The last couple of weeks, there has been much discussion around the “blogosphere” about where people go when they die if they do not exercise repentance and faith in God. Most commonly this refers to unborn infants, infants, young children and the mentally disabled. Tim Challies wrote a series of thought provoking blogs about this, one being [1] “Original Sin & the Death of Infants.” My father-in-law picked up on the interest and has written several entries on the subject, the first being [2] “Babies in Heaven?”

One thing that troubles me about this discussion is that people seem insistent on having a final answer. Many people simply hear the cases that the outspoken well-known teachers present and decide to stick with the “authoritative” conclusions they make. The conclusion is that any baby or mentally disabled person gains “instant heaven” upon death. I don’t think that Scripture gives us a conclusive “final answer” for our question.

I wish, that on this issue, we could focus on what we do know rather than trying to fill in the blanks with answers that make sense, or seem right to us. We can’t use God’s character to draw our conclusions. But we do this so often, don’t we? We say, “God is love, therefore…” God is gracious, therefore…” Sometimes we take God’s perfect attributes and draw human conclusions from them, conclusions that may not be accurate. God is who He has always been and always will be (Rev. 1:8). Though we may try to ascribe our positions and stances to Him, He never changes. In Isaiah 49:9-10 God says of Himself–

We may not always understand why something is happening, especially situations that include suffering, trials, or death. Instead of coming to a conclusion that makes sense to us or demanding a “final answer” we should consider the God who is at work rather than trying to make sense of what is happening. For example, we say that God is good, then want to conclude that His goodness should mean that there would be no pain or suffering in life. We say that God is love and want this to mean that God would never let bad things happen to His children or send someone to hell. We can so easily warp what we do know to into what we want to be true.

We don’t always have to have a conclusion or an answer to our question. Somehow the statement, “I don’t know, but God does” is not a popular answer. The realities that God is good and loving should be the conclusion to some of our questions. I might need to say, “God is good.” Period. I need to trust Him without knowing what is going to happen or why. I don’t need Him to equal an end for me. He needs to be enough. God alone is hope andis comfort, we don’t need to tack on what we hope will happen at the end of that to try to make ourselves feel better.

If someone is in a trial or suffering a loss (even that of a child), its okay to say, “I don’t know, but God does.” We can rely fully on Him. Not a reliance that says, “I’m trusting you because I know you won’t let this happen” But a trust like Job that submits to Him with an attitude that says, “No matter what happens, even the hard things I can’t understand, I trust you because you are God and I am man.” Job even said “Blessed be the name of the Lord!” (Job 1:21) We need to resist the urge to give human answers to the questions we have about what God is doing.