Hurricane Dorian… en route to Florida?
I wrote this for Chalcedon’s print magazine the year Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans. With Hurricane Dorian hammering the Caribbean, it seems a suitable time to revisit this.
https://chalcedon.edu/resources/articles/why-new-orleans-a-meditation-on-the-hurricane
From ancient times people have always tried to blame other people for natural disasters. They haven’t stopped doing that: hurricanes are always someone’s fault. Wouldn’t happen if we signed that climate treaty! Etc.
But insurance companies call these “acts of God,” and they’re not wrong.
Why does God permit such calamities? Why does a hurricane strike here, but not there? King Solomon in all his wisdom didn’t know. So what he said was this: “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep His commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.” (Ecclesiastes 12: 13)
It would seem that a lot of people have returned to mythology and superstition. Politicians can’t cause hurricanes.
They can’t cause them, and neither can they prevent them. Man has to realize that some things are simply out of his hands.