Why Do Children Suffer? What Judaism, Christianity, and Islam Teach

Judaism confronts child suffering head-on through the lens of theodicy — the attempt to reconcile a just God with innocent pain. The Hebrew Bible doesn't flinch from the question. In Genesis, even before birth, Rebekah's children struggle violently within her womb, and she cries out directly to God: "If it be so, why am I thus?" Genesis 25:22 — a raw, unanswered protest that the tradition preserves without embarrassment.

The rabbinic tradition, particularly as developed in the Talmud (tractate Berakhot and Sanhedrin) and later by medieval philosopher Maimonides (1138–1204) in his Guide for the Perplexed, distinguishes between suffering caused by human free will, suffering arising from natural evil, and suffering whose cause remains hidden from human understanding. Children, who haven't yet accumulated moral responsibility, present the sharpest challenge to the doctrine of middah k'neged middah (measure for measure justice).

The prophet Isaiah captures collective anguish in a passage about futile labor and pain: "We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth" Isaiah 26:18 — a lament that suffering can feel purposeless and unresolved in the present moment.

Modern Jewish thinkers like Eliezer Berkovits (in Faith After the Holocaust, 1973) and Emmanuel Levinas argued that child suffering — especially after the Shoah — demands not philosophical resolution but ethical response: the suffering face of the other, including the child, is a moral summons. The tradition permits, even encourages, arguing with God, as Job did, rather than offering easy comfort.

Christianity's engagement with child suffering is theologically complex and, at times, internally contested. The New Testament's most direct statements about children come from Jesus himself, who expressed fierce tenderness toward them. In Matthew, Jesus declares: "Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven" Matthew 19:14 — a statement echoed nearly verbatim in Mark Mark 10:14 and Luke Luke 18:16. Here "suffer" means permit or allow (archaic KJV usage), not pain — but the passage establishes children as spiritually privileged, close to God's kingdom, which makes their earthly suffering all the more theologically urgent.

Jesus also anticipates future suffering for the most vulnerable, warning: "Woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!" Matthew 24:19 Mark 13:17 — an acknowledgment that children and their mothers will bear disproportionate suffering in times of catastrophe, spoken with grief rather than explanation.

Classical Christian theodicy, developed by Augustine of Hippo (354–430) and later Aquinas (1225–1274), attributed suffering partly to the Fall — original sin introducing disorder into creation — and partly to God's permissive will allowing suffering for greater goods humans can't always perceive. The "soul-making" theodicy of John Hick (1922–2012) argued suffering, including that of children, is the necessary environment for moral and spiritual growth toward God's image.

Critics, including philosopher William Rowe and theologian Terrence Tilley, have challenged whether any theodicy adequately accounts for the suffering of innocent children. Many contemporary Christian theologians, like Jürgen Moltmann in The Crucified God (1972), locate God's response not in explanation but in solidarity — God in Christ suffers with children, entering their pain rather than removing it.

Islam addresses child suffering within its broader framework of ibtila (divine testing) and qadar (divine decree). The Qur'an (2:155–157) states that God tests believers with fear, hunger, loss of wealth, lives, and fruits — and that those who bear hardship with patience receive divine mercy and guidance. Children, in Islamic theology, are considered fitrah — born in a state of pure, sinless nature — which makes their suffering a particularly acute theological challenge.

Classical Islamic scholars, including Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah (1292–1350) in Shifa al-Alil, argued that the suffering of innocent children, including their death, results in immense divine reward for the parents and, in the case of the child's death, the child enters paradise directly, having committed no sin. This is a widely held position across Sunni scholarship.

The Ash'arite theological school, dominant in Sunni Islam and represented by scholars like Al-Ghazali (1058–1111), maintained that God's wisdom (hikma) underlies all suffering even when humans cannot perceive it, and that God is not bound by human conceptions of fairness — a position that some Muslim philosophers, like Ibn Rushd (Averroes, 1126–1198), found philosophically unsatisfying. The Mu'tazilite school, by contrast, insisted God must act justly by rational standards, making child suffering a greater theological puzzle within that framework.

Contemporary Muslim scholars like Khaled Abou El Fadl have emphasized that Islam encourages grief and protest in the face of child suffering — the Prophet Muhammad wept openly at the death of his infant son Ibrahim — while trusting in ultimate divine justice in the afterlife.

Classical Jewish scripture doesn’t offer a tidy answer for why children suffer; instead it voices lament and questioning before God. Rebekah’s prenatal turmoil leads her to seek the LORD—“If it be so, why am I thus?”—modeling faithful protest in the face of pain that begins even in the womb Genesis 25:22. Prophetic poetry likens Israel’s anguish to labor pains that seem futile—“we have as it were brought forth wind… we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth”—capturing the experience of suffering without immediate resolution while still speaking to God Isaiah 26:18. These texts show Judaism’s scriptural willingness to name innocent suffering and turn it into prayerful inquiry rather than easy explanations Isaiah 26:18Genesis 25:22.

Jesus centers children as recipients of God’s reign—“Suffer the little children to come unto me… for of such is the kingdom”—highlighting their dignity in a broken world and the Church’s duty of welcome and care Matthew 19:14Mark 10:14Luke 18:16. The Gospels also acknowledge historical and apocalyptic hardship for the most vulnerable: “woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days,” which recognizes that mothers and infants often bear disproportionate suffering in crises Matthew 24:19Mark 13:17. Early Christian interpretation (e.g., patristic preaching) drew from these sayings to defend mercy toward children and to resist blaming victims, though the texts themselves already foreground compassion and protection Matthew 19:14Mark 10:14Luke 18:16Matthew 24:19Mark 13:17.

Applicable question, but I can’t responsibly summarize Islamic teachings here because the retrieved passages include no Qur’an or Hadith; making claims without Islamic sources would be speculation, which I decline.