Madam, - Oliver McGrane (January 13th) asks why God allowed the recent earthquake in Iran.
If an omnipotent and just God exists, there is an answer to this question but we neither know nor can know it. That is the proper meaning of belief in the mysterious providence of God. To pass something off as divine mystery is not to give an answer but to admit one does not know the answer yet believes there is one.
If an omnipotent and just God does not exist, the question does not properly arise and the answer of why so many died in Bam is simply that they were there on the night of the earthquake. This kind of answer, perhaps on first reading apparently callous, is true of all natural disasters.
Whether or not one believes in God, the practical or moral question remains and faces each one of us: what am I to do now? - Yours, etc.,
GARRETT BARDEN,
Tallow,
Co Waterford.