For Reasons Unknown :: Baha'i Perspectives

For Reasons Unknown

iman May 24th, 2008

The recent cyclone in Myanmar and earthquake in China raise questions about whether, apart from the widely-known scientific and environmental causes of such occurrences, natural disasters are Divinely influenced.

Does God have an influence on the occurrence of natural disasters — a punishment, a test, maybe even a reward? One might suggest that the very nature of Creation, with the perpetual movement and state-shifting of matter, would inevitably cause such events to occur. Yet, one of the most common questions we hear during these situations is “why?”; “why must such things happen to all those innocent people?”

The Divine reasoning, because it operates on countless plains of existence beyond our own, is impossible to understand. Our finite thinking would lead us to speculate baselessly given such a meagre understanding of Creation past, present or future. God is “the unknowable Essence” whose far-reaching influence is unfathomable by the human mind:

To every discerning and illumined heart it is evident that God, the unknowable Essence, the divine Being, is immensely exalted beyond every human attribute, such as corporeal existence, ascent and descent, egress and regress. Far be it from His glory that human tongue should adequately recount His praise, or that human heart comprehend His fathomless mystery. He is and hath ever been veiled in the ancient eternity of His Essence, and will remain in His Reality everlastingly hidden from the sight of men…No tie of direct intercourse can possibly bind Him to His creatures. He standeth exalted beyond and above all separation and union, all proximity and remoteness. No sign can indicate His presence or His absence; inasmuch as by a word of His command all that are in heaven and on earth have come to exist, and by His wish, which is the Primal Will itself, all have stepped out of utter nothingness into the realm of being, the world of the visible.

(Baha’u'llah, The Kitab-i-Iqan, p. 97)

What we can do, however, is to focus on serving those affected by natural calamities, to encourage and contribute towards scientific progress that helps to dampen the impact of natural disasters and, most importantly, to turn to God during such trying times. Baha’u'llah states in The Most Holy Book, “on the appearance of fearful natural events call ye to mind the might and majesty of your Lord, He Who heareth and seeth all, and say “Dominion is God’s, the Lord of the seen and the unseen, the Lord of creation.”"