WATERLOO - Where was God?

It is the question on everyone's mind when something devastating happens.

The death of a child. The loss of a job.

A tsunami.

When more than 150,000 people die in the blink of an eye, and millions more are left homeless from a natural disaster, how does God figure into the equation?

Since the tsunami swallowed the shores of Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India, millions around the globe - whether Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist - have asked this question.

It is a question that can only be answered with more questions. If God is loving and benevolent, how could such destruction happen? If God didn't cause it, why didn't he stop it? Did God create evil, and if so, why? If God is not responsible for evil, then is evil more powerful than God?

"The question of the existence of evil is as old as the Scriptures," said Rev. Elaine Siemsen, a professor at St. Olaf College in Minnesota who teaches a class called "God and Human Suffering."

Central to her course is theodicy, a term coined by philosophers in the 1600s to define the branch of theology that attempts to render suffering and evil intelligible.

For centuries, religion has tried to explain how a loving and just God could allow humans to endure such suffering.

In Iowa, the issue is typically analyzed from a Judeo-Christian perspective.

But Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam dominate in the South Asian countries devastated by the tsunami.

Hinduism believes in the principle of karma. Men and women are judged by their deeds only. Many Hindus view suffering, including that caused by natural disasters, as punishment for wrongdoings in this lifetime or past lives.

Anil Nachnani, a doctor in Waterloo and practicing Hindu from Bombay, India, believes in the principles of karma, but does not apply that rationale to the tsunami.

"I look at it from a much more scientific standpoint, as a shifting of tectonic plates," Nachnani said. "I don't know exactly why that happens, but it must be nature adjusting itself."

In Islam, the Quran mentions Allah using natural disasters as a way to maintain a balance of his natural laws or inflict a punishment on a population.

Afaf Shehata, a Cedar Falls Muslim from Cairo, Egypt, does not look at the tsunami as punishment from God, but instead as a wake-up call.

"Allah sends the alert, to tell people: wake up, change, improve or develop something better," Shehata said.

While Nachnani looks upon nature as separate from God's doing, there is no difference for Shehata.

"Who made the earth shift? Allah, he did. Who sent the snow? Allah did."

Hindus also look upon suffering as clearing bad deeds from a karmic account. Those who died in the tsunami will be reincarnated and may be happier in their next life.

In Islam, Shehata said, suffering can also remove sin.

Siemsen said another hypothesis she often hears is that God is mysterious and humans cannot understand his ways.

Rabbi Sol Serber subscribes to this theory. Jews generally believe God's sense of justice, and therefore the reasons for human suffering, are unknowable.

Suffering is both enormous and cataclysmic, and also small and personal. Serber recalls the questions he asked God decades ago when his 18-year-old daughter died.

"Somehow you believe. Faith gives me the courage to cope with the questions that I'll never have an answer to while I'm here on earth," Serber said.

Serber said he does not believe God had a hand in causing the tsunami.

On the flip side, many American Christians and TV evangelists believe natural disasters are God's punishment of sinful people or the world as a whole.

"Their first answer is, very often, it's the will of God. It releases humanity of responsibility," Siemsen said.

Other Christians, though, see disaster as a way a loving God tests the faith of survivors.

That tragedy often tests one's faith was especially true in Dunkerton when, five years ago, a tornado swept through the town and destroyed St. John's Lutheran Church.

Right after the tornado, there was a lot of sadness and disruption, but in the long run, the Rev. Bill Thalacker said, some good has come out of it.

"The congregation is as healthy as it's ever been," Thalacker said. "In the Christian faith, God is never absent from our pains and troubles and anxieties."

Sometimes God's purpose, if indeed there is one, is revealed after such a catastrophe. As a result of the tsunami, many nations around the globe have come together to help fund and participate in reconstruction efforts. The outpouring of financial support for tsunami victims is unprecedented.

It is not always financial and medical support that helps rebuild a person or nation.

"During complete destruction, what choice do we have - either we believe in a world of total chaos, or we believe there is an ultimate power to hope in," Siemsen said. "I think people need hope. I think we thrive, we live, we become creative when we have hope. Prayer becomes the avenue of seeking God in hope."

Stacey Palevsky can be contacted at (319) 291-1580 or stacey.palevsky@wcfcourier.com.