Does God Cause Events, Allow Events, or Both?

  When God created the world, he set into motion everything that now exists. The Bible records that God hand-crafted the first two humans, Adam and Eve, from the dust of the ground. He also hand-crafted all of the various animals. From there, though, the laws of nature that he had set into motion continued just as he orchestrated. 


God does not continue to hand-craft each and every newborn child from the dust of the ground in the same way that he did with Adam and Eve. Ever since then, the physical laws of science reproduce offspring for both humans and animals after their own kind. God can, however, interact both around and through his creation whenever he sees fit. Clearly in the case of the birth of Jesus, the natural, physical laws of science were not called upon for traditional conception. God intervened and caused his will to be done.


In the same way, weather is a natural part of the physical word that God made. Moisture from bodies of water is absorbed up into the air, the moisture transforms into clouds, and the moisture eventually returns back to the earth in the form of rain. A process designed by God but still is in and of itself natural. When this same process begins in the warm, summer waters of the Atlantic, many times a hurricane is formed. A hurricane will most likely begin its journey west, affect the island country of Cuba, and either end up entering or at least in the vicinity of the Gulf of Mexico. 


When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, countless people around the world claimed that the disaster was an act of God and judgement on a wicked city. While the Bible indicates that God can indeed control the weather when he sees fit, it would be more proper to conclude that Hurricane Katrina was a natural phenomena that was created in the traditional way and it consequently affected a city situated on the Gulf of Mexico.

Can God cause specific events to happen on this earth? Absolutely. He divinely interacted with creation in the days of old and he still does today. However, blaming God for every natural disaster and tagging him to every indecent act of man is improper. God designed the physical world to carry on naturally and he bestowed humans with free will. Consequently both the physical world and humans naturally ‘act up’ and step out of line. It is not God’s fault. It is simply the world we live in.