Over the years, the local media have reported many cases of children who suffered a tragic death or died in a horrific manner.
These reports included the case of a five-month-old English baby who was snatched from its cot by two Rottweilers, dragged to the roof of the house, and mauled to death. Other cases involved two Canadian boys who were strangled by a python while they slept; an 18-month old Russian toddler who fell and drowned in a sewer while out on a stroll with its mother; and an English girl who was savaged to death by a pack of dogs.
There is no way that these horrific deaths can be reconciled with the belief in a benevolent God who looks after His children like a loving Father. God was not moved to render His divine assistance when He heard these children screaming as they suffered a fearful and agonizing death. Any human being in the vicinity of these screaming children would have rushed to their aid.
This lack of divine intervention on behalf of children in grave danger was also evident during the earthquake at San Giuliano di Puglia in 2002, when 26 four-year-old boys and girls were crushed to death under the rubble of their school. During their funeral, their mothers “railed at the heavens. ‘Why did God do this to us? Why?’.”
The media recently reported the tragic case of the English girl Summer Grant who died after suffering multiple injuries when the bouncy castle she was playing on blew away.
Cara Blackie, the girl’s mother, said she was “truly heartbroken”. She said: ”Words just can’t explain how I am feeling right now, life is just truly cruel. Summer was a bright, beautiful and most loving little girl, it is so unfair that you have been taken away, it just doesn’t make sense.”
Summer’s father, Lee Grant, said: “I never thought our beautiful angel would be taken away from us or that we would outlive her. She was the most happy, polite and beautiful girl in the world. I still can’t come to terms that she’s not here.”
Dostoevsky observed in The Brothers Karamazov, that no “inscrutable” divine plan can ever justify the suffering and death of children. “It’s beyond all comprehension why children should suffer.”
When it suits them, Christians tell us that God does not intervene in human affairs. He allows children to suffer horrific deaths.
Novelist Ian McEwan told an audience at Stanford University in 2007: “The believers should know in their hearts by now that, even if they are right and there is a personal God, He is a reluctant intervener, as all the daily tragedies, including the death of children, attest. The rest of us, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, know that it is highly improbable that there is anyone up there at all.”
John Guillaumier
St Julian’s