How could God allow that to happen?

When something terrible happens like the coronavirus pandemic or the death of George Floyd, we want to know why. 

How could God allow such an awful thing to happen? 

How does it fit into his divine plan? 

There are no easy answers, but we struggle to find them. Students of human behavior call it our “search for meaning.” Faced by a great evil like racism—brought to the fore when Floyd was killed—we can at least resolve to work to right that wrong in the future, and that can provide the comfort of knowing we have done what we could. 

But natural events like Hurricane Katrina or the pandemic are particularly hard to explain because there is no human cause other than living in a fallen world. 

Is it God’s judgment?

Some Christians have interpreted the pandemic as a sign of the coming end times and God’s judgment, but theologians such as Dr. Robert Jeffress, senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, disagree. 

“There is nobody who can say, with any authority, that this is God’s judgment against our country or our world,” Jeffress said. “Any pastor or so-called prophet who says that the coronavirus is God’s judgment on America is either a crank or a crook.” 

But when the Air Force Academy established a place of worship in 2010 for Wiccans, Druids, and members of other religions, Jeffress said that our nation would be judged because of it. In other words, we know we bring on God’s judgment when we break his laws, but we won’t know this side of heaven why he does certain things or allows them to happen.

Is it ‘a brute fact of nature’? 

Sam Ben-Meir, a professor of philosophy and world religions at Mercy College in New York, mused in a recent article: “What is the temptation to view a catastrophe like the plague as divine punishment as opposed to a brute fact of nature? Surely at least one reason we are tempted to do so is because, if it is heavenly retribution, then…