God and Hurricane Katrina
(Why Didn't God Divert It Offshore?)

by Raymond Fontaine Ph.D.- September 2005

E-mail no.11: My Answer

   Good morning, Your Holiness. As we prearranged, by not answering my e-mail no.10, you indicated your desire to continue discussing religious issues with me via e-mail. I'm happy about that. Today I have chosen another hot topic: Katrina's destruction of New Orleans.

   Last evening, I watched an hour-long TV review of the catastrophic flooding of New Orleans. Later after I fell asleep, a deep dream connected this latest flood with the mother of all floods: the one that the Bible describes in Genesis, chapters 6-8.

   In this ancient flood, God was in full control from start to finish. He told Noah, "In seven days, I will send rain on earth for forty days and forty nights." This happened just as God warned. God Himself first turned on the rain and later, after forty days, he turned it off. 

    Moreover, God gives his reason for releasing a worldwide destructive flood. It's because "the earth was corrupt and filled with violence." And God added, "I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created." In the Bible, God does not mince words.

   Today a billion believers in the Bible are convinced that God could have prevented Katrina from getting started. Or he could have waited until it became a category 5 hurricane and then diverted it into the mid-Atlantic Ocean. 

    If some believers in the Bible should ask why didn't God do that, their preachers or priests may suggest that God's reason today could be what it was in Noah's time. The Bible says clearly, "the earth was corrupt in God's sight and the earth was filled with violence." That sounds a lot like today's news.

    If someone would ask me the same question, "Why didn't God divert Katrina offshore?", I would simply answer, "I don't know. All I know about God is that Supreme Intelligence designed the structures and forces in nature. I know nothing more about that Intelligence. What it is? How it acts? Whether or not or when it intervenes in the course of nature? I don't know.  

    Creative writers and artists present God as though he were an extremely super-human person: looking like one, speaking like one, feeling like one, and acting like one. I greatly admire the representation of God that Michelangelo painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Children, seeing that painting, may think that God looks like that. Michelangelo did not; nor do I. Likewise, as regards Nature's God or Supreme Intelligence, I don't believe the stories as written in the Bible and repeated in the Church. What I do know about God is what Nature reveals in its structures and designs - they required a Supreme Intelligent Designer. Nature let us see Hurricane Katrina and its innate force and fury but nothing about a special intervention of God that was possible but denied and for what reason.           

    And so, my answer to the question asked in the title of this discussion is that no human can know why God did not divert hurricane Katrina offshore.

   I eagerly await your private opinion - not the Church's official doctrine - regarding the burning question of the moment. Please oblige me. Your friend, Ray. 

 
E-mail no.12: Pope Benedict 16's response.

   Thank you for your e-mail no.11 about Hurricane Katrina. I agree with you that the designs in nature required an Intelligent Designer. With the entire Catholic world, however, I believe that God could have prevented Katrina from forming and that God had his reason for letting Katrina destroy New Orleans. I agree that Nature does not reveal this information. Nor did I get a personal message from God. But the stories in the Bible let me believe this. As long as I do, as you did years ago, I can in good conscience preach them to others. Believe me when I say that, if God lets me know that I'm wrong, I'll join you in promoting Nature's God. Adios, my friend. To return to list of e-mail, click here.