What would you say to this 6 year old?

Question

A family friend got into a really bad car/truck accident, and survived without any injuries. The child's mother said that God saved him, but the little girl asked, "Didn't God make him get into the accident in the first place?"

This is the same kid who asks questions like "Why did Dodo birds ever exist if they were going to become extinct?" and "Why did people make Dodo birds extinct?" She was so upset about the Dodo birds being extinct.

Answer 1

This is why "children say the darndest things"... they are so insightful...

Answer 2

What would I say?
"No, God didn't "make" anyone get into an accident. God doesn't make accidents happen...accidents happen because people are careless.
If everyone involved had been doing what God wanted them to do, everyone would have been watching the road and obeying the traffic laws, and there wouldn't have been a traffic accident in the first place.
It is because people do not have respect for God or for each other that things like traffic accidents happen."

LOL...and if she were my kid, I'd probably tell her that God let the Dodo birds become extinct because they eat little girls....


(Hey, you weren't alive when the Dodo birds roamed the earth...for all you know, they might have found little girls to be quite tasty!)

Answer 3

That's a pretty sharp kid you've got there! The mother should not have said God saved him, because the girl had the obvious come-back. You start lying to a kid, it will come back to haunt you every time.

As to the Dodo birds, explain what happened historically. They were OK until people landed in their environment, and they did not know the people were dangerous, and didn't run away. They had no way to defend themselves, and the people were too stupid to realize that if they killed them all, they were doing something terrible. But it's still "natural" selection to the extent that those individuals and even those species that defend themselves one way or another survive.

There are all different kinds of survival strategies, like having lots and lots of babies (like frogs and many fish), so it doesn't matter if a lot of them become food for other animals, because there are so many. Some animals, notably birds, can fly away from danger. Dodos were too big to fly because they had lived too long where they didn't have to fly.

The important thing for a kid to understand is that the circumstances under which a species developed characteristics (like flightlessness for the Dodo, from not needing to, and from getting bigger all the time) made it a good thing for survival, but when the circumstances change (introduction of meat-eating humans), they may or may not be able to adapt.

Adapting behavior is quicker than adapting their physical characteristics, of course, so if they had learned to hide from humans, they might have survived. They were just too stupid, which is why we use the term "dodo" to mean a very stupid person.

Answer 4

How does the song lyric go? Oh yes, it's from Jethro Tull (Bungle In The Jungle):
".. And He who made kittens put snakes in the grass.
He's a lover of life but a player of pawns.
yes, the King on His sunset lies waiting for dawn
to light up His Jungle as play is resumed...."

The typical explanation is that such things are all part of God's mystical and unknowable plan. I am of the school that this life we lead is more of an intellectual exercise - we are all still made from the "material divine" (hey, there was nothing else there, right?) and this separate life we live is an illusion - one God watches but does not truly interfere with. We will all be one again in the end - this is just an interlude. I find it comforting to think we are all coming together and rejoining into a single existence. It explains to me why God does not seem more involved in our lives - our "lives" are more like some strange dream, so there is no reason for His action. But we don't know what the truth is, so we may as well live the best life we can and try to make the world the best we can for each other.

Answer 5

Poor dodo's. I agree with the little girl-why do people make so many things extinct?
For the accident, it's my belief that God lets life roll along pretty much as it will, for He originally gave man dominion over the earth. (man did cede that dominion to Satan - another story) He does not spend ALL his time intervening in the affairs of mankind supernaturally.
He does intervene supernaturally in certain occasions, and many times natural outcomes appear super natural. Confused yet ?
Maybe God helped arranged the accident for some unknown purpose, but saved the friend.
Maybe He had no connection with the cause of the accident, but saved the friend.
Or maybe it was just one of those things in life that happened and the friend didnt get hurt, no supernatural intervention required.
Ok, now I'm confused.
Thankfully he's ok.

Answer 6

Tell her that God does not cause bad things to happen but allows them to happen because an issue was raised by Satan that God does not rule his creation with their best intension in mind and is allowing man to rule himself to prove this wrong. Tell her man's intervention caused the DoDo to go extinct and God will correct everything that has gone wrong at a future time including the possibility of bringing back extinct creatures.

Answer 7

Sounds like a smart little girl!

I certainly wouldn't tell her that god saved the person in the car accident, because she's obviously going to have intelligent questions that can't be answered with faith-talk.
I would be more likely to take the approach of, "Sometimes things happen that we don't have control over, like accidents. Sometimes those things end well, like in this case, and sometimes they end with people getting hurt. The best thing you can do is be safe, and careful, and if something bad happens to you, remember that it's not always your fault. Some people believe that god protects them and some people believe that there is no god. That's a decision you have to make for yourself, when you're older, because you'll know in your heart what's true for you."

Answer 8

It is all about actions of man. Why should we always put God accountable for everything's happening? We are, and we can never be fair to God that way.

God only works in the salvation of man. He has nothing to do with accidents, bad luck...winning lotteries...broken relationships...etcetera...

The mother herself is undereducated about God, that's why. Her child has a great bunch of common sense than the mother.

And to Duthches...it could be the other way round - - "a young mind of a soon to be believer".

God bless...asta la vista...

Answer 9

Tell her the truth: Life doesn't always make sense and in many cases, neither does God.

Just from experience, she is showing the signs of a person who is likely to break free from Christianity at some point in her life. I asked a very similar question at her age and continued to ask such questions throughout my life until I realized I was not going to get any logical answers from the religion I was in. People who ask deep questions are not very appreciated in most Christian churches, nor do they usually stay in the church for long.

Answer 10

It sounds like that kid's smart.

How about say, "If gods exist, they have no interference in physical laws that influenced the accident. It was just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's not a punishment or a blessing -- it just is. But I'm glad he's fine."

Answer 11

no somebodies free will caused the accident, and if God did not create things just because they would become extinct then there would be nothing created because eventually everything will be extinct.