If God’s will is the universal cause for everything, why do some events such as quakes that happen only at specific places?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Question is that, according to intelligent design, it is God who has designed things, certain creatures in the universe. And ultimately, everything happens by God’s desire.
Now, God’s desire, would it not, whatever is done by God, would that not be universal? But then we see that there are certain things that happen in specific locations, like earthquake happened in Nepal. So, if there are certain localized phenomena, then how do we connect universal causes with localized events? Is that your question? Okay. So, firstly, the principle of karma, which we talk about, is naturally variable locally.
Because different people have done different kinds of karma. So, for example, in scientific language, the law of gravity applies whether it is earth or on moon. But in F is equal to g m 1 m 2 upon r square, the value of g on earth and moon will be different.
And it will be different on Jupiter, it will be different at various places. So, even within the arena of science, although there are certain laws which are a claim to be universal, but still there is variability which is also acknowledged. So, with respect to specific causes, then we have to look again when we say that earthquakes are caused by karma.
So, this is, I have to be carefully presented, this is not meant to counteract the natural explanation. There are epicenters of the earthquakes, there are shifting the earth’s tectonic plates, and there is a seismic disturbance which caused the earthquakes. That is a natural explanation.
And we accept the natural explanation. But the question is, is the natural explanation the complete explanation? See, there is something which is correct and there is something which is complete. So, the correct is not always the complete.
There is a difference between the correct and the complete. To say that this billiards ball went into this hole because the stick hit it with this precision at this angle, that is correct explanation. But that is not the complete explanation.
So, we accept that there are certain seismic phenomena, there are certain seismic factors which cause earthquakes. That is the correct explanation. But what we also say is that why do certain things happen only at certain places and not at other places? That is because of the individual karma of the people.
And therein lies the complementary explanation. And even in medicine, we will see, for example, medicine finds out, okay, if you have this disease, take this medicine. But there are, what is that, when doctors say, what they would call as medical miracles or medical anomalies.
You know, they say that sometimes there seems to be ordinary disease and you give medicine and no matter how much medicine is the person just seems to get cured. It may not happen all the time, but it has happened somewhere. And there are some people, you know, who are declared to be incurable, suddenly they get cured.
So, these are definitely exceptions, but they do happen. So, these exceptions point to the fact that the natural explanation is not always the complete explanation. So, now, what the localized variation in such phenomena is because there are specific factors locally.
Certain people have certain karma and because of it, they are getting the reactions. Now, important thing is, generally speaking, since earthquakes happen, we have to be very sensitive. Whether we start talking about karmic factors or not, that has to be seen on time-based circumstances.
Now, see, our goal is ultimately to attract people towards Krishna. And explanation for events, intelligent explanations can attract people towards Krishna. But what will attract people to Krishna more is also a sensitive human approach of care.
So, for example, if we just say, those people who died in the earthquake in Nepal, they were all sinful people, they just got their karma back. You know, that would be monstrously insensitive. And we don’t see such an approach in scripture.
In the fourth canto, Shri Bhagavatam, when the citizens come to Krutu and they say, there is a terrible famine and we are all starving. They say, they poetically say, just as animals may be burned in a forest fire, we are being burned by a digestive fire. So, at that time, Krutumala doesn’t tell them, oh, you are suffering the results of your past karma.
He takes action to correct the situation. So, similarly, we too should not, our goal should not just be when such events happen to, to just give an explanation. We should, we should be wanting to help.
And where an explanation helps, we can offer an explanation. But if our goal is somehow, if people feel that our goal is not to care for people, not to help people, our goal is to somehow maintain our belief in the correctness of our philosophy. Somehow I want to prove that I am right.
Then that can be very easy. Because we come up as very insensitive. When the Nepal earthquake happened, the famous Christian evangelical preacher, he said, this earthquake is God’s wrath.
And now it is the responsibility of Christians to make sure that all the temples of the infidels that were destroyed should not be rebuilt. God has destroyed those temples for us. So, we should ensure that they should not be rebuilt.
It is horrible. It is terrible to make such statements like this. So, what we should focus on is to see how best we can attract people to Christianity.
So, offering humanitarian help at that time with a devotional intention, that is a way we may be able to attract more people than by trying to give a philosophical explanation. Now, some people have philosophical questions and we can give a philosophical explanation. But the philosophical explanation needs to be given with sensitivity.
Because an important point in understanding the principle of karma is, you know, when we have to deal with other people, we do not know what they have done in their life. And we are meant to deal with people based on their dislike actions. So, you know, if a person comes to a king and says, you know, this person robbed me, this person swindled me.
And the king says, well, it is your own karma. And then, you know, the king has to deal based on this life’s factors. So, from this life’s factors point of view, yeah, those people who became casualties or who became bereaved in the earthquake, from this life’s perspective, they are victims.
And it is our duty to help them. So, if an intellectual explanation can be used to help, that is good. If humanitarian aid can be used to help, that is also important.
Whatever way we can help at that time and create a pathway for those people to come to Christianity, we can help them.