ABSTRACT
Terrifying in their effects and apparently random in occurrence, earthquakes have been among the most difficult of natural phenomena either to ignore or to rationalize in the Western tradition. Before the advent of rapid communications and systematic recordkeeping, it was difficult for observers to know the geographical distribution or relative magnitude of earthquakes, and knowledge about them usually came by delayed and sometimes exaggerated report. Two parallel strains of interpretation of these troubling phenomena have prevailed since antiquity. On the one hand, earthquakes have been accounted for naturalistically by contemporary scientific theories about the earth. On the other hand, a providential interpretation has been appealed to as an integral element of a theistic worldview. Until the nineteenth century, explanation often involved both, with providential and naturalistic accounts serving complementary, rather than competitive, functions. Emphasis was frequently placed on the one or the other explanation according to whether the discussion took place in a philosophical or a theological context.
