I’ve been a little behind in my reading and just read the Leadership Link article “When God ‘allows’ children to die” in the Oct. 10 Religious Herald. I think your personal openness about dealing with that very issue was very pastoral, and I am sorry that you’ve had to face that. I wish you had been offered better counsel and a better hope in that time of loss.
The gospel is the answer we all need at a time like that. No matter what age someone meets with death, whether a child or an adult, death is never right or natural. In the creation account we see that life was God’s intention — never death, except as a consequence of sin. Unfortunately we all know that's exactly what happened, and God’s very good creation was subjected to corruption, to futility, and man was given over to death as he was separated from God.
But the gospel is the blessing that ends the curse. In the resurrection of Christ we see death and sin defeated, and are given the hope of eternal life. And even before we are glorified we are united to Christ, our separation from God is ended and we are restored to a relationship of worship — being able to love God and being loved by God.
I do not find “a measure of peace in realizing God has limited himself,” except in the manner of the incarnation where Jesus emptied (you could say in a way “limited”) himself and took on flesh to become obedient to death, even death on the cross. I find peace in knowing Jesus has overcome the limitations of death. I find peace in a God who is not limited by accident or even evil, but turns all things into good for those that love him and are called according to his purpose.
It is not necessary to philosophically posit a limitation in God’s omniscience for him to be heart-broken about a child’s death, or any others’. God is broken-hearted over all sin and death without being surprised by it. Further, God doesn’t have to be excused for justly punishing sinners, even if he knew from before the creation of the world that they would remain sinners destined for Hell, as if God’s love is in conflict with his justice.
I think you are right to say that “God is bigger, more magnanimous, more merciful, more understanding, more compassionate, more gracious that we can begin to understand.” And we must allow his great knowledge and great power and great justice to remain in that list as well.
Rather than counseling from speculation, let us counsel from Scripture, and counsel from the cross — knowing, without yet seeing, that God “will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
Jonathan Susee, LaCrosse, Va.