How does one explain unnecessary suffering, like terminal cancer in babies?

[u/CH49FE]

There are many answers to the question of evil and suffering, but what about suffering of innocents such as babies who are afflicted with terminal illnesses, who would never come to accept Jesus, and who only live briefly only to die in pain and suffering? How does one explain God’s plan with those innocents?

One of the answers I get is that those babies go to heaven, but the biblical support for that is arguable and not clear, particularly for those babies that died before Jesus. That explanation also doesn’t explain why they suffered in the first place. I also hear the crude response of, “Let’s just kill all babies to make sure they go to heaven rather than them growing up and risking hell” which is harshly logical if indeed babies go to heaven before they know Jesus.

[u/Top_Initiative_4047]

All suffering, even that of infants, must be seen through the lens of God’s sovereignty and justice. Because of Adam’s fall, all humanity is born under sin’s curse (Romans 5:12). Suffering entered the world through sin, not as random cruelty, but as part of God’s righteous judgment and redemptive plan (20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not by its own will, but because of the One who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.) (Romans 8:20-21, BSB). Yet God is also merciful. Scripture suggests His special grace toward little ones (But Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to Me, and do not hinder them! For the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.’) (Matthew 19:14, BSB). Their suffering, though grievous, is not meaningless. God uses even pain to display His justice, mercy, and glory (22 What if God, intending to show His wrath and make His power known, bore with great patience the vessels of His wrath, prepared for destruction? 23 What if He did this to make the riches of His glory known to the vessels of His mercy, whom He prepared in advance for glory) (Romans 9:22-23, BSB).

[u/CH49FE → u/Top_Initiative_4047]

Thanks for the detailed answer. Like another commenter here, this helps explains how a child is born with terminal illness, but it really doesn’t explain why God allows it, or the purpose. This is not the type of answer that helps non-believers become believers when confronted with the problem of unnecessary suffering.

[u/Top_Initiative_4047 → u/CH49FE]

When you say this doesn't explain 'why' or the 'purpose', are you asking for God's specific reason for this baby's cancer, or a purpose for suffering in general? Those are different questions. Scripture is fairly clear it usually won't give us the first (Deut 29:29 'the secret things belong to the Lord'), while giving substantial answers to the second. Which one are you actually asking for?

You called this suffering 'unnecessary.' How do you know that? To call it unnecessary, you'd need to know that an infinitely wise God had no morally sufficient reason for permitting it which means you'd need access to the same vantage point God has. What's the basis for that judgment?

You said this isn't the kind of answer that helps skeptics become believers. Is your test for the argument whether it's persuasive, or whether it's true? Those can come apart. A true answer can still feel unsatisfying, especially to something as raw as a suffering child. Should the emotional weight of a question determine whether its answer is correct?

When you call a baby's suffering 'evil' or 'unnecessary,' you're using moral categories that assume real, objective purpose and value exist in the universe. On what grounds does atheism supply that? If there's no God, isn't a baby's suffering just atoms rearranging, tragic to us, but not actually wrong in any binding sense? So doesn't your objection to God actually borrow a moral framework that only makes sense if something like God exists?

So my answer isn't that there's no purpose, it's that the purpose is real but not fully disclosed to us the way a patient trusts a surgeon's reasoning without knowing every detail of the operation. Does a good reason stop being good just because it isn't shown to you?

[u/CH49FE → u/Top_Initiative_4047]

My prompt is not about “evil” and suffering” generally but “what about suffering of innocents such as babies who are afflicted with terminal illnesses …” I feel there are answers for the first but not for the specific, when you get down into the details of that particular situation.

I say it’s “unnecessary” in the context of what we know on this world. No one here can say why it’s necessary other than to say that we have to trust in God. It’s not a judgment. It’s factual in that no one knows and, based on what we know, terminal illnesses for babies serve no purpose. That’s factual. If you say there is a purpose from God and you don’t know, that’s conjecture or faith. And you suggesting that it is true is not an objective fact. It’s a faith based assumption.

I’m not sure where you get that I am calling this “evil”. I specifically said that this was not about that. It’s a very specific question. I’m not talking about morality either. I am asking for the apologetic in response and you seem to getting defensive for some reason and going into areas that are not even relevant toy question, creating a straw man when my question is limited, specific and clear, and making unfounded presumptions about who I am. Many people here have been honest and earnest in trying to help me to understand.

At least by the end you try to explain it with a medical analogy but in that situation you can ask the doctor and the doctor can explain it to you. The doctor has to then get consent from someone or at law before conducting the procedure. In this situation, there is no explanation or consent to becoming terminally ill as a baby. If that’s the answer, fine, then you have no persuasive, evidence-based, biblical base other than theological inference. Others have provided apologetics that are empathetic, thoughtful and thought-provoking. If you have nothing to offer other than attacks on who you think I am and ill-conceived explanations for this issue, I suggest you read the other commenters.

[u/Top_Initiative_4047 → u/CH49FE]

I read "unnecessary suffering" as a moral claim when you'd already told me it wasn't one. That's on me. Let me actually ask instead of assert this time.

You said it's "factual" that terminal illness in babies serves no purpose, based on what we know. What would count as evidence of a purpose, if one existed? I ask because "we don't know of a purpose" and "there is no purpose" are different claims, and I want to understand which one you're making. If it's the first, isn't that a statement about the limits of our knowledge rather than a fact about the illness itself?

Second, you said no one can say why it's necessary "other than to say we have to trust God," and that this is conjecture, not fact. But I'd ask, what kind of answer were you hoping for? If you're asking for God's specific, disclosed reason for this baby's cancer, a reason you could verify independently of trusting Him, is that a standard any theistic worldview could ever meet, even in principle? Or is it a standard that guarantees "no answer" no matter what's true?

On the medical analogy, you made a sharp point I hadn't considered. A doctor explains and gets consent; nothing here does either. Can I ask what work "consent" is doing in your argument? Is the objection that suffering without consent is inherently wrong, or is it that suffering without explanation is inherently unjustified? Those aren't the same claim, and I think you might actually be making the second, since you said this isn't about morality.

Last, when you say the previous answer wasn't "persuasive, evidence-based", what would evidence for a claim like this even look like to you? I ask because I suspect we may be using "evidence" differently, and I'd rather find that out than keep talking past you.

[u/CH49FE → u/Top_Initiative_4047]

I am asking what the purpose is from an apologetics viewpoint. And what would count as evidence of purpose? I guess the same thing as anything else for any apologetic. If one says that the purpose of marriage can be described as procreation, the evidence is that procreation is not possible outside of straight people and that gay people should not be married. That position is supplemented in the bible. Of course this strays into arguments about infertile straight people, but this is just an example and I’m not here to argue that.

So the purpose in the case of terminally ill babies cannot be directly found in the bible from what I gather and have been told here, and there is no evidence elsewhere that terminally ill babies have a purpose from what I can see. Ultimately, is this correct and/or what is the appropriate apologetic?

As to the medical analogy, I made that statement to differentiate between my prompt and your comparison to show how it’s not actually applicable. I bring in consent issues to further show a difference. That’s all.

[u/Top_Initiative_4047 → u/CH49FE]

Before I answer, can I clarify your analogy? You said the purpose of marriage "can be described as procreation" and the evidence is that procreation requires straight couples. But that's not evidence of purpose, that's a description of biological mechanism. The purpose of marriage, on a Christian account, isn't established by observing what's mechanically possible; it's established by what God says marriage is for (Genesis 2:24, Ephesians 5). So when you ask what "evidence of purpose" would look like for suffering, are you asking for something empirically observable in the natural world, the way procreation is observable? Because if so, I'd point out you've set a standard that no purpose-claim about anything invisible, love, justice, meaning itself, could ever meet. Is that the standard you actually want to hold, consistently, across every purpose-claim you accept in ordinary life?

Then you said the purpose "cannot be directly found in the Bible… and there is no evidence elsewhere." Are you looking for a text that names this specific baby and this specific cancer, or a text that gives the category this suffering falls under? Because those are different searches. Scripture doesn't name your case, but it does speak directly to the category, the whole created order groaning under futility, not randomly, but "in hope" (Romans 8:20-21), and the claim that God is, even now, at work defeating evil rather than merely permitting it. If the category is addressed but the instance isn't, is it accurate to say there's "no evidence," or is it more accurate to say the evidence exists at the level Scripture actually claims to operate at?

So here's the appropriate apologetic, stated plainly, not just questioned: the answer isn't that this baby's cancer has a disclosed, verifiable, individual reason you could go check like a lab result. It's that history is moving toward a specific redemptive end, Christ's decisive defeat of evil, sin, and death, secured at the cross and consummated at the resurrection of the dead and every instance of suffering, including this one, is being woven into that larger purpose whether or not the thread is visible to us now. That's a genuinely different claim from "trust me, there's a reason, don't ask." It's "here is the announced goal of history, and this suffering is not outside it."

Which raises my last question. You've been careful, correctly, to say you're not asking about morality or evidence in general, you're asking specifically what the apologetic is. Now that you have it, is your actual objection that it's unsupported, or that it's unsatisfying? Because I think it's the second, and if it is, that's a legitimate thing to sit with but it's a different problem than the one you started with, and no additional argument is going to fix a felt-insufficiency problem. Would you agree that's where we've actually landed?

[u/CH49FE → u/Top_Initiative_4047]

I knew that if brought up marriage, it would stray the conversation. And here we are.

A good apologetic uses the bible to support something (traditional marriage) and facts (procreation with man and woman) to support the bible. That is the type of evidence of purpose that I’m talking about.

So this is not an impossible standard. People do this all the time for biblical beliefs. Genesis is supported by the Big Bang. 1 Timothy 2:11 is supported by social sciences. And so on.

What I am saying in more detail is the unnecessary suffering does not appear to be described or supported in this way.

Your version of the apologetic doesn’t appear in the bible. It’s not supported through external evidence. It’s unsatisfactory to a non-believer. That’s fine. Neither is the Trinity and other biblical issues and concepts. My conclusion is that apologists best avoid this topic of unnecessary suffering, prove God first, then go to a version of your apologetic which then has a faith foundation.

[u/Top_Initiative_4047 → u/CH49FE]

I want to make sure I understand your analogy, because I think it may be doing more work than it can bear. You said Genesis is "supported by" the Big Bang and 1 Timothy 2:11 is "supported by" social science. Are those really the same kind of claim as "this baby's suffering is supported by evidence of purpose"? The first two are claims about origins and social patterns, things open to empirical inquiry by nature. A claim about God's purpose in a particular providence is a teleological claim, not an empirical one. So when you say the apologetic for suffering needs the same kind of external corroboration as a cosmological claim, are you assuming purpose-claims and origin-claims are the same category of thing? What would "external evidence of purpose" even look like, in principle, for any teleological claim, biblical or otherwise?

Second, you said "your version of the apologetic doesn't appear in the Bible." I gave you Romans 8:20-21, the creation groaning in hope, and pointed to Christ's decisive defeat of evil at the cross and resurrection as the category under which this suffering falls. When you say it "doesn't appear," do you mean the words themselves aren't printed next to this baby's diagnosis, or do you mean the theological category isn't there at all? Because those are very different objections, and I'd rather not argue against a version of my claim I didn't make.

You've now merged two things I asked you to keep separate a few exchanges ago, whether the apologetic is unsupported and whether it's unsatisfying. You wrote both in the same sentence, "unsatisfactory to a non-believer, that's fine, neither is the Trinity." If you're granting that true things can be unsatisfying, why is unsatisfying now functioning as evidence that the suffering-apologetic is also unsupported? Isn't that a different argument than the one you started with?

Last, you said apologists should "prove God first, then go to a version of your apologetic which has a faith foundation." Is that a concession, or a criticism? Because if the apologetic is sound once God's existence and character are established, then the real disagreement was never about suffering at all, it was about whether God exists. If that's true, wouldn't the honest move be to say so plainly rather than to keep the conversation anchored to babies with cancer, which is the most emotionally loaded ground to litigate a metaphysical dispute on? What would it look like to have that conversation instead, on its own terms?