were asleep; it happened on a holiday; Yolanda struck during daylight; and my own family survived the storm.
I remain grateful for those things.
But gratitude is not the same as proof.
If my survival proves that God is good, what should I tell the family whose loved one died?
If protection is always evidence of God's favor, does tragedy mean that the victims had less faith?
I do not believe that conclusion is biblical.
Jesus Himself challenged simplistic explanations of tragedy.
In Luke 13, people told Him about Galileans who had been killed. Jesus asked whether they were worse sinners than other Galileans because they suffered.
His answer was:
“I tell you, Nay.”
He then referred to eighteen people who died when the tower of Siloam fell and again rejected the assumption that their deaths meant they were more guilty than everyone else.
That should make Christians cautious about declaring why a particular disaster happened.
Does Disaster Mean God Is Punishing Someone?
My original article listed several possibilities, including the idea that disasters might be God's punishment for sin.
Scripture certainly contains occasions when God explicitly judges people or nations.
But that does not give Christians authority to identify every earthquake, storm, disease, or tragedy as God's punishment upon particular people.
The book of Job should make us especially careful.
Job's friends repeatedly tried to explain his suffering by connecting it with wrongdoing. Their explanations sounded religious and logical—but God ultimately rebuked them.
Likewise, in John 9, Jesus' disciples saw a man who had been blind from birth and asked whether the man's condition resulted from his own sin or his parents' sin.
Jesus rejected the premise.
So when disaster strikes, Christians should resist the temptation to speak where Scripture has not spoken.
We may believe that we live in a fallen world.
We may believe that God is sovereign.
But we should not presume that we know God's specific reason for every tragedy.
Natural Causes Are Still Real Causes
There is also no conflict between acknowledging natural causes and believing in God.
The Bohol earthquake was a tectonic earthquake. PHIVOLCS identified its magnitude as 7.2 and its origin as tectonic.
Typhoons are physical weather systems governed by atmospheric and oceanic processes. PAGASA describes tropical cyclones in terms of pressure, heat, moisture, wind, and the release of energy within the atmosphere.
Understanding those mechanisms does not automatically answer the theological question of why God permits such a world to exist.
But neither should Christians treat scientific explanations as threats to faith.
Saying how an earthquake occurs is not necessarily the same as answering why God permits suffering.
Those are different questions.
Then Is God Really All-Powerful?
Jeremiah 32:17 says:
“Ah Lord GOD! behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee.”
Christian belief affirms that God is sovereign and powerful.
But God's omnipotence does not mean Christians should pretend to understand every act of providence.
When Yolanda struck, I prayed.
I remember hearing our neighbors shouting after part of a roof was blown through the air and nearly hit someone. I continued praying, and by the end of that day, no one around us had been seriously hurt.
I remain thankful.
As a believer, I can interpret that experience through faith and thank God for protection.
But I cannot use my experience to explain why another Christian prayed just as sincerely and still lost a home, a child, a parent, or a spouse.
Prayer is not a formula by which we control God.
Faith is not a guarantee that Christians will escape every disaster.
The Bible itself is filled with faithful people who suffered.
Christianity Does Not Promise a World Without Suffering
Christianity actually begins with the assumption that something is profoundly wrong with the world.
Romans 8 describes creation itself as groaning and suffering.
Human beings experience disease, decay, conflict, injustice, disasters, and death.
Christians understand this within the larger biblical story of a creation that is no longer as it should be.
That does not make suffering emotionally easier.
But it means Christianity does not teach that believing in God guarantees a trouble-free life.
Jesus never promised that.
Instead He repeatedly prepared His followers for suffering.
The Christian hope is ultimately not that nothing painful will ever happen, but that suffering and death will not have the final word.
The Cross Changes the Question
For Christians, the strongest response to suffering is not a clever philosophical argument.
It is Jesus Christ.
Christianity teaches that God did not remain distant from human suffering.
Christ was rejected.
He experienced grief.
He was beaten.
He suffered injustice.
And He died.
The cross therefore prevents Christians from describing God as someone who simply watches human suffering from a safe distance.
The Christian claim is much more radical:
God entered it.
And the resurrection is Christianity's answer to the apparent finality of death.
That does not explain every earthquake.
It does not tell us why one child lives while another dies.
It does not remove grief.
But it gives Christians a reason to believe that suffering is not ultimate.
Where Was God During Yolanda?
That question can be asked in several ways.
Where was God when homes collapsed?
Where was God when the storm surge came?
Where was God when families cried for help?
I do not pretend to have a complete answer.
Some Christian answers to suffering become cruel because they try to explain too much.
Perhaps Christians sometimes need to learn to say:
I don't know why this happened.
The Bible itself contains people crying out to God in confusion.
The Psalms ask, “Why?”
Job asks why.
The prophets lament.
Even faith can grieve.
Belief does not require pretending that suffering is easy to understand.
What Should We Do After Disaster?
This may be the more immediate question.
Instead of using tragedy to speculate about who God is punishing, Christians should ask:
Who needs help?
Who needs food?
Who needs shelter?
Who needs medicine?
Who needs comfort?
Who needs someone to mourn with them?
In the aftermath of the Bohol earthquake and Yolanda, Filipinos responded through rescue operations, donations, volunteer work, prayer, relief drives, and acts of extraordinary generosity.
That human response does not erase the devastation.
But compassion in the middle of suffering is itself something worth recognizing.
For Christians, faith should move us toward suffering people—not merely toward explanations of their suffering.
Is God Still Good?
I continue to say yes.
But I would express that conviction differently today.
I do not believe God is good because an earthquake happened at a convenient hour.
I do not believe God is powerful merely because I survived a typhoon.
And I would not tell grieving people that their tragedy proves God was angry with them.
I believe God is good because goodness belongs to His character as revealed in the Christian Scriptures and, above all, in Jesus Christ.
I believe He is powerful even when I do not understand why He sometimes permits suffering that He could prevent.
That leaves a mystery.
Christian faith does not answer every “why.”
But neither does the existence of suffering automatically settle the question against God.
For me, faith means trusting God even when I cannot explain Him.
It means being thankful when I am spared while refusing to judge those who were not.
It means grieving with those who grieve.
It means helping people rebuild.
And it means holding to the hope that suffering, destruction, and death are not the final chapters of the human story.
God is good—not because life is always good, but because suffering does not change who I believe God is.
— J.P. Abecilla, November 2013
