Why Does God Allow Natural Disasters?
One of the greatest argument of the atheist is, "Where was God in all the natural disasters? If He is so good, why does He allow it?" Obviously the atheist is angry with God unaware of one simple answer to that, that is sin has cursed the Earth. Remember the ground was cursed, the once perfect world was ruined when Adam and Eve sinned, the Earth was sinned. Creation was ruined. In fact, the natural disasters are a very good portrait of one thing, the very holiness of God towards a sinful world. It takes a real fool to say he is no sinner. I would like to raise this topic that God's holiness is very, very powerful. You cannot deny that man has fallen short of God's holy standard. You may say, "Hey wait I just did one sin..." well sorry, but James 2:10-11 says if you just even break one of God's rules, you are a transgressor. And as a result, the sin of mankind has brought disaster upon them.
When you try to think about it, the curse of the ground has cursed the waters, cursed everything attached to the ground. When we think about it, earthquakes happen as a disaster because the ground is cursed. When creation was cursed, the winds which were brought for benefit, end up creating destructive winds and rains that are supposed to be refreshed brought in the floods. Worse, mankind has further mocked God in various ways either by worshiping nature (environmentalists) or destroying it. We see people's reckless destruction of the Earth has also caused deforestation which removes the trees from absorbing the water thus causing severe floods. You might want to consider also that with the Earth cursed, volcanoes will also erupt as a constant reminder that there is a Hell! When we think about the natural disasters, God has already shown how much cursed creation is and that there is an eternity- either in Heaven or in Hell! People however have chosen to rebel against God and chosen to believe He doesn't exist.
However, in the face of these natural disasters is also the display of the amazing power of God, His holiness and the wrath against sin is the opportunity for Christians to do good! In fact, just think about it that after the earthquake, Christian missions have also preached to the victims about the fact that God is God, He is real and He cannot be denied. It shows that mankind's need for repentance because they are nowhere near God's holy standards. If you think man has no sin, think again of what I just said about society with man mocking God with various sins. Today you have homosexual marriages acknowledged as if God honored it, we have divorce laws, we have legalization of pornography, we have every known sin that you can imagine being legalized. Don't tell me God has no right to get angry. He does and that's why I really believe He has every right to cause disasters as a wake-up call. In fact, every earthquake and every storm may be a going home call for Christians too. In fact when Christians die, they are immediately freed from the troubles of this world.