Natural Disasters and Death: Who pulls the trigger?

(A Philosophy Research Paper)

Clarren Faith G. Otadoy
Abstract
For he maketh his sun to rise on the evil
and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on
the unjust- Matthew 5:45. This verse from the
Bible has long been the belief prevailing among
Christians and of the majority of the populace that
served as their defense against the liabilities
bestowed upon them for the damages caused by
natural disasters, which is also known as Acts of
God. The prevalence of natural disasters had led to
the making of this paper. The aim of this essay is to
categorize the acts generated by God and those of
man.
Regardless of religion and belief, the stand
of the paper is to present the fact that man exercises
his free will given by God, thus, he is responsible
for his actions that disrupted the once harmonious
relationship between man and nature. He is liable to
the damages for it is man who made the wrath of
nature stronger than intended. Liberation from the
aforesaid erroneous idea of man being free from
moral and legal charges is significant for man to
take the initiative of diminishing its effects once and
for all before he meets his end.
Schools of thought
Moral liberty or the liberum arbitrium and
its consequent effects have been a subject of inquiry
by various philosophers. The Pythagoreans allotted
a certain degree of moral freedom to man, from
their recognition that man is responsible for his sins.
Aristotle,
a
Greek
philosopher,
appeals
that men can act against
the
knowledge of
the true good; vice is voluntary. For this reason man
is responsible for his actions as a parent of them. On
the other hand, The Molinists, followers of
theologian Luis de Molina, argues and
exempts God more clearly from all responsibility
for man's sins.
Calvin and Luther reply
that
the commands of God show us not what we can do
but what we ought to do. The Council of Trent, the

16th-century Ecumenical Council of the Roman

Catholic Church which is considered to be one of
the Church's most important councils, declared that
the will can resist grace if it chooses. It is not like a
lifeless
thing,
which
remains
purely
passive. Weakened and
diminished
by Adam's fall, free will is yet not destroyed in the
race (Sess. VI, cap. i and v).
The Problem: Man vs. Nature
Well now, how indeed mortal men do blame the
gods!
They say it is from us evils come, yet they
themselves
By their own recklessness have pains beyond their
lot.
These lines spoken by Zeus to the gods of
Olympus in Homers The Odyssey is evidence that
mans attribution of the weather to divine
intervention had subsisted since ancient times even
before the birth of Christianity. Numerous stories,
such as the biblical flood created by God to banish
the wicked and carried Noahs ark, depicted the
storms as acts of the unforeseen Hand of God or
more divine beings beyond the control of man who
suffered the devastation that followed. The notion,
that the consequent effects of these disasters are
unforeseen and beyond the control of humankind,
made its way into the law in response to liability.
In legal terms, the phrases Acts of God,
vis major or force of nature all refer to events
outside human control, generally called natural
disasters such as storms, floods and earthquakes. As
one court poetically put it:
Man in his finite mind cannot pass upon the
wisdom of the Infinite. There is something
appalling in attributing any tragedy or holocaust to
God. The ways of the Deity surpass the
understanding of man that it mans province to pass
judgment upon what may be beyond human
comprehension. There are many manifestations of
nature which science has not yet been able to
analyze, much less cope with. In any event no
person called into court to answer for a tort may
find exoneration from the act of negligence charged

to him by asserting that it was not he but the

Supreme Being which inflicted the wound and the
hurts of which the plaintiff complains. This does not
mean that the defense of vis major has in any way
been lessened in importance and authority. It merely
means that the loose use of the name of the Deity in
the realm of the law should not be a matter of our
approval (326 Widener Law Review, Vol. 15: 325).
The genesis of the notion, although
interpreted legally, is not in mans law but of his
superstition. It originated from the chrysalis of the
primitive mind fumbling to comprehend in the
primeval times where he sought an explanation of
what to him was unexplainable. When he fails to do
so, his innate intelligence was replaced by
superstition to which he attributes all that is
unexplainable to the heavens. As time passed,
persons with cunning and cupidity avail themselves
of this superstition in order to avoid a responsibility
which was the result of their own failings and
neglect. This marks the beginning of humanity
being negligent of their actions resulting to
unimaginable consequences the likes of which can
be perceived in the hunting images of floods and
typhoons made severe by climate change that left
bereavement on humanity.
Breaking the tension
Ethically, the issue vitally affects the
meaning of most of our fundamental moral terms
and ideas. Responsibility, merit, duty, remorse,
justice, and the like, will have a totally different
significance
for
one
who believes that
all man's acts are in the last resort completely
determined by agencies beyond his power, from that
which these terms bear for the man
who believes that each human being possessed
of reason can by his own free will determine his
deliberate volitions and so exercise a real command
over his thoughts, his deeds, and the formation of
his character. With mans recognition of a Supreme
being that governs the universe, it took the matter in
hand to the reconciliation of Gods foreknowledge
and universal providential government of the world
with the contingency of human action, as well as
harmonizing the efficacy of supernatural grace with
the free natural power of man. Responding to this
arduous labor, St. Thomas Aquinas pointed out that
although God created man, one cannot say man is
good in exactly the same sense as God, but rather,
he imitates in some way the simple nature of God in

being good, just or wise in mans struggle to attain

the highest end, which is the blessedness of the
visio beata. This is so because man possesses
freedom over his actions, thus, acquires the element
of choice or the vis elective wherein he rejects or
ratifies his acts which converts it into a free volition
and makes him accountable for it.
A testament of this moral freedom is mans
consciousness. Man exercises his freedom with the
awareness that the choices are laid out vividly in his
mind to which he will be inclined in a decision
based upon his beliefs, principles and experiences
for which his reasons are developed that holds him
liable to his chosen course of action, whether it may
be sinful or righteous. God comes into the picture as
the unbiased judge to challenge both the just and the
unjust. It is, in fact, evident that all of humanity face
crises in life that will only differ in the way man
views this (using his the element of free choice) a
punishment or a test of his mental steadfastness and
temperament. For this reason, those who deem
disastrous events as punishments might have been
overcomed by the feelings of guilt in acting
wrongly and is a coward in the unacceptance of his
faults for which he intend to escape and neglect an
attitude that man still possess up to the present.
Even with the development of human
understanding through breakthroughs in various
subjects of inquiry and with the advancements in
technology that tends to foresee and predict the
occurrence of natural calamities, humanity
continues to embrace the aforesaid notion, which
when used offensively, brings about negligence in
man as seen in the worsening effects of global
warming due to constant abuse of nature. This
misapprehension should cease to exist and shouldnt
be passed on to future generations. Although it is
true that some events are still beyond human
comprehension which can be attributed as a force
majeure or superior force (such as earthquakes and
volcanic eruptions), there is a certain withholding
faculty that gives man the responsibility to take care
of the creatures and all that is present as a being
capable of critical thinking and reason. Vis major
does abolishes life and can never be controlled,
however, by diminishing mans abuse of nature, the
devastation can be reduced. Hence, man should
subsequently realize his failures to be able to
anticipate the coming of an even greater dilemma.

References:
CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Free Will, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06259a.htm
Aquinas, Thomas [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy], http://www.iep.utm.edu/aquinas/
Matthew 5:45, bible.cc/matthew/5-45.htm
KRISTL KENNETH T. , DIMINISHING THE DIVINE: CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE ACT OF GOD
DEFENSE, http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=4&hid=106&sid=297253b9-0e29-439a-9d3ef7fd047ef777%40sessionmgr13&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=s8h&AN
Act of God definition, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_of_God
Quarantelli, E.L., The Future is Not the Past Repeated: Projecting Disasters in the 21st Century from Current
Trends, http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=6&hid=12&sid=297253b9-0e29-439a-9d3ef7fd047ef777%40sessionmgr13&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=s8h&AN=104733