One way of responding to a question recently posed in Arusha is by giving an example of how people manage misfortunes. "Are the recent tornado disasters in the United States of America a sign of God's displeasure with the legalization of same-sex marriages in some of those States?", asked a young Arusha lady. An obvious platitude is to repeat the utter confusion of the Apostle Paul: Who can know the mind of God? Who can be his counsellor? Philosophers have long discovered that one can neither confirm nor disconfirm theological statements.

When a disaster occurs or a success is recorded one can either way claim that each result, however conflicting, is God's will. We have no way of verifying the veracity of either claim. What people of faith live with has been clearly affirmed by the English dramatist Shakespeare who scholars today claim to have been informed by his Catholic faith. In his drama Henry V he contends: There is some soul of goodness in things evil if only men know how to distill it out. Or as Hegel would have it: there is a positive in the negative. In Medieval Scholasticism, Thomas Aquinas, a philosopher-theologian, taught that God draws good from evil. But with the sort of disasters caused by tornados and floods how could Augustine and Aquinas continue to defend their thesis that evil is no-thing, a deprivation, the absence of what is owed? Both of them, however, were only rephrasing St Paul's optimism: For those who love God all things work together unto good. It is this positive aspect of the problem of evil that this text wants to emphasize.

The president of the Federal Republic of Germany, Guenther Gauck, was visiting the flood victims of the recent disaster along the river Elbe. He happens to be a Lutheran pastor. One could immediately see how his Christian faith informs his words of encouragement. He reminded his audience of Germany's esprit de nation: Germany is a nation of solidarity. With that reminder, he calls on the Germans to identify with their affected compatriots, to come to their support.

Recent heavy rains have swollen the rivers of central Europe especially the Danube and the Elbe causing enormous havoc to life and property to people living in close proximity to the channels of these rivers. Weather Forecasts had warned of the impending disaster but the facts of the case more than overwhelmed the expectations. Instead of sitting down and bewailing their misfortune, we are witnessing an amazing display of solidarity. Volunteers come from everywhere to build defences with sandbags along the river channels.

The army and the fire-brigade bring the machines and technical equipment. Everybody contributes something: while the workers are at the barricades, women supply water and food. They are not waiting for help to be flown in from abroad, as most Africans passively react to similar situations. Nyerere's Arusha Declaration summoned to self-reliance. One notices a certain enthusiasm among the people in their effort to respond to what they consider a challenge posed by bad weather.

Remember the recent para-Olympic Games for the disabled staged in London? Those people did not consider their disability a negative thing; for them it was a challenge to their human creativity and enterprise. One has the suspicion that the same feeling of enterprise was coursing through the veins of the volunteers. What the Germans have been doing to disaster areas of the world is precisely what they are doing for themselves in their time of need. German solidarity has been known to have been flown to any area of the world where hunger, drought, war or sickness required a response.

Their Churches both Catholic and Protestant have established channels for aiding suffering parts of the world. Their president called on them to re-activate this spirit of solidarity for the benefit of their own people. You could deny yourself that extra bottle of beer or portion of ice-cream and donate the money for rebuilding lives destroyed by the flood, he counselled them. And they respond with amazing enthusiasm and generosity. Africans could do likewise.

This exhibition of caring is an element of our humanity that is often never manifested when the world is in order according to our world-vision. The spirit of self-sacrifice, of generosity often surprises us when tragedy strikes. What we consider evil often becomes the point where the hidden virtues of our humanity become manifest. People are surprised at the good they are capable of. But as to floods and tornados: are they punishments from God? Since the Big Bang took place billions of years ago in pre-historic time, our world has been continuously re-shaping itself. Look at the topography of ancient maps. Scientists tell us that our universe is expanding and has not come to rest.

Tornadoes and earthquakes, floods and tsunamis are continuously reconfiguring the surface of the earth. When humans build along river basins in the attempt to reclaim land for building, nature will always seek its balance by reasserting itself through the shaking of the foundations laid by humans. Nature and history combine to configure and re-configure the surface of the earth. Rousseau had counselled people to act according to nature. Homo Faber, however, has other ideas.