As I mention often in these posts, I am going to do my best to avoid eschatological interpretations. When discussing Revelation, that gets very hard, so my habit has been to find a theme rather than trying to understand what each passage means.
In that light, I will not try to explain the seals on the scroll, when they happen, or how literal to take them. Rather, I want to highlight the picture. We have a picture of God on a throne and of Christ, in the form of a slaughtered lamb, being declared worthy to break the seals of this scroll. As most of the seals are broken, some calamity happens on earth.
You can argue about whether God caused the calamity, allowed it, or both all you want. What I would find hard to dispute is that Christ was the only one found worthy to break the seals on the scroll and the calamities happened as the seals were broken. Christ played an active role in these calamities coming about. Surely God knew these things would happen.
Passages like this do make me wonder about calamities and God's will. God can prevent anything from happening. He could have prevented Hurricane Katrina or "Super Storm Sandy". But he didn't. Was this punishment? Was there some greater plan we just don't understand?
I don't know the answers to these questions, but I do believe they are valid questions. I think shutting down someone who dares to ask them is theologically naive.
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