In 1994 Tom Hanks starred in the movie, “Forest Gump”. This film became a classic and is still enjoyed and talked about by many people. In the movie, Forest is not the smartest person around but he had a good heart and a way of distilling the most complex ideas and related situations into relatively simple bits of practical philosophy. At one point in the movie a group of people begin to follow him as he walks from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic. As they are walking some of his disciples ask him a question about why bad things happen to good people. At that moment a truck drives by the group and accidentally goes through a puddle of mud, covering the disciples and Forest in a coating of squishy, dripping mud. After wiping the mud from his eyes, Forest says something to the effect of “stuff happens”.
This approach to the question of suffering doesn’t place the blame for everything good or bad that happens to us on God. Some things in life are random. Certainly there are statistical probabilities that influence us toward some events and away from others, but whether we are in a particular night club when a mentally ill guy with an automatic weapon decides to show up and kill a bunch of people, including us, is relatively random. If we are in the wrong place at the wrong time and probabilities go against us, then we suffer. This approach is secular and doesn’t assume any spiritual or divine motivation or involvement in the suffering we experience. The challenge to the one who suffers or to others in the community is to understand what happened, as well as all of the relevant motivations and tools involved in the event and do what is necessary to decrease the probability that it will happen again of that you will be caught up in future events of this nature.
How does all this relate to Typhoon Yutu? This approach assumes that the typhoon is simply what it is, a powerful force of nature that happened to hit the CNMI head on. The Marianas are on the typhoon highway of the Pacific and get hit with serious storms several times every year, so it wasn’t entirely random. The probability that the CNMI would be hit by Typhoon Yutu is much higher than the probability that a similar strength storm would hit Erie, PA or Washington, DC given the different climates and geographies involved. Some years the typhoons are more intense than other years. All of this can be explained by science.
Somewhere between these two extremes is the idea that if there is any judgment involved in the process, it is a natural consequence of human actions. As we pollute the environment the balance of nature is upset. Water currents shift, sea level rises, temperatures change accelerates the process and pretty soon we experience typhoons and hurricanes that are much more intense than those in prior years and with greater frequency.
Is God punishing us? Not necessarily, we are simply destroying the environment and in the process reaping the natural consequences of our destructive and selfish habits. Our actions and failures to act have consequences.
We make choices in life. We walk down a particular path and encounter what is on that path. We encounter good things and bad things. What we encounter is not necessarily a reward or a punishment per se, it is simply the natural consequence of our choice. Are the increasingly intense wind storms that batter the Gulf Coast of the Unites States or the Pacific Islands random occurrences? Are they punishment? They can be seen as random to a certain extent in that they are the result of natural processes. However, the choices that we make to pollute our environment can upset the balance of natural processes and cause more frequent and more intense storms to occur. This results in greater suffering for the people involved and implies culpability on the part of the polluters. To the extent that the polluters share in the experience of suffering as a result of their actions, one can say that there is a degree of punishment involved.
This approach to understanding the nature of suffering assumes a relatively mechanistic view of the universe, where life finds expression in the playing out of a variety of laws of nature. Yet, there is still room for free will and divine intervention. Since our actions can increase or decrease the likelihood of suffering, free will plays a part in the process. Theologians argue that God role in the process is to try to influence humanity to do the wise thing, do what will benefit humanity and not bring harm. God wants to influence us to help bring about the Kingdom of God, in our lives and in society. God does this by speaking to us in our hearts (conscience). God does this by instructing us through Scripture. God does this by giving us reason and sufficient intelligence to make good and positive decisions.
God doesn’t force anything upon us. We have free will and can make bad decisions. We can act in selfish ways. We can turn away the weak, vulnerable and persons in need. We can play the bully threatening and taking advantage of others. We can ignore all the warnings of science and continue to pollute. We can support people whose agenda ignores the needs of all and stirs up division in the community. Eventually the natural consequences of this misuse of free will will catch up to us. What we experience can be perceived as punishment. However, God’s focus is not on punishing us for our sins but on convincing us to take the better path.