Disasters and Disbelief

This is an extract taken from this article: "Tsunami shakes people's faith" which includes quotes from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, and the Most Reverend Vincent Nichols.

The full text of Dr William's article can be found here: "Of course this makes us doubt God's existence".


Dr Williams said: "The extraordinary fact is that belief has survived such tests again and again - not because it comforts or explains but because believers cannot deny what has been shown or given to them.

"These convictions are terribly assaulted by all those other facts of human experience that seem to point to a completely arbitrary world, but people still feel bound to them, not for comfort or ease, but because they have imposed themselves on the shape of a life and the habits of a heart."

Reverend Nichols added: "Our faith tutors us, in moments such as these, to a quite particular belief in God.

"And the truth we are given is quite astonishing, quite revolutionary. This truth requires of us, again and again, to refashion our hearts so that we do not misunderstand, do not let go of the gift we have been given.

"God's light is most like love and, as we have seen over and over again, disaster does not wipe out love: rather it intensifies it, in loss, in relief, in effort.

"Disasters do not wipe out faith anymore than they wipe out love. Rather, the light of love, the light of God glows more persistently in that awful darkness. It shines in human heroism, generosity, selflessness and courage."