A series that helps consider difficult questions of the Christian faith

If God is a God of love, why does he allow innocent little babies to die?

Answer:

For a full answer to the whole question of evil, please go to the Main Contents Page and then to the four pages on "The Problem of Evil".

An outline answer is as follows:

1. Living in a Fallen World

The Bible explains that the world we are now living in is different from how it was when God first made it.

Now there is the presence of Sin within every human being, that tendency to self to the exclusion of God. 

Because of Sin in the world, and the fact that its effects have been working out in the earth's history for millennia, things go wrong!      Illness now exists.   There are now genetic aberrations.

These are not necessarily the fault of any one individual today, but the collective result of humanity's Sin through the centuries.

So why do people die prematurely?  They just do. It's a fact of existence in the world as it now is.

Why does a particular baby die early with a genetic defect or from a cot death?  We don't know. It just happens.

2. Why doesn't God act?

There is a difficulty here. If we accept the Bible's explanation that God has designed us to 'work' in a particular way, and that involves a daily relationship with Him, free from sin, then we also have to accept that now we are living, in the most part, out of such a relationship and not free from sin, and there is likely, therefore, to be a breakdown in the way our bodies work.

So why doesn't God step in and stop premature deaths happening?  Well, OK that's a good question, but if we want Him to do that, isn't it logical to require him to stop every kind of evil event affecting us?  Where would be the stopping place? Where would we say it was all right for Him not to 'interfere'?

We are also touching on the difficulty of God so establishing things that we don't have any free will, to choose what we do, how we do it, where we go etc., including things that are not helpful to us, or things which are actually harmful to us.

Should we want God not to put anything on the earth that might harm us - like too much alcohol or substances that we might call 'drugs'?  Not only would such a thing be impossible but it would take away a tremendous amount of what we now know of as 'life'.

In respect of us, it would reduce us to molly-coddled robots, it would remove much of what we call our humanity.

The truth is that we can also grow in character through hardship, even though it is painful at the time. This is part of the human experience.

If you have suffered or are suffering the grief of a loved one, especially if it was a baby or a young person who you loved very much, there are no easy solutions.

The best we can tell you is that at one point the Bible refers to God as a God of comfort, a God who draws near to us in our distress and brings comfort to us in our hour of need.

If you are distressed through such suffering we would like to offer to pray for you. Simply e-mail us and let us know of your need and we will pray for you.

Why your baby?  We don't know, but all we do know is that God did not do it.  The Bible indicates that God grieves with us and feels with us. In our grief it is possible for us to know His comfort. May it be so for you.