Sim Kwang Yang has written an article entitled Tsunami, divine intention and Judgement Day with the perspicacity and the erudition of a seasoned scholar. I couldn't agree more with his view. He wondered aloud on what is the meaning of time and whether eternity is outside time.

I would recommend that Brian Greene's Elegant Universe and Stephen Hawking's books - they would be a better counsel on this regard.

Time in ordinary sense is eternity chopped into seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years, decades, centuries, millennia, etc. and it is perceived to be one-directional in character.

However, in physics, time is viewed rather differently. When the universe was born at the first instant of the Big Bang, it had more than four dimensions ( if I am not mistaken, it had 10 dimensions).

Somewhere along the line in its evolution, the six dimensions went into hiding; perhaps bringing along some invisible matter and energy with them. At the instant, just before the Big Bang, we can speculate that time and space were one.

However massive the universe is, it is a space-time entity meaning it consists space and time. Space is three-dimensional, that is, it has length, breadth and height, The fourth dimension is time. In physics, time not only flows, it can bend, go astern, reverse and perhaps even go around in a circle.

In a one-dimensional setting, only a dot can exist, in two a line and space in three.

We cannot live without time simply because our physiology needs time besides space. Example, without time our heart cannot beat. So time is a vital component of life. Time is therefore an integral part of the space-time world or the universe.

Hence, time logically cannot exist in eternity. If eternity embodies timelessness, meaning that there is no past, or future; but it is 'is'; then eternity is beyond space and time. Therefore eternity is outside time.

The laws of physics, both for classical physics and quantum mechanics, apply only to the space-time world. It does not work outside this realm. What physics, or science for that matter, reveals is the wonders of creations - the space-time world.

The question of natural disasters such as the recent Asian tsunami has nothing to do with God's wrath, or His benevolence. It occurred purely within the context of space-time reality.

The space-time world has to follow natural laws. Of course, there are a myriad of factors in these laws as to baffle even the brightest of scientists.

Of course, God could suspend physical happenings from occurring but by doing so, He is interfering with the laws of nature. He can stop the earth from rotating around its axis for six months so that half of the world would enjoy daily sunlight; but the other half of the world would die - no living thing could survive without sunlight for that long.

Scientists know that the fault lines of the earth have been there for quite a while. They also know about the tectonic activities taking place underneath the earth. Many people know they are living close to these danger areas.

The greatest gift bestowed upon humanity is choice. We are free to choose. Yet, we cannot choose without adequate knowledge. But pursuit of knowledge is also a choice.

Much of human activities are against the laws of nature - illegal logging, testings of nuclear devices, the release of toxic chemicals into the atmosphere among others.

All these contribute towards changes in the myriad of factors in the natural law equation.