When the Earth Groans: N.T. Wright on Evil and Natural Disasters

When floods rise, when earthquakes shake the ground, when hurricanes leave behind splintered homes and shattered lives—many of us ask the question: Where is God in this?Is there meaning in natural disasters, or are they random, senseless acts of nature?

N.T. Wright, the respected New Testament theologian and author of Evil and the Justice of God, offers a view that neither downplays evil nor defends a distant deity. Instead, he reframes the whole question within the larger drama of Scripture—where creation, humanity, and God are deeply entangled in a story of vocation, rebellion, suffering, and hope.

Evil Is Real—and It Hurts

Wright refuses to sanitize the problem. He acknowledges evil—both human and natural—as tragic and painful. From school shootings to tsunamis, he does not believe everything happens for a reason in the way we often mean it.

“Evil is not just the absence of good,” Wright says. “It is a force in rebellion against God’s good creation.”

Natural disasters are not caused by God’s wrath or punishment, Wright argues. Nor are they merely “acts of nature.” They are signs of a world that is beautiful, yes—but broken. A world groaning for redemption.

A Groaning Creation

Central to Wright’s understanding is Romans 8:19–22, where Paul writes that creation itself is “groaning as in the pains of childbirth.” It’s a powerful metaphor.

Creation, according to Wright, is not yet what it is meant to be. It was never finished. It’s like a great symphony waiting for its final movement—one in which humanity was meant to play a key role as God’s image-bearers. But when humans turned from God’s call to steward the earth, we failed our vocation, and the whole creation was affected.

In this view, natural disasters are not divine punishments, but evidence that something in the created order has gone wrong. Not only morally, but cosmically.

God's Response: Not Explanation, but Incarnation

In the face of evil, God does not offer tidy answers. He offers Himself.

At the center of Wright’s theology is the cross of Jesus, where God absorbs the full weight of evil—moral, natural, and spiritual. In Jesus’ suffering, God enters into the pain of creation.

“God does not explain evil,” Wright says. “He defeats it—through the cross and resurrection.”

This is not an abstract victory. It’s the beginning of new creation, when the risen Christ steps into the garden on Easter morning—like a gardener, restoring the world.

What Should the Church Do?

Wright is clear: the church is not called to speculate about why disasters happen. We are called to respond with the compassion, presence, and hope of Jesus.

• We lament—joining in creation’s groaning, crying out to God with honest sorrow.

• We act—offering help, healing, and hospitality to those affected.

• We hope—not in escapism, but in resurrection. In the promised renewal of all things.

As Wright writes in Surprised by Hope:

“The call of the gospel is for the church to be the place where the world’s pain is met with God’s healing love.”

Hope in a Shaking World

The Bible doesn’t offer an airtight answer to why disasters happen. Instead, it tells a story—of a good world gone wrong, a Creator who enters into His creation’s suffering, and a promise that one day, every tear will be wiped away.

Until then, we live as people of resurrection hope. Not denying the darkness, but bearing light in the midst of it.

Or, as Wright might put it:The world is groaning—but the music of new creation has already begun.