KATRINA - Mother Nature vs. Providence

“Divine Providence and Hurricane Katrina”

John H. Armstrong

It only takes a hurricane, a tsunami, or an earthquake, to bring out the myriad of ways that people, especially Christians, seek to make sense of natural disasters. Only a week ago Hurricane Katrina struck the gulf coast of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Well-meaning believers are now seeking to "sort out" how and where God’s will fits into this catastrophe.

It requires considerable thought on the part of reflective Christians to avoid the nonsense often spoken in such times. Besides blaming the devil, as if he had control over nature (some remind you that “He [Satan] is the prince of the power of the air”), we blame almost everything else possible, including government. Some even blame the gods, while some Christians suggest that God really did order the storm and thus destroy the people he had pre-selected to kill. Since my own confessional framework is that of the Reformed creeds, I find myself once again wishing that some of my Reformed brothers and sisters would state the nuances of our historic position correcly. I fear we may again miss the major point in this and drive more people away from the positive glories of our solid biblical thought, which is deeply rooted in mystery.

Several things need to be kept in view when we speak about God and his relationship to tragic storms. First, keep in mind that divine providence is a term that did not arise from precise use within the Bible itself. The term comes from Stoic philosophy. In philosophical terms divine providence was equal to divine foreknowledge. In theology it eventually addressed three broad themes: (1) divine preservation, or preservation; (2) divine governance, or gubernatio; and, (3) divine concurrence, or co-operation, by which both the divine and human are involved in an action.

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