The short answer is since disease, sin, and consistent natural laws exist in our universe; children are subject to the same reasons adults die.
I think that before we speak to the question of why God allows children to die, we need to ask a bigger question: Why does God allow death to happen to any person, whether he’s two months old, two years old, or twenty years old? The Bible tell us that death came into the world as a consequence of the disobedience and the fall of man in the garden of Eden; that is to say, it is because of sin that God has visited the judgment of death on the entire human race. That includes not only death but the curses of pain, disease, and sorrow that attend the consequences of wickedness.
But one may say that children are so innocent why should they have to die so young when they appear to have done nothing wrong? Why should a child die of cancer? Or why should a child die in a car accident? And why do people murder children? In all of these cases the answer comes down to the reality that man is given free will and not only did Adam exercise his free will and rebel and sin against God but we all are likewise rebels in God’s eyes because we all sin. And like it or not one of the consequences that God enacted because of sin was to curse the earth and allow disease, evil and death to come into our world. And as we all too well know disease, accidents and the often painful consequences of the effects of natural law permeate our planet.
I think there are also two important points to remember that give all of us hope when a child dies. First, many evangelicals believe that if an infant or child dies before the age of accountability they go to heaven; which can often bring comfort to a grieving parent. And second, I believe God knows the same pain as any grieving parent because his very own son died on a cross two thousand years ago – and in those real times of need God will come alongside a grieving parent and put His arms of comfort and love around them to help them cope with the pain.
Whenever a Christian apologist debates an atheist, the atheist can’t wait to pose their knockout punch question that always has something to do with what philosophy calls “the problem of evil.”
It will either be in the form of a question, like today’s devotional title, or the conundrum, “How can a loving God send people to a place of eternal punishment?”
The atheist demands answers from God Himself or he declares debate victory due to the silence from heaven. In other words, “God does not exist?”
I believe, in reality, most Christians have the same question, in spite of their rationalizations to answer it, but resign themselves to accept that Scripture deals with a lot of unknowns with statements like:
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
Like most questions pondered by atheists, when it comes to “intangibles,” such as fairness, justice, love, logic or evil, in a materialistic world, what one bag of biological chemicals does to another is irrelevant. It’s just atoms bouncing into atoms. The fact that an atheist questions these things is dependent on a standard of morality. In a materialistic universe, the atheist has no such standard and therefore no complaint.
In the New Testament, Paul puts it this way, “being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.” Don’t miss the “all things!”
In Romans, Paul answers the same objection the atheist debater asks today.
If what you are telling me about these decrees is true, it seems that God is unjust. The questioner says to Paul, ‘Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?’ (Rom. 9:19).
And Paul’s reply is, ‘Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonor?”
Ultimately, given God’s eternal decrees and purposes, the most we can say is that God has a divine purpose for the evil He allows. If we are not satisfied with that answer, then we should take the example of Job who questioned God’s ways and was abruptly asked, “Who is this who obscures My counsel
by words without knowledge? Now brace yourself like a man;
I will question you, and you shall inform Me. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?”
Like Job, we will say, “Behold, I am insignificant. How can I reply to You?
I place my hand over my mouth.”
God is not on trial, answerable to man. He is the judge and “Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?”