Why do children suffer?

What the Bible says

There is no easy answer to this question. In front of a child's pain an explanation can sound like an insult. If you are reading this at a child's hospital bed, or after losing a child, or carrying wounds from your own childhood, this essay makes one promise first: it will not speak lightly.

The first thing Scripture shows is that God does not look away. A psalmist prays about the wicked who prey on the helpless:

But You have regarded trouble and grief; You see to repay it by Your hand. The victim entrusts himself to You; You are the helper of the fatherless.

Psalm 10:14

Matthew puts the death of children right in the middle of the story of Jesus' birth. Herod had every boy two years old and under in Bethlehem killed, and Matthew quotes Jeremiah (Matt 2:16):

A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.

Matt 2:18

The Gospel does not rush to console these mothers; it records a grief that refuses comfort.

Next, Scripture shows how Jesus treated children. People were bringing them to him, and the disciples turned them away. Jesus was angry.

But when Jesus saw this, He was indignant and told them, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not hinder them! For the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.

Mark 10:14

He took the children in his arms and blessed them (Mark 10:16). And about those who harm children he speaks some of his severest words:

But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.

Matt 18:6

In the same passage Jesus says that his Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish (Matt 18:14). Harm done to a child is called by its right name: evil.

Finally, Scripture says the story is not over. Isaiah describes the world God will make new:

They will not labor in vain or bear children doomed to disaster; for they will be a people blessed by the LORD — they and their descendants with them.

Isa 65:23

That passage comes with a promise that no nursing infant will live only a few days (Isa 65:20). And Revelation ends with this:

‘He will wipe away every tear from their eyes,’ and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the former things have passed away.

Rev 21:4

The church's witness

The church has tried to stand with the grieving rather than pretend to know the reasons. One of the sharpest statements of the question comes from a novel. In Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, Ivan tells his brother Alyosha true stories of cruelty to children that he has collected from newspapers Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. He does not say there is no God. He says that if a harmonious world must be built on the tears of one tortured child, he respectfully returns his ticket. Then he asks Alyosha whether he would agree to be the architect of such a world. Alyosha answers quietly, no. And he points to one who can forgive everything, because he shed innocent blood for all. The scene endures because the novelist lets the objection speak at full strength.

Pseudo-Chrysostom writes of the voice heard in Ramah: "it was heard on high, because uttered for the death of the innocent" Pseudo-Chrysostom. Matthew Henry, on the little ones of Matthew 18, writes: "A father takes care of all his children, but is particularly tender of the little ones" Matthew Henry. And of the day Isaiah promises he says: "Nor will children then be the trouble of their parents, or suffer trouble themselves" Matthew Henry.

Christians hold different views on why God permits evil and how his sovereignty relates to human freedom; see Why does a good God allow evil?. But there is common ground: harming a child is evil, and God will overcome that evil.

In the original languages

When Jesus says "causes … to stumble," the related noun is skandalon (σκάνδαλον). It originally pictured a snare or an obstacle that trips someone, and in the New Testament it means anything that makes a person fall into sin or lose faith. Trampling a child's simple trust is exactly this, and the millstone shows how heavily Jesus weighs it.

The Hebrew yatom (יָתוֹם) in Psalms 10 and 68 means "fatherless." In the ancient world a child without a father was the standard picture of someone with no protector. The psalms say God takes their side.

A father of the fatherless and a defender of widows is God in His holy habitation.

Psalm 68:5

The Bible introduces God as father and defender of the weakest child.

Common objections

"No future good can justify even one child's tears. However good the world to come, the child's suffering does not go away." This is Ivan Karamazov's protest, and at its strongest it says that no later happiness can justify an abuse that has already happened. That is right. Scripture does not say a child's suffering was ‘needed for a greater good.’ It calls it evil, pronounces judgment on those who do it, and says God will defeat it. The promise of a new heaven and a new earth is not compensation for pain but the defeat of evil. It does not undo what happened. What a Christian can honestly add is that God did not watch from a distance. Jesus came as a human being and suffered violence in a helpless body, and God took the place of the weakest there (Phil 2:6-8).

"If God exists and loves children, why did he not stop it? When someone could prevent harm and does not, we call him guilty." This is a serious objection. The Bible never explains the reason. As with Job, God gives himself rather than reasons. Christians do not speak with one voice here either. Some say God gave human beings freedom and accepted the risk that it would be abused. Others say that God is sovereign over all things yet the guilt of evil lies wholly with people. Neither is a sufficient answer to a child who has lost a parent or a parent who has lost a child. That is why both streams turn from explanation to lament, and the Bible keeps prayers like Psalm 22 on its pages.

"Where did the child go?" Many Christians have found comfort in David's words about his dead son: "I will go to him" (2 Sam 12:23). The question is taken up on its own, with the different views of the churches, in What happens to children who die?.

Going further

The most honest answer is short. God sees children's suffering and is not indifferent to it, Jesus is the one who took children in his arms, and evil will end. This does not dry today's tears, but it says that tears are not the last word.

The question also asks something of us. What made Jesus indignant was adults who turned children away. Protecting children does not stop at asking God questions. Proverbs says to open your mouth for those with no voice (Prov 31:8). If you suspect a child is being abused, do not stay silent; tell the authorities. Churches and communities need to believe children and listen to them.

You might ask yourself: Am I asking this as a theory or as a wound? Beside a suffering child and that child's parents, am I trying to explain, or to stay? What can I do, where I am, to keep children safe?

To read further, see Does suffering have meaning? and How can I bear grief?. Reading Psalms 22 and 88 slowly is also a good place to start.