When a hurricane or earthquake strikes, it raises a theological question in the minds of people who believe in God: “Who is causing this?” There are only two possibilities for Bible-believing Christians: Either God or Satan causes them.
Some may object: “Oh no! God is not to blame! People are to blame. God is judging them for their sins.”
If God is causing hurricanes and earthquakes because of His judgment upon sin, then certainly we can lay the blame on rebel humans rather than on God, but still, God bears responsibility, as the natural disasters would not occur without His decree.
Or, if it is true that God allows Satan to send hurricanes and earthquakes to bring His judgment upon sinners, then we could say that Satan causes them, but still, God bears responsibility. The reason is because He is the one who permitted Satan to cause the destruction and because those disasters occur as a result of His reaction to sin.
Some say that neither God nor Satan are responsible for hurricanes and earthquakes, but that they are simply a “natural phenomena in our fallen world of sin.” In a vague way, they are also attempting to lay the blame on humankind for natural disasters, but still missing the point. This explanation does not take God out of the picture. If hurricanes are simply a “natural phenomena in our fallen world of sin,” who decided that they would be? Obviously hurricanes are not man-made. That is, hurricanes don’t develop whenever a certain volume of lies are spoken into the atmosphere. Earthquakes don’t occur when a certain number of people commit adultery.
No, if there is a relationship between hurricanes and sin, then God is involved, because hurricanes are a manifestation of His judgment upon sin. Even if they occur randomly, it would have to be God who decreed that they would occur randomly, and thus He is involved.
Even if there is no relationship between sin and natural disasters, and God goofed when He designed the world, so that there are faults in the earth’s crust that sometimes shift and weather systems that occasionally go berserk, still God would bear responsibility for earthquakes and hurricanes as He is the Creator, and His mistakes harm people.
