Why Does God Allow Child Abuse?

We were spending a pleasant evening at home with friends. As we talked about current events and other pertinent topics, one person shared a hideous online video depicting a particularly brutal case of child abuse. We were all shocked and outraged by the criminal behavior.

After viewing the abuse, my wife was so upset that she posed the age-old question: “How are we to explain how an eternal, all-knowing God allows painful suffering and death to happen to innocent little children, not only now but throughout recorded human history?”

The rest of us were lost for words to adequately explain the answer. Some of us uttered some ill-conceived explanation while merely shaking our heads in frustration and disbelief. 

This is a question that we all ask ourselves. Is there an answer?

I decided to search for a plausible explanation.

Pope Francis once said …

"Look at the Child of God on a cross. I don't know what other answer to give you. But let's talk about why God allows it, which is the core of the question. Quite simply, because he created us as persons, and as such: free. God is respectful of freedom. He allowed his son to be killed on the cross. The game of human freedom: God risked a lot here. It would more dishonor man, if God could take away his freedom, than if man, with his freedom, committed a crime.”

The Bible tells us that since the beginning of human experience God has given humans freedom of choice freedom to act rightly, act wrongly, or not act at all. The Bible is emphatic on its teaching that humans possess free will and are capable of originating evil. Because love must be freely chosen, God cannot simply decree that he will get what he wants. He pleads with people to turn to him, but he will not coerce them.

From the Beginning

In the garden of Eden, God created the first humans in his very own image. That is, he imparted mind power to our first parents – the ability to think, plan, reason and create, and, most important, the ability to exercise decision making powers.

Scriptures tell us the first two humans were given a choice. Since God gave Adam and Eve a choice, God is in charge. He is therefore responsible for whatever happens. But if the first humans chose freely to go the wrong way, the fault is theirs and the penalties theirs and their children's. Instead of choosing to obey God's government over their lives and do things God's way, they chose to do things their way.

God advised them to take of the "tree of life” which symbolized outgoing concern for others, God's way of doing things, obedience to his authority, and acceptance of his revealed knowledge. God warned them against choosing the opposite way, portrayed by the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" — representing selfishness, reasoning apart from God, acquiring knowledge by trial and error, even living life in outright rejection of God's revealed way of outgoing concern for others

“And the Lord God commanded the man, 'You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.'"

(Gen. 2:16-17)

Adam and Eve chose badly. Eve was deceived by Satan. Adam willingly – not willfully – chose to go the wrong way. They rejected God's way and chose Satan's way instead. They rejected God having any authority in their lives. They built their own society and civilization cut off from God's revelation, from his revealed spiritual and physical knowledge. Christians would later say that is how this world became Satan's world

Thus, the Scriptures tell us that suffering came into the world as a consequence of the fall of man and of creation; that is to say, it is because of sin that God has visited judgment upon this planet. That judgment includes the curses of pain, disease, sorrow, and death that attend the consequences of wickedness. We must recognize that we truly live in a fallen world. This means bad things can happen to good people, and good things can happen to bad people.

What about children? Surely young, innocent children are not responsible for their own hardships. Virtually every church in Christendom has had to develop some concept of “original sin” because the Scriptures teach us so clearly that we are born in a sinful state and that the curse of the fall attends every human life.

How difficult it is to accept that monstrous child abusers have the same free will as good people. The reality that people are free to violate the free will of less powerful people isn’t a sign that God is weak or morally corrupt. Instead, it’s a sign of just how sacrosanct God considers human free will.

That sounds grim and dreadful until we realize that in that judgment on fallen humanity comes also the tempering of God’s wrath with mercy and grace and His whole work of redemption. Christians believe in a special measure of grace that God has reserved for those who die in infancy. Jesus said …

“Suffer the little children to come unto me, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.”

(Matt. 19:14)

The understanding is clear: “Death does not rule.” In his resurrection, Jesus Christ overcame sin, Satan, and death. For Christians, death is not the end but a transformation to a fuller life in Christ. Through the grace and righteous judgment of God, the innocent and the sinners find eternal justice.

What about God eventually assuming the responsibility for giving humans choice? Christians believe He will intervene in human affairs by sending Jesus the Messiah the second time to put an end to suffering and ignorance by deposing Satan and restoring the government of God.

"And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, 'Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying; and there shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away'"

(Rev. 21:3-4)

In the meantime, the laws of nature function and human free-will is operative. This does not mean that God can never intervene, simply that when God does intervene, there will be consequences. He cannot intervene all the time: this would undermine the point of free will.

And, in the meantime, God can save children, or adults, from disease, death or injury in accidents. God can intervene and God does intervene to help and protect many of those choosing to live life His way.

Austin Farrer (1904–1968) – English Anglican philosopher, theologian, and biblical scholar – created a concept called “double agency.” Double agency is a concept which suggests that both God and a human being can cause an event because the nature of God’s action is to work in and through other agents.

Farrer writes: “God’s agency must actually be such as to work omnipotently on, in, or through creaturely agencies without either forcing them or competing with them.” The agency of God and creatures must be understood as being on two different levels.

In one event both the divine and creaturely agents are fully active. God has not overwhelmed the finite agent so that it is merely a passive instrument, and God is not simply the creator and sustainer who allows the creaturely agent to act independently of divine agency. Furthermore, the divine and finite agents are not merely complementary, that is, they do not contribute distinct parts to the one event. As many authors have put it, God acts in and through the finite agent which also acts in the event.

If God doesn't allow any suffering, not only do we humans lose our free will, but if all suffering is eliminated, we also fail to learn from our painful experiences. After all, most pain is not in vain. Trials and suffering make us spiritually stronger.

Grace means "unmerited favor.” In 2 Corinthians 12, the Apostle Paul speaks of a "thorn" in his flesh. Three times he begged God to remove it. Three times God denied him. God's answer:

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."

(2 Corinthians 12:9)

So, why does God let the righteous suffer?

It gives absolute proof where their true loyalty is. It allows those so tested to build godly character that will last for all eternity – character that continues on into eternal life when Christ returns to restore the government of God on earth and to reward individuals who serve him.

"And, behold," says Jesus, "I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.... Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life... "

(Rev. 22:12, 14)

The final consequence of God intervening to prevent all child suffering would mean His existence would never be in doubt. If anyone said “I don’t believe in God” then all that would be required would be for me to put a child in danger and watch as the child is miraculously saved. However, if God wants His existence to be less than obvious, that is, if He wants people to come to Him through faith and love not through compulsion, then He cannot act in this way. His interventions have to be less regular to allow people to deny His existence, if they choose to.

We can only choose God if we have free will. For Him to unilaterally stop sex abuse of children would require Him to overrule the free will of men. We are here on this planet for the sole purpose of preparing for Eternity. Jesus is the Gateway to Eternity with God, rejecting Him means Eternity without God.

Personal Beliefs

In closing, I believe God does not “allow” children to be abused. Sick, evil humans choose to defy God and abuse children. No scripture condones such wicked behavior.

“And he said, That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.”

(Mark 7:20-23 King James Version)

Why must innocent children suffer? Tying the reason to the original sin makes some kind of sense of it. Yet, other times it feels totally meaningless and causes us to question everything we consider holy. After all, we all are only humans with limited understanding.

Perhaps, God's elaborate plan is simply beyond our simple comprehension. Does God plan to restore men to their pre-fall condition while the devil (with the willing help of millions of misguided humans) keeps disrupting God’s progress? The prophecy of Judgment Day remains intact.

Until then, the evil of human beings rages. Innocent children – those innocents most undeserving – suffer for no reason other than the depravity of man.

The “Nothingness” Presence of Evil

“There is in world-occurrence an element, indeed an entire sinister system of elements, which is not…preserved, accompanied, nor ruled by the almighty action of God like creaturely occurrence.”

– Karl Barth

Karl Barth, a Swiss Reformed theologian, is probably the best representative of a school of thought that says evil must be understood as both not something and not nothing. Accordingly, he refers to evil as “nothingness” (das Nichtige in German). He goes on to describe evil as a force that threatens to corrupt and destroy God’s good creation.

To Barth, evil can only be categorized (if at all) as an “alien factor” in the world which seeks to corrupt and undo the creation, to drag the world back into the pure nothing from which God created. For Barth, God willed and created for a good purpose of election, but das Nichtige can only be seen as that which God did not will or did not elect at all. Das Nichtige stands in opposition to both nature and grace, and thus is entirely unnatural and anti-grace.

Barth is thus proclaiming that to think biblically about evil, we must understand that because it exists in a way that is wholly in contradiction to God’s eternal, set will, and because it has been decisively conquered by Jesus, it is correctly understood only as “nothingness.”

Barth is not playing word-games here – he’s saying that evil is almost nothing and can only lead to being absolutely nothing. To make his point, he must stretch human language to its limits. In doing so, he helps us understand evil, in the light of Christ, for what it actually is – “nothingness” (that which is next to nothing). The doctrine of das Nichtige absolutely refuses any notion that evil properly belongs to the will of God, whereas most Reformed thinkers have affirmed that God intentionally decrees every last occurrence, evil or otherwise.

“Sin is not confined to the evil things we do. It is the evil within us,

the evil which we are.”

– Karl Barth