Austin's Blog

I’ve lived neck deep in the problem of evil for over a year now, reading anything and everything I can get on the topic. What I have noticed as I read is there’s such an ease and temptation to keep it in the abstract. A problem of evil out there somewhere. Yet, like the rest of my problems, the problem of evil has been as close as my next breath. Why did Gabriel die so young? Why do babies and children suffer? Why did my son suffer? At one level—the answer is completely clear from a human standpoint. People failed Gabriel from the moment we entrusted him in their care that day. Yet, it is the divine purpose or cause that is more difficult and elusive. Why did God allow, permit, ordain, appoint, or decree (use whatever verb your theology allows) such a terrible event?

One thing I must admit is that we are dealing with topics that are likely well-beyond ourselves. C.S. Lewis rightly reminds us, “… if we [use] mental pictures to illustrate quantum physics we are moving further away from reality, not nearer to it. We have clearly even less right to demand that the highest spiritual realities should be picturable, or even explicable in terms of our abstract thought.” If it is hard to picture the inner workings of quantum mechanics and the images themselves fall radically short of reality, how much more why the high and holy Triune God of eternity might ordain an evil? Who is to say I would understand the reasons if He offered them to me?

The situation is less like one person trying to understand, decipher, and translate another person from a different country who speaks a different language and more like Addison’s hermit crab trying to understand a conversation between her and I at the dinner table. Furthermore, who is to say I’m the one who is owed such answers? One thing that is needed most is humility because there’s deep mystery here. These are, indeed, the deepest waters and many have drowned within them after so cavalierly jumping in without the right helps.

Deuteronomy 29:29 says, “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.” What this tells me is there are things that the Lord has not chosen to reveal yet and there are likely even things He has sovereignly decided never to reveal (Rev. 19:2). But, He has not been silent. There are various truths the Bible teaches about God, His purposes within the world, and why He allows certain, difficult things. J.R. Miller writes, “Even the strongest Christian faith will have its questions, and many of its questions will have to remain unanswered until the horizon of life is widened, and its dim light becomes full and clear in heaven. Meanwhile, however, some of these questions may be at least partially answered, and grief’s poignancy in some slight measure alleviated.” While we cannot know everything on this side of eternity, that does not mean we don’t know anything about what He is up to. Below are eight reasons why God might allow the death of infants, babies, and young children.

Because we live in a fallen world.

Sin entered the world in Genesis 3 through the actions of our First Parents, the fountainheads of all humanity. When Adam and Eve decided to go their own way, they brought havoc and harm into the world (Rom. 5:12). They chose the way of folly, self-reliance, and disobedience, which ultimately resulted in the ground being cursed along with them (Gen. 3:18). The Apostle Paul talks about how all of Creation is affected by human sin. Romans 8:22 says, “For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.” God’s good world contains badness, brokenness, and bereavement because of sin. We live in a world where babies die because Adam and Eve chose life apart from God and so has the rest of humanity.

Because Satan seeks to harm the most precious.

1 Peter 5:9 says, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” He is a roaring Lion. Jesus heals a woman who suffered for over eighteen years and connects the work of Satan with her sickness saying in Luke 13:16, “Ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?” The Apostle Paul refers to the thorn in his flesh as a “messenger of Satan” in 2 Corinthians 12:7 and said that Satan hindered his ministry in 1 Thessalonians 2:18. The book of Job is an example of Satan afflicting someone with sickness and even death (Job 1-2). We don’t live in this world alone and there are malevolent forces seeking to harm the most precious among us. Perhaps some children die because of Satan’s attacks.

Because of the sinful choices of others.

2 Samuel 12 contains the story of David, Bathsheba, and the death of their son. As a result of David’s sin against Uriah, Bathsheba, the nation, himself, and God, David’s child was afflicted with sickness and ultimately died. He pleaded with God while the child was sick but arose, cleaned himself off, and worshiped after he passed. David’s servants were curious about his response. David says, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept, for I said, ‘Who knows whether the Lord will be gracious to me, that the child may live?’ But now he is dead. Why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.” (2 Sam. 12:22-23). This episode highlights the fact that, at least, one child died directly because of the sinful choices of their parents. This is not to say that all children die because of human error, sin, or choice. The story of the man born blind (John 9:1-5) and the story of Job disproves such logic. In Gabe’s case, human error and mistakes were obviously involved from start to finish.

Because God wants to spare them the evil of this world.

God may sovereignly bring a child to Himself to actively spare them the evil, pain, and sorrow of this world. Isaiah says in chapter 57:1-2, “The righteous perish, and no one takes it to heart; the devout are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil. Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death.” The righteous are spared from evil when they are taken in death. Twice the Old Testament describes the state of infants who pass away as going to a place of rest (Job 3:16-19; Eccl. 6:3-5). It would be mercy, grace, and kindness to remove someone from a painful and difficult circumstance and place them within an immeasurably wonderful circumstance. This is what the Lord does through the deaths of infants and children. They have been spared and entered His rest, fully and finally satisfied in Him. This is hard to understand now, but I see the beauty in it. I think it will be far more beautiful on the far side.

Because God wants them immediately with Himself, enjoying all that He is in Heaven.

So many have said, “God needed Gabriel” and that’s why my son died. Yet, that is robustly untrue. God does not need anyone or anything (Acts 17:24-27; Psa. 50:8-12). He had no lack in Heaven on January 20th that was filled by Gabriel on the 21st. But, more importantly, God wanted and desired Gabriel to be with Him. Jesus prayed for believers in John 17:24, “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.” Gabriel is where God is and experiencing a glory and love that has eternally existed within the Triune heart of God Himself. Children die and through death go immediately into the presence of the Living God where there is no pain, sorrow, lack, or darkness. Why do infants and children die? That they may be ushered into the very presence of their Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer. Gabe went to the One who somehow loves him more than we do.

Because God wants us to live fully and finally for Him alone and long for Heaven.

There’s a lot laid up in Heaven for us. We’ve spent the year thinking on and reflecting upon Heaven in ways that we’ve never considered before. Perhaps one purpose why God would allow the death of our babies and young children is to cause us to long for, truly desire, and wholeheartedly pursue Heaven as our home, where our children are. In the Last Battle, the final story in C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, a character exclaims upon arriving in Aslan’s country, “I have come home at last!  This is my real country!  I belong here.  This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it until now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this.” Heaven is truly our home and there’s a lot there now to live for. We will find once we arrive home to Aslan’s country, that the Real Story of our lives has only just begun. Our children aren’t just a part of our past but the glorious inheritance the Lord has laid up for us in Heaven. Philippians 3:13-14 says, “One thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus”

Because a wealth of good can be done through terrible evils, losses, and griefs.

Gabriel dying was not good. All resultant goods do not nullify or change the fact that his death was an evil. I can testify to the fact though that there are innumerable goods that have resulted from the death of my son. While they don’t justify his death, there is comfort knowing that so much good has been brought about. Romans 8:28-30 says, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.” The plan of God within the life of the believer began before time began. His eternal purposes cannot and will not fail. I can only imagine how Gabe’s little life is weaved into God’s plan for us and our family. How Gabriel’s little life fits into the grand scheme of human history is yet to be seen.

Only Heaven will reveal how this ripple within the lake of our life has changed history for generations. I will understand it better by and by, as the old hymn says. I agree with Dostoevsky that a great reconciliation will occur in the end where, “…that in the world’s finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, for all the blood that they’ve shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened.” God allows the death of children within His divine plan of immeasurable goods coming about in human history. I cannot reconcile it on this side of Eternity but I can rest in His goodness and leave it with Him. As my pastor said at my son’s funeral, “Gabe’s death will serve more purposes of God now and in the future than we can rightly comprehend. God is always turning the evil of the world toward good and glorious purposes beyond our understanding.”

Because God’s glory is the highest ideal, goal, and purpose of the Universe.

When Job lost his children, his home, his earthly livelihood, his health, and seemingly every good thing, how did he respond? Job 1:20-21 says, “Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” In the deepest moment of pain and heartache, Job fell to his knees and worshipped the God who gives and takes away. The Apostle Paul affirms that the glory of God is the source, means, and goal of all things saying in Romans 11:36, “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” Bereaved parents who hold fast and magnify the Lord in the midst of loss demonstrate that the “love of the Lord is better than life” (Psa. 63:3) and the glory of God is the most praiseworthy, excellent, and noble thing in all of reality.

Commenting on Hebrews 11:37-38, John Piper writes, “Many things in this life are utterly opposite from the way they seem. And here is one of them. When the precious children of God are permitted to suffer and be rejected and mistreated and go destitute, afflicted and ill-treated, God is giving a gift to the world. He is gracing the world. He is shedding his love abroad in the world. Because in those who suffer and die in the unshakable assurance of hope in God, the world is given a message and a picture: ‘The Lord himself is better than life. Turn, O turn and believe.’” There are likely a thousand penultimate goals when God acts, but the ultimate goal of all things is His glory—the infinite worth, value, and beauty of His excellent Name. While it is hard to understand, the glory of God reigns supreme even over the deaths of infants and young children. Knowing this is easier than understanding this. How this can glorify God is somewhat mysterious but that all things glorify Him in the end is sure. Elisabeth Elliot wisely admonishes us that “We may rest in the promise that God is fitting together a good many more things than are any of our business. We may never see ‘what good it did’ or how a given trouble accomplishes anything. It is peace to leave it all with Him, asking only that He do with me anything He wants, anywhere, anytime, that God may be glorified.”