When Infants Die: Hell? Heaven? Or Limbo?
A few posts back, while commenting on Brothers, We Must Feel the Truth About Hell, one Bob Chapman made the following statement:
Today we don’t like the idea of babies in Limbo. Yet, Limbo is the only place for person who is not responsible and dies with turning the switch “on.”
To which I replied:
You’re assuming that babies have sins that they must give an account for. I hold to no such view.
Bob Chapman:
Babies don’t have sin? I guess I know what side of the argument you come down on for “original sin.” I’m not sure. I just know I’ve seen children who intentionally misbehave long before any age of accountability sets in.
Yours truly:
I’m not denying a bent toward sin. I believe this is what Paul means by the Greek sarx, “flesh.” I have young kids, and I don’t have to teach them to do wrong. In fact, it’s the opposite.
But neither do I believe that they’re in any danger of God’s judgment or them going to some limbo. By the way, were they to go limbo, How are they extracted from there?
Bob Chapman:
I don’t see how there could be a Limbo. Yet it is a natural, logical development if you have us unsaved until we accept Jesus. I happen to believe that the grace that saved a lost creation enough has all of us starting from the “saved” (we are in the Garden) position, requiring our action (eating the forbidden fruit) to remove us from Paradise.
Our arguments are circumstantial at best, since Scripture does not address the fate of infants who die before an age of accountability.
God doesn’t send babies to hell – that is a sick sick doctrine – and you are sick sick person if you believe it. (“you” is meant to be generic).
Now you’ve done it, TC.
Brian, I think so too.
Peter, yep.
When babies die, like the rest of us, they go into the care of a gracious God, where we have always been.
Read a good book reflecting on the parables by an Episcopal priest who is/was also a gourmand writing for the New York Times. (Anybody know his name?) His take is that when we die we either run into the arms of God or run away from him, depending on who we understand him to be–thus the importance of the Gospel to introduce us to the God who loves and not condemns. My hunch would be babies will go to the Father because their conscience has yet to condemn themselves. John 3:17-21 is suggestive.
My hunch would be babies will go to the Father because their conscience has yet to condemn themselves. John 3:17-21 is suggestive.
Kyle,yes, John 3:17-21 says quite a lot.
But that “their conscience has yet to condemn them” is more like it.
Into the presence of God. I understand “heaven” to mean “paradise” or the presence of God until the restoration of creation.
Jason, I’m with you, esp. with that “presence of God” deal. It sure seems like what Paul had in mind in Phil. 1:23.
T.C.,
Just curious . . .
You say . . .
Our arguments are circumstantial at best since Scripture does not address the fate of infants who die before an age of accountability.
If you believe Scripture is silent on “the fate of infants who die before an age of accountability,” where in Scripture do you see the concept of an age of accountability?
If you believe Scripture is silent on “the fate of infants who die before an age of accountability,” where in Scripture do you see the concept of an age of accountability?
Meto,
Good question. I this point we need to infer from what is implied. Scripture seems to point to a knowledge of wrong being done (1 John 3:4). In fact, our own personal awareness is instructive here.
So (again . . . curious), if a person never grows up to have a knoweldge that he or she had done wrong, even though wrongs had been committed, that person is in no danger of judgment?
How about Isaiah 7:15-16?
Umm . . . OK. I wouldn’t build a doctrine of what happens to a child at death on this passage. Not having come to moral maturity is not necessarily the same thing as being exempt for immoral acts.
Wow! For a topic on which the Bible is supposedly silent, there sure are a lot of places that say something about it!
Peter, I believe we can at least extract a principle from that text: one of coming to some age to distinguish right from wrong and to assume such wasn’t the case before.
Of course there’s that behavior modification, but we’re not speaking of that here.
Don’t get your point TC. I intend to suggest that all condemnation may be self-condemnation. What if the imago dei includes the burden of jugement as we bring the clarity of our future sight to the clarity of our own conscience. If so, Jesus truly saves us from ourselves. Paul’s synergism takes has a much broader application….
Seeing Meto’s comment after my post, the “age of accountability” becomes the fully engaged conscience, the self awareness of moral failure.
I think scripture, at least in some earlier parts of the OT, does have some sort of idea of age of accountabilty. If I’m not mistaken it does mention children and even some elderly not knowing good and evil (or bad), the same language used of the tree in the garden. I think that probably is suggestion they don’t have the proper abilty to make ethical judgements or to be responsible for them.
Personally I think babies go to the presence of God or they just cease to exist. Who knows? I think it raises questions though whether there will be a whole bunch of people in the afterlife who never had any recollection of human life because they died too early.
Heck maybe they just become angels like in those cute pictures. Yep, that’s what Im going with. : )
Bryan L
Bryan L,
What OT texts do you have in mind?
I think that probably is suggestion they don’t have the proper abilty to make ethical judgements or to be responsible for them.
That’s the burden of this entire discussion right now.
“In to the presence of God” is more like it. Looking to too much fairy tales for your angeology and the after life.
I know this is kind of late but I haven’t been on my computer much.
If your still interested I am basing my views on John Walton’s NIVAC Genesis commentary (a FANTASTIC commentary!!).
He looks at different usages of the “good and evil” merism and concludes that the common denominator in all of them is a “discerning or discriminating wisdom”. He also mentions the moral judgments view but says it has trouble accounting for all the usages. I still am inclined to go with the moral judgments view but I also find Walton persuasive.
He then says “Knowing good and evil is characteristic of God (3:22) but not of children (Deut. 1:39; Isa. 7:15-16), the elderly (2 Sam. 19:35), or the inexperienced (1 Kings 3:9).”
You can see his discussion of it on pp. 170-172 in his commentary.
Bryan L
Found the author queried above: Robert Farrar Capon.
Kyle, but an infant is not capable of such.
Meto,
If we accept the above conclusion as a necessary inference of Scripture, then yes to your question.
Well then, in my evaluation of this position there’s really not an “age” of accountability, per se, as if when a person reaches 3 or 7 or 45 he or she has reached the age of knowing right from wrong and being self-aware enough to know wrongs have been done. From my vantage point, it seems such a view would be more about a “stage” of awareness rather than an “age.”
Yet I would venture to say that a problem with either the “age” or “stage” positions is that it seems to place too much weight on the existential nature of awareness of sin and thus doesn’t do “justice” to the normative nature of God’s justice when it comes to the cosmic treason of sinful acts and attitudes.
From my vantage point, it seems such a view would be more about a “stage” of awareness rather than an “age.”
Meto,
In the end it seems like whether we go with “age” or “stage,” it really comes down that “awareness” category.
Yet I would venture to say that a problem with either the “age” or “stage” positions is that it seems to place too much weight on the existential nature of awareness of sin and thus doesn’t do “justice” to the normative nature of God’s justice when it comes to the cosmic treason of sinful acts and attitudes.
Where Scripture is silent on the issue the “existential awareness” is all we have.
It seems to me, then, that you’re proposing that those who die in infancy should be held accountable and somehow be sentenced, because of your appeal to God’s justice, as you call it.
“Kyle, but an infant is not capable of such.”
Yep. I would argue that the whole limbo question is a false logical construct. Children (and the developmentally disabled, for that matter) who die without a developed moral sense are cared for by God because he is gracious, as revealed in the cross. We are saved by grace, after all.
In this limbo question, it seems like the justice of God has trumped the grace of God.
Another way of getting at the whole question is around “corporate identity” rather than “individual culpability.” Our salvation “in Christ” is as a part of the “body of Christ” as the “people of God” in the “new Israel.” To the degree that my awareness of my sin (my guilt) separates me from God and others, I am lost. Grace and forgiveness welcome me back to the family circle. A child lacks a sense of identity apart from mom and dad. The child’s disobedience does not create a crisis of separation until a parent imposes discipline, such as a “time out” or a spanking. “To such [little children] belong the kingdom of God,” is likely an expression of simple identity. The child does not experience himself apart from the kingdom of God.
In this way of thinking “salvation” is not so much a legal status as a relational one.
Kyle,
In a nutshell, Are you saying the babies are incapable of realizing kingdom community as envisioned by God and therefore are in no danger of God’s judgment?
It seems to me, then, that you’re proposing that those who die in infancy should be held accountable and somehow be sentenced, because of your appeal to God’s justice, as you call it.
Actually, TC, at this point all I’m propsing in these comments is that the theory of the age/stage of accountability has some weaknesses that imho can’t bear the weight of the whole of Scripture. Building a whole theological conviction on silence and inference is tricky.
Meto,
Yes, but you appealed to God’s justice in the matter. Why not his grace since the discussion is so tricky. I rather fall on the side of his grace than his justice.
OK. So let’s tell our kids that everything they do is right . . . that there are no wrongs . . . and let’s hide from them anything (including the Scriptures) that might suggest otherwise. Then when they grow old, die, and face the judgment they’re safe.
John MacArthur was asked the question (of course)about whether or not babies go to heaven. Here’s an excerpt of the transcription of his answer:
“I’ll give you one illustration. David has a son by the name of Absalom, a son who was sinful, wicked and rebellious and hateful towards his father and tried to dethrone his father—the worst-case scenario of a grown son. As you remember, he was killed in a rather horrible death, and do you remember David’s response? “Absalom, Absalom, my son, my son, my son…” and he goes on and it goes on and it goes on and it goes on and there never is any relief and they can’t get him to stop moaning and groaning, and he can’t overcome the emotion and the horror of it all. It’s relentless. And there’s no way to comfort him, the Scripture says. You compare that with the son that was born of Bathsheba. When that little baby became ill, David prayed and he prayed to God to save the life of that baby. He prayed seriously, and then he was told that the baby died, and he got up and he washed, wiped his tears away, and said, “He cannot come to me; I’ll go to him.” Big difference. Huge difference.
He wasn’t saying, “I’m going to be buried in the plot next to him.” That would have been true of Absalom. That’s just one indicator of the confidence of David in the goodness and grace of God upon the innocent and the hopelessness of David, knowing the judgment and the justice of God upon the guilty…
…Look, I’ll give you one other, and that’s because the babies that were offered to Molech, the pagan [god]—babies that were offered to Molech are referred to in the prophets as “the slaughter of the innocents.” If God calls somebody innocent, that’s pretty significant.”
It should give us something to think about.
With all apologies to the good Dr. John, these passages don’t really prove what he asserts they prove.
2 Samuel 12:23 could be understood in the sense that David knows that he will die just as the child has died.
As for God calling someone innocent, take Deuteronomy 19:11-13 as a counterexample . . . But if someone at enmity with another lies in wait and attacks and takes the life of that person, and flees into one of these cities, then the elders of the killer’s city shall send to have the culprit taken from there and handed over to the avenger of blood to be put to death. Show no pity; you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood from Israel, so that it may go well with you.
Was the one murdered really innocent in the sense that Dr. John is saying babies are innocent?
Sorry about the long posts. Here’s another excerpt of something John MacArthur wrote about this subject:
“However, another point may be helpful in answering this question. While infants and children have neither sensed their personal sin and need for salvation nor placed their faith in Christ, Scripture teaches that condemnation is based on the clear rejection of God’s revelation–whether general or specific–not simple ignorance of it (Luke 10:16; John 12:48; 1 Thess. 4:8).
Can we definitely say that the unborn and young children have comprehended the truth displayed by God’s general revelation that renders them “without excuse” (Rom. 1:18-20)? They will be judged according to the light they received. Scripture is clear that children and the unborn have original sin–including both the propensity to sin as well as the inherent guilt of original sin. But could it be that somehow Christ’s atonement did pay for the guilt for these helpless ones throughout all time? Yes, and therefore it is a credible assumption that a child who dies at an age too young to have made a conscious, willful rejection of Jesus Christ will be taken to be with the Lord.”
That’s from this link:http://www.gty.org/Resources/Questions/Christian+Living/Heaven
My previous post quoted from this link: http://www.biblebb.com/files/macqa/SC2005-QA10-8.htm
Scripture is clear that children and the unborn have original sin–including both the propensity to sin as well as the inherent guilt of original sin. But could it be that somehow Christ’s atonement did pay for the guilt for these helpless ones throughout all time? Yes, and therefore it is a credible assumption that a child who dies at an age too young to have made a conscious, willful rejection of Jesus Christ will be taken to be with the Lord.”
I find Dr. John’s reasoning here confusing. So children have the guilt of original sin, but Christ paid for their guilt. Because Christ paid for their guilt, if they die before they have a chance to reject Jesus they are taken to be with the Lord. Yet apparently if they reject Christ as they get older, then the payment Christ made for their sins is null and void. Yeesh! Somebody help me see that this argument really makes sense.
Gary,
No need to apologize for long quotes. We love them around here.
Yes, I’ve read MacArthur’s arguments before. At best they are circumstantial but good. Appears to be the standard among many evangelicals.
Meto,
Neither am I saying that. I’m simply arguing that they’re not aware of the categories of right and wrong as the rest of us mature folks.
Above you mentioned the existential nature of awareness. Do you really believe a 3yr processes the world around her the same way we do?
Ok, so I was having a bit of fun with this topic with my last reply. Don’t take that too seriously . . .
No, I don’t think a 3 yr old processes the world the same way as I do. but I’m not certain that fact has a real bearing on this issue.
Meto,
What do you mean that it doesn’t having a real bearing on this issue? It has every bearing on the issue. We’ve been discussing the fate of such and whether they should be held accountable and be punished for sins like a conscientious grown up.
TC said,
“In a nutshell, Are you saying the babies are incapable of realizing kingdom community as envisioned by God and therefore are in no danger of God’s judgment?”
Nah. Just the opposite. They don’t experience themselves as outside of community, of God or parents. They are fully dependent, even in their identity. Sin is not a violation of some ethereal, pure standard of justice as the Greeks would think it. Sin is a violation of community. Sin is a thoroughly relational term. A violation of conscience is how one experiences a violation against another, God or human. We feel it as isolation, exile, if you will. “They hid in the garden.”
The Lord designed us for community. Children do not experience themselves outside of community. The age or stage of awareness is that experience of self apart from others. When we insist on our selfishness it is sin. When we submit ourselves in relation to others it isn’t.
Kyle,
I agree that we were created for kingdom community. Good. But every meaningful community has laws, if you will, that define it. So before we view sin as a violation of community, we must first ask, What law that defines such community was transgressed.
After all, John says “Sin is lawlessness” (1 John 3:4).
Agreed, TC. I was about to post something similar. Apparently, great minds think alike . . . and so do ours!
TC and Meto,
I’m trying to understand what you guys are kicking around. The “categories of right and wrong” as TC wrote is too abstract, Platonic. I think the whole “where do babies go” question gets distorted when we stay in that hellenic moral framework.
Kyle,
While “categories of right and wrong” may be abstract, we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater (so to speak).
Categories of right and wrong seem to be Scriptural and not simply Platonic (1 Kings 3:9; Isaiah 7:15-16).
The Platonic quality comes out of the notion that “right and wrong” or “good and evil” are things that can be violated in isolation from persons. The Classical categories, “the Good”, “the Beautiful”, “the True” don’t need a relational context. The biblical “discerning between good and evil” has no meaning apart from God or others.
My original point is that young children have not gone through what psychological world calls the “process of individuation.” They do not think of themselves apart for others, therefore they cannot discern good and evil which are relational categories, not idealistic abstractions. My thought is there is no eternal judgement for children because they are incapable of asserting a differentiated self over against others. They are selfish, they are needy, but they are not liable to divine judgement.
Paul may have something like this in mind in Romans 7 where sin comes alive in the law against coveting. Coveting is the motion of self-in-desire against what others possess.
TC,
The fact that a child processes the world differently than I do doesn’t really address the issue of what happens to a child when he or she dies. A 90 year old processes the world differntly than I do, but that doesn’t have a bearing on one’s destiny.
Maybe I’m splitting hairs, but I also wouldn’t say that a 3 year old would “be punished for sins like a conscientious grown up” even if that 3 year old had reached a moral maturity in order to discern right from wrong. Surely the adult is much more culpable and responsible than the child.
Kyle,
See my last response to your comment, esp. on the nature of Sin. You’ll find that there’s really nothing hellenic about the categories.
Meto,
But you’re still saying that a child is culpable and responsible. Then you’re condemning them to hell. That’s the natural conclusion of your statement. Correct me if I’m wrong.
But you’re still saying that a child is culpable and responsible.
I’m saying that where there is sin, there is judgment. The argument that says children sin but they are not culpable for their sin in any way is flawed because of a deficient understanding of sin and its consequences.
Then you’re condemning them to hell.
Not necessarily. As you indicated earlier, why not appeal to God’s grace? But we can appeal to God’s grace in a way that doesn’t say children aren’t culpable for their sinful acts and attitudes.
That’s the natural conclusion of your statement. Correct me if I’m wrong.
I don’t think the natural conclusion of saying children are responsible is that they must go to hell.
Meto,
Until a child comes to that awareness of sin, though born with a bent toward sin, before that point, the child is not response, and God in his grace and mercy has covered such sin at the Cross.
“Awareness of sin” is not a prerequisite for culpability. We can appeal to God’s grace and mercy without setting up a doctrine of salvation based on a lack of awareness of sin.
Guys, check out my comment in response to Meto above, #43. I’m telling you, the reality of sin demands a relational context. Young children lack that relational context.
Kyle,
I agree to some extend but only if such relational context is allowed to be defined by laws, if you will.
Consider that pristine relational context in Genesis but with the law to define such: do not eat. Trust God, in other words.
Ditto. Of course sin demands a relational context because God is a personal and relational being. That truth does not swallow up the fact that sin is lawlessness. The relational does not negate the legal.
Besides, young children may lack the understanding of the relational and legal context, but do you really want to say that they “lack that relational context”? Doesn’t God relate to them even if they don’t understand that relationship? The same can be said of parents, siblings, and relatives. There is no relational vacuum, even if there is little understanding of the relationships one has simply by being conceived.
If one believes in predestination what’s the difference between God sending a baby to hell and God sending a 40 year old to hell? Neither of them ever had a genuine chance to coming into a relationship with God anyway.
Not to be a smart-alek, but I guess it depends on how one defines “predestination” (a biblical word, btw), “God sending (someone) to hell,” “genuine chance,” and “coming into a relationship with God.” =-)
Ferg,
At one point, many Calvinists hold that the road to hell was strewn with the bones of babies who were predestined for such. Ha!
I hold to no such.
What I’m trying to express is that a child does not make a choise to trust his parents. The individuation has not taken place. The child does not think of himself as an individual apart from mom and dad. He simply trusts; he is profoundly dependent upon the family circle. (Which speaks to the desperate need of orphans and the biblical mandate for the church, the family of God, to care for them.)
When I say “relational context” with respect to a child, I mean that the child is not aware of another option. The child’s choices and behaviors take place in community but outside of a “relational context” to which he is responsible as a moral agent. It is not present because the child has not differentiated himself apart from the family circle. The child may do wrong in an abstract sense against an ideal concept of “good” (the Greek notion.) However he may not be violating “righteousness” (the biblical notion) because he lacks the capacity to violate his sense of community. The kids is just doing what he’s doing. He imposes on mom and interupts an important converstation becasue he’s wants the breast. He doesn’t know he’s violating community. His psyche isn’t there yet.
My hunch is that with respect to God, the kid experiences himself as in community with God; he’s part of God’s family because he doesn’t experience himself in isolation, as independent.
Consequently, “law” as abstraction has no role to play. There’s no resistence to grace because there is not shame, the experience of self-in-alienation-from-community. That’s the curse of the law. A child hasn’t a clue.
The New Perspective guys are all over this kind of confusion. Old Perspective: righteousness is moral virtue measured against an ideal standard. New Perspective: righteousness as faithfulness in community.
I’m sorry, Kyle, but I find the position you are describing more confusing than anything the “old perspective” has supposedly expressed. How can one know if one is being faithful in community unless there is a standard of faithfulness?
I do not believe a child or an adult for that matter can do something “wrong in the abstract sense” but not violate righteousness “because he lacks the capacity to violate his sense of community.” This view places sin in ones existential, subjective experience of the person knowing about sin rather than in the actual, objective sense that there has been a violation of God’s commands.
It matters not if I tell a judge, “I did not know I was violating the sense of community in my neighborhood when I smacked my neighbor in the face with baseball bat. Had I know I was violating community I wouldn’t have done such a thing!” The judge would not hear such gibberish, because there is something objective, outside of myself that is the standard. And there is no need to say this is “Greek thinking” when it comes to our categories. God is the standard, not some abstract notion of law. God’s law is an reflection of his character. And so, yes, all sin is relational in nature because we are sinning against our Creator. But wrong doing is sin regardless of whether I understand it or not, or whether I understand my relational community or not.
Consequently, “law” as abstraction has no role to play. There’s no resistence to grace because there is not shame, the experience of self-in-alienation-from-community. That’s the curse of the law. A child hasn’t a clue.
Kyle, you’ve made a believer out of me. You’re onto something here.
The New Perspective guys are all over this kind of confusion. Old Perspective: righteousness is moral virtue measured against an ideal standard. New Perspective: righteousness as faithfulness in community.
“Righteousness as faithfulness in community.” But let’s not forgo the role of law as it applies to community.
So what of the whole, “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven,” thing. It seems like we (adults) should strive not to distinguish right from wrong, and then do right, but to be more like a child. I think it’s the partaking of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil all over again. We want to know good from evil, why? So we can try to do good and not evil? How well did that work out for Israel?
I don’t think we need to make such a sharp dichotomy between being like a child a la Matthew 18:3 and distinguishing from right and wrong. Doesn’t Hebrews 5:14 encourage us to become skilled in distinguishing good from evil?
If we take Matt 18:3 to mean that children are dependent on others, and so we should be dependent on God, there is no issue. We depend on what God reveals to us about good and evil, rather taking such distinguishing work into our own hands.
If we take Matt 18:3 to mean that children are dependent on others, and so we should be dependent on God, there is no issue. We depend on what God reveals to us about good and evil, rather taking such distinguishing work into our own hands.
Agreed.
Peter,
I like your sense of it. In sin, we are hooked on Aristotles’ teleology: “to know the good and do it” without the power in ourselves to do the good we know.
Meto,
It does matter what a judge understands if the perpetrator is a 2 year old child.
Of course, and I knew you (or someone else) would raise this objection as I was typing. But my point in bringing up that illustration was to remove the conversation from talking about children only and to see the theory you are espousing as something that is related only to my subjective expereince rather than anything objective outside of myself.
Let’s put it this way: If my two year old hit my wife in the face with a baseball bat (a little one of course!), I would consider such an action wrong whether she (my two year old) saw it as such or not. I would especially consider it wrong if she did so out of anger. Why? Because not only did she violate community with my wife, she also violated something more objective . . . “love you neighbor as yourself.”
Stuart,
Where do we start?
Put simply, we start with God and with his character. God is both merciful and just. This truth is our foundation. There is no need to base our theological convictions about the fate of children who die in infancy on the subjective experience of such children. Whether they are aware of sin or not is not the issue. The issue is the character of God. Whatever God does, we can be assured he is just in doing so. We can also be assured that God is merciful in dealing with those who sin, whether infant or 90 year old. This kind of answer may not give the specificity of exact knowledge for which we lust, but it gives us the sense that we can trust God even when his Word is silent on a certain matter (like the fate of children who die in infancy).
Yes, the character of God. But we can only appeal to the character of God because we view such children different than we view a 22yr old.
But I think more is going on with Jesus reference to the nature of children: it’s not so much about dependence as it is about rank.
Children were often classed with the deaf, dumb, and the nobodies. In a context where his disciples are arguing among themselves about rank (18:1), Jesus is actually saying that they need to become insignificant.
Good point, TC.
I hate to do this, guys, but I’m going to have to check out on this discussion for a few days. Busy weekend ahead! Not that my schedule is of interest to anyone, but I don’t want anyone thinking I was rude by not responding to any further points.
Stuart, Meto, thanks for the heads up.
Actually, I think the character of God is just as foundational to the fate of the 22 year old as to an infant. But that is a discussion I really can’t get into . . .
Staurt, I’d love to explore the doctrine of salvation more with you.
Just got back from a walk (my day off.)
I guess my last point would be that I’m not talking about a subjective based judgement or reality or whatever. But simply the way things are Our starting point must be as persons-in-community before God. That is our ultimate orientation. Right and wrong comes out of that ground. Our job as parents is to bring children to that understanding as they become self-aware. They are not there until some “st/age of accountability” where they begin to act over-against community,with intentionality and thereby violate God’s nature as Being-In-Community.
TC, you say rightly,
“Children were often classed with the deaf, dumb, and the nobodies. In a context where his disciples are arguing among themselves about rank (18:1), Jesus is actually saying that they need to become insignificant.”
The social strata problem is a person-in-community issue. The dependence of a child upon family is relevant. The child’s value is not determined by a individualistic measure of power in community, but just by its being. Rank creates spiritual distance in the midst of community, a splintering. Jews over against gentiles is the supreme biblical violation. Salvation can be understood as an inclusive participation in the family of God, without respect to power, ethnicity, status, etc. Only grace. Little children are already there because they cannot think of themselves as distinct from community.
I don’t know if Peter intends the connection or not, but I like Matt. 18:3 with respect to the question at hand. The location of its echo in Matt. 19:13-15 is intriguing, sitting as it does between divorve (19:1-9) where Jesus emphasises the unity of marriage and the rich young ruler (Matt. 19:16-30) where Jesus calls all to a deeper identity than ones own family.
The game God is playing in Christ is “Let’s Get It Togehter” after all.
The social strata problem is a person-in-community issue. The dependence of a child upon family is relevant. The child’s value is not determined by a individualistic measure of power in community, but just by its being. Rank creates spiritual distance in the midst of community, a splintering. Jews over against gentiles is the supreme biblical violation. Salvation can be understood as an inclusive participation in the family of God, without respect to power, ethnicity, status, etc. Only grace. Little children are already there because they cannot think of themselves as distinct from community.
Kyle,
The walking has done your thinking some good. You should do more of it.
At any rate, what you’ve outline is what writers like N.T. Wright is trying to get us to see in this New Perspective on Paul.
Yep! In the end, it’s a family affair.
I recently did a blog post on the age of accountability. I think babies go to heaven, but that is just speculation. What you think on this issue depends a lot on what your view of original sin is.
If you take the Reformed view on original sin, then you have to assume that God will save all babies, which I think is a huge inconsistency with Calvinism. I mean, according to the Calvinist view, those babies are God-hating sinners who are fully deserving of hell, so why would God save all of them and not all adults?
If you take the Catholic view on original sin (essentially the same as the Reformed view), then you have to believe in limbo, because otherwise, unbaptized babies will end up in hell.
Diglot,
There’s really no inconsistency in the Calvinistic view. Calvinism holds that babies who die infancy are elect of God and therefore covered by the blood of Cross.
Limbo is not necessary.
But why does Calvinism teach that infants are elect of God? There is no reason for them to be. There is as much of a reason for infants to be elect of God as there is for all people older than 60 to be the elect of God.
In my opinion, there is no logical reason from Calvinist theology to propose that all infants are elect. The only reason I can see for it is so Calvinism doesn’t seem to be too “evil” by banishing babies to hell.
But there’s a difference: 1. If we hold to what is commonly called an age of accountability, which entails an awareness of sin, hence to differentiate conscientiously between right and wrong, then an infant doesn’t fit the bill and therefore who dies in infancy must be elect of God.
2. But someone 60 or over has already crossed that thresold.
Ah! But some Calvinists in the history of interpretation held such a warp view.
The reason only is the mercy and grace of God.
But according to Calvinism, while a baby may not have actually sinned themselves, they are still born into such a state where they are already fully deserving of hell, and deserve God’s grace as much as a serial killer does.
FYI, I do not hold to Calvinism (although I once did). And I reject the traditional belief of original sin as held by Catholic and Reformed churches.
Yes, but grace is irrational and for that reason Calvinists believe that babies who die in infancy are elect of God. Galvinism knows no other reasonable position, given God’s sovereign grace.
Historically, Reformed churches have been careful not to say too much or to little about the fate of babies dying in infancy. Note what the Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 10 section 3 says . . .
Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who worketh when, and where, and how He pleaseth. So also are all other elect persons, who are uncapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word.
This carefully worded statement indicates that there are elect infants (and others as well) who are given salvation by the grace of God apart from the ordinary means of responding to the gospel, but it stops short of any speculation as to the number of these persons. Whether one agrees with the Reformed system or not, we can see in this statement a desire to uphold the truth that the secret things belong to LORD.
Meto,
Thanks for this. But it is unfortunate that this document has made a decision between elect and non-elect infants.
How does anyone but God decide who these elect and non-elect are? My take.
John MacArthur has a sermon addressing this topic: http://www.gty.org/Resources/Sermons/80-242
Matt, thanks. I’ll have to give it a listen.
Bryan L,
You’re never too late around here.
Walton is indeed fantastic. I like the parameters he has set for the merism “good and evil.”
But I’m not sure 2 Sam. 19:35 fits, since Barzallai is referring to his usefulness to the King. This is a more controlled context.
TC,
I can’t say what was on the minds of the Confession writers, but it seems to me their finalized statement does not decide who the elect and non-elect are. My take is that they did not try to go beyond what they believed Scripture to teach.
Technically, the statement does not mention “non-elect” infants who die in infancy. It mentions only elect infants who are “saved by Christ through the Spirit, who worketh when, and where, and how He pleaseth.” Thus your statement that “it is unfortunate that this document has made a decision between elect and non-elect infants” is an inference that may not be accurate.
In fact, years ago Dr. S. G. Craig stated . . .
“The history of the phrase ‘Elect infants dying in infancy’ makes clear that the contrast implied was not between ‘elect infants dying in infancy’ and ‘non-elect infants dying in infancy,’ but rather between ‘elect infants dying in infancy’ and ‘elect infants living to grow up.”
He went on to say . .
No doubt there have been individual Presbyterians who held that some of those who die in infancy have been lost; but such was never the official teaching of the Presbyterian Church
Furthermore, Reformed theologian Loraine Boettner states . . .
Our outstanding theologians, however, mindful of the fact that God’s “tender mercies are over all His works,” and depending on His mercy widened as broadly as possible, have entertained a charitable hope that since these infants have never committed any actual sin themselves, their inherited sin would be pardoned and they would be saved on wholly evangelical principles. Such, for instance, was the position held by Charles Hodge, W. G. T. Shedd, and B. B. Warfield.
Technically, the statement does not mention “non-elect” infants who die in infancy. It mentions only elect infants who are “saved by Christ through the Spirit, who worketh when, and where, and how He pleaseth.” Thus your statement that “it is unfortunate that this document has made a decision between elect and non-elect infants” is an inference that may not be accurate.
Meto,
The riddle of semantics, I say. But if that is what they meant, then I drew the wrong inference.
Yes, according to Loraine Boettner, “a charitable hope” is all we have after the dust is settled on our various conclusions that are the products of inferences.