Our planet requires oxygen and a warming sun and water in order for us to live here, and we appreciate this, even though we recognize that people can get sunstroke and drown in the ocean. So, too, it seems that plate tectonics are, as Ward and Brownlee put it, a "central requirement for life" as we know it.
This is not to suggest, as the scientist and philosopher Leibniz once argued, that ours is the best of all possible worlds. But ours may be the best of all feasible worlds, at least as viewed from a human perspective. This recognition will not stop people from bemoaning the next earthquake, but it should at least stop us from blithely assuming that the Creator could have done a much better job.
Interesting.
Another explanation for earthquakes here. In this case, the Flood and the geologic upheaval that resulted was a righteous God's response to sinful people. I don't know if Ward and Brownlee's model accounts for that.
At any rate it does give this passage new meaning...
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