I Can’t Believe That … (2) God would allow children to suffer

How could a loving God allow an innocent child to suffer? Surely he cares enough to prevent the suffering (if he didn’t care, he wouldn’t be very loving). And surely is able to prevent to suffering (if he couldn’t, he wouldn’t be very powerful). And yet we know that in this imperfect world children suffer. So does that mean there is no God? Or could God have good reasons to allow such suffering?

The Suffering (video game) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When we talk about the reasons for suffering there is a real danger that anything we say will sound glib or even insensitive to those who have been bereaved. The mother who has lost a beloved child doesn’t want reasons, she wants her child back. Trying to intellectualise the problem will be cold comfort for such grief. Trying to explain away the suffering would be heartless. Because what possible reason could you give that would make the death of a child acceptable? What explanation would justify so great a loss? And that is the first thing to recognise. When we seek to understand the existence of suffering we are not seeking to give a reason for individual acts of suffering. Some acts of suffering, when considered in isolation, have no reason. They are not caused by God, they are not for some eventual gain, they are, essentially, meaningless. We do not live in a world where everything has a purpose, where everything happens for a reason. The Bible says God has subjected the world to “futility” (Rom 8:20), that is, God has purposefully made this world imperfect and subject to imperfection. God does not cause suffering, but has made the world where suffering occurs. The question is, why would he do that?

Step back and consider: what is the cause of so much of the evil in the world? Answer: human beings. Whether it is cold-blooded murder or just casual neglect, so much suffering and pain is caused by humans making bad choices. Sometimes people will choose to do something truly wicked, more often people just choose to do what is easy, but it is those choices that produces the suffering. God could have created a world without such suffering because he could have created a world without people or only with people whose minds he controls. That would have prevented a lot of suffering. There would be no murders, if God didn’t allow people the freedom to choose. But God has allowed people the freedom to choose. Because a world in which people have free will is better than a world without it. Imagine a world without free will. Sure, there would be no evil but there would also be no good. Without free will there could be no love and there could be no relationships. There could be no acts of kindness, no moments of generosity, and no real charity. The world would just be filled with choice-less robots, neither good nor bad, just behaving as instructed. A world with free will is better, and world where people freely choose to do good is best, but if people are truly free then that means they have the option to cause evil.

But this isn’t the whole answer. Murderers may choose to murder, but waves don’t choose to drown people, rocks don’t choose to crush people and viruses don’t choose to infect people. A lot of the suffering in the world is caused by natural processes, by the laws of nature operating as they always do, the victims just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Why does God allow such suffering? Well, imagine the alternative. Imagine that rocks would always fall down to the ground EXCEPT when a child was underneath. That might seem like a wonderful idea, but think of all the exceptions and kinks in the laws of nature that would be needed to make children invulnerable. Bullets would turn to jelly when fired at children, fire would become cool when a child was close by, man-eating tigers would become lovable kittens. Suddenly the ordered and regular world that we’re used to has become chaotic and difficult to predict. No longer could humans depend on things behaving like they always have and so could no longer make even reasonable guesses about the outcome of their actions. Without the laws of nature, without the regularity of nature, human free will cannot operate because without that regularity you cannot make informed choices.

Okay, you say, I understand that free will is a good thing and I understand that the laws of nature are necessary, but even so couldn’t have God made the world better? Couldn’t there be less dangers? Or couldn’t we be less vulnerable? Why not make humans impervious to harm so that we can carry on whatever the world throws at us? Of

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Preceding article: I Can’t Believe That (1) … God would send anyone to hell

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Additional reading:

1. About suffering
2. Foreword to suffering
3. Choices to make in suffering
4. Crucifixion for suffering
5. God’s instruction about joy and suffering
6. God’s promises to us in our suffering
7. Importuning for suffering hearts
8. Seems no future in suffering
9. Suffering through the apparent silence of God
10. Suffering continues
11. Suffering leading to joy
12. Surprised by joy
13. Surprised by time in joys & sufferings
14. Miracles in our time of suffering
15. Offer in our suffering
16. Temptation and its conquest
17. Words from God about suffering
18. Mission son of God perceived as failure
19. Patient waiting
20. Moving mountains
21. Why Think There Is a God? (3): Why Is It Wrong?
22. Attributes to God
23. Disappointed with God
24. God’s measure not our measure
25. Full authority belongs to God
26. God Helper and Deliverer
27. God is Positive
28. God’s design in the creation of the world
29. God’s hope and our hope
30. God His reward
31. God’s promises
32. God’s salvation
33. Incomplete without the mind of God
34. Is God hiding His Face when He is seemingly silent
35. Jesus his answers about God’s silence
36. Based confidence
37. Chrystalised harmonious thinking
38. Our way of life
39. Life with God
40. Nuturing a close relationship with God
41. Concerning gospelfaith
42. Epitome of the one faith
43. My faith
44. Hope
45. Working of the hope
46. Looking for blessed hope
47. Hope for the future
48. Expiatory sacrifice
49. Content with the no answer
50. Free will and predestination
51. Meaning of life
52. Death and after
53. God’s Comfort
54. A world in denial
55. Fear and protection
56. Because men choose to go their own way
57. It is a free will choice
58. Free will and predestination
59. Let you not be defined by the effect of your wrong choice
60. The Existence of Evil

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