Where Was God in the Tsunami?

David Bentley Hart on Evil, Nature, and the Christian Hope

When the Indian Ocean tsunami struck in 2004, killing over 200,000 people, theologian David Bentley Hart responded not with explanations, but with a piercing clarity: some things should not be explained—only resisted, mourned, and ultimately overcome. His reflections, captured in The Doors of the Sea, offer a distinctively Christian response to evil, especially the kind that comes not from human hands but from nature itself.

Nature Is Not Yet Redeemed

For Hart, the violent forces of nature—floods, hurricanes, tsunamis—are not part of God’s design or will. Rather, they are symptoms of a creation that is still in bondage, awaiting the freedom of the children of God (Romans 8:21). The world we inhabit is “broken and wounded,” and not yet what it was meant to be. To ascribe such suffering to God’s plan is, in Hart’s view, a theological misstep.

“Ours is a broken and wounded world, still awaiting the glory that has been promised it in Christ.”

Evil Cannot Be Explained

One of Hart’s most urgent points is that evil is irrational—a parasite on the good, not something that serves a higher function. Attempts to justify evil, to find meaning in tragedy, to say that “everything happens for a reason,” are not only misguided but morally dangerous.

“There is no more scandalous contention in the Christian faith than the claim that suffering and death have no ultimate explanation.”

The Christian is not called to rationalize evil, but to witness to its defeat.

The Cross Is God’s Answer

Where is God in suffering? Hart points to the cross. God does not remain distant, orchestrating events from above. He enters into suffering, absorbing its worst violence and hatred in Jesus Christ. The cross does not explain suffering—it refutes it, exposing evil as evil, and revealing a God who is never the cause of pain, but always its healer.

“The Christian is not obliged to explain evil, but to declare that evil has been overcome.”

Our Hope Is Not Explanation, But Resurrection

Hart insists that Christianity is not about making peace with evil, but about overthrowing it. The resurrection of Christ is not a coping mechanism—it is a cosmic declaration that death and destruction do not have the final word. The gospel promises renewal, not just of human hearts, but of the entire created order.

“The world will be changed, not explained.”

Beware of Theodicy

Hart issues a warning: any theology that tries to make sense of evil by folding it into God's plan risks justifying the unjustifiable. To say that a tsunami or cancer or genocide was “meant to be” is to blaspheme the goodness of God. Instead, we are to name evil for what it is—and hope defiantly in the world that will be.

“A theodicy that tries to rationalize evil risks making the monstrous seem acceptable.”

A Moral Vision of the Gospel

Ultimately, Hart gives us a gospel that refuses to make peace with death. The Christian vision is not one of fatalism or forced cheerfulness, but one of clear-eyed lament and radical hope. We are invited to judge this world—its horrors, its injustices, its disasters—by the light of the Kingdom, where every tear will be wiped away, not because they were necessary, but because they were never meant to be.

“We are to judge this world by the light of a kingdom whose only law is charity.”

Final Thought

In the face of suffering, Christians do not offer explanations. We offer a crucified and risen Lord, a promise of restoration, and a moral refusal to accept that tsunamis and tragedies are ever part of the will of God. David Bentley Hart reminds us: our calling is not to explain evil, but to resist it—until the day God makes all things new.