OK, so, in another thread, we pretty much established that the mainstream protestant ‘biblical’ view is that we are born sinners (fallen nature, original sin, etc) and that to be saved, we must consciously and truly repent and turn to Jesus. Anyone who doesn’t do this goes to hell by default, even if they are a generally nice individual.
So, what about children who are too young to understand the idea of repentance?, or too young to even speak?, or die a few moments after birth? or are stillborn (I’m assuming for the sake of this argument that you believe that the start of a person’s life is conception - God knew you in the womb, knitted you together etc), maybe you’d like to correct me on that one.
Bear in mind that I’m looking for an answer based on scripture and if you’re going to say that children are saved automatically, I want to know the cut-off point/age at which this is no longer true, and why - again supported by scripture please.
I have my own reasons for asking this, and my own views, but I’ll keep them out of the way.
As I was being raised a Christian, I also wondered about that. My sister was killed at 15 months in a car accident. As a younger lad, I asked a lot of people about that. The general response I got was something like, “She was too young to know, so she went to heaven.” Seriously, I don’t believe in either heaven or hell anymore, but I wonder which she would go to if either existed. Heh, I’d say that must be a ‘glitch’ in the bible… unless other people can prove otherwise, as they most likely will.
As a Christian, I believe that all people will be held responsible for what they know and are capable of understanding. Someone who never hears about Jesus can hardly be held accountable for knowledge of Him. A child too young to know right from wrong also can’t be held accountable for something he/she doesn’t even have the faculties to understand.
So in a word, Yes. I think children have automatic salvation. Whether the cut off is a certain age or a certain understanding or a certain level of development is an other question altogether. Personally I tend to think it’s a sort of combination of a given age and stage of development (a retarded 30 year old man with the mental faculties of a four year old would be judged according to his capabilities–those of a four year old).
By that logic, if Christian Missionaries want to save the most souls, shouldn’t they be striving to keep folks who already don’t know about Jesus from finding out?
After all, if some tribesman in a jungle somewhere has never heard of (the Christian) God, then he will be “saved” by default when he dies. Whereas, if said tribesman runs into some Missionaries and learns about Jesus, then he either believes and saves himself, or disbelieves and gets sent to Hell – because of the missionaries’ actions.
(Actually, I think this whole “you are saved if you are too young to know Jesus” stuff is just butt-covering from the Church leaders, who don’t want to be in the awkward position of telling folks that their dead infants are burning in Hell…)
But Jesus called the children to him and said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. — Luke 18:16
I think age might be a distraction. Some people have a childlike trust well into old age, like my retarded aunt. It ain’t the years; it’s the innocence:
And [Jesus] said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. — Matthew 18:3
In fact, I think children understand faith (i.e., trust) much better than we do.
At that time Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. — Matthew 11:25
Not exactly. He will be saved if the loves the God he meets when he dies, and if he has love in his own heart, then he will.
Not exactly. The tribesman is not responsible for the missionaries misrepresenting Jesus. It is the missionaries, and not the tribesman, who are responsible for the actions of the missionaries.
Lib, you have said that the physical world was created so that Spirits would be able to enact their moral choices. However, in the case of a child below the age of reason, the do not appear to have the opportunity to enact their moral choices. I do not believe you think they get sent back to “try again”, so is dying early a sort of “get out of Hell” free card for the spirit? However, you had previously said that it is the Spirit that matters, not the brain’s expression of it, so if a child is too young for its brain to express the wishes of its Spirit, why should that make any difference as to the choice of the Spirit to do good or evil? I would think then an infant’s spirit have exactly the same possibility for good and evil as an adult, and there is no way to say that an infant is any more likely to go to heaven than an adult.
I presume it is simply a matter that God’s Spirit, when given to us, is given to us as pure and innocent trust. We then despoil it over the course of our lives. Don’t mistake the independence of the brain and spirit for incompatible and divorced existence. A car is not its driver, but together they make a journey.
Ok, so older people are given more chances to fail and “despoil” their Spirit, while people who die young aren’t? Is that exactly fair? I would think it would be more fair to give everyone the same chance to screw things up, rather than letting some people have no trial at all, and other people 100 years of tests (particularly since you seem to take it for granted that the more test you have, the more likely you are to fail). If an infant’s spirit would heve become evil over the course of 70 years, it does not seem fair that that Spirit is in heaven while a Spirit that is of exactly the same inclination/resistance to evil/love of good but with the misfortune to have a lengthy life is in Hell.
If that’s the case, then why do the missionaries bother to seek out (and, presumably, convert) the tribesman? Why not leave him alone, to find and love his own diety/dieties as he sees fit?
I mean, it sounds like a waste of time to me: “We must teach you about Jesus so that you may be saved, but if you don’t hear about Jesus and accept your own god(s), then you will be saved anyway.” If the missionaries stay home, they won’t be putting themselves at risk, and the tribesman gets a harassment-free Saturday.
I don’t understand your concern about fairness. But then again, you and I didn’t see eye-to-eye on how we would view the prodigal son from his brother’s place, did we? Perhaps you’re thinking of Spirit[sup]1[/sup] as something corporeal, such that, if I go in with a billion corpuscles while you go in with only four, I win and you lose.
[sup]1[/sup] I’m hoping you will enjoy my findings on spiritual suffering. They contain an introductory on spirit itself and its nature.
RJung
Fine by me.
There are missionaries and there are missionaries. Some conquer. Some teach. Some love. When I was an atheist, I used to advocate taking advantage of Christianity’s great loop-hole. Wait until you’re dying to believe, so you can enjoy life in the interim. Well, there’s a lot to be said for point of view. Upon my conversion, my first regret was that I had waited so long to begin my life.
You don’t remember Sister Annunciata’s fourth grade religion class? “Sister, where do the pagan babies go?”
Answer: “Limbo” (see below).
Quote from The Catholic Encyclopedia:
Limbo
(Late Lat. limbus) a word of Teutonic derivation, meaning literally “hem” or “border,” as of a garment, or anything joined on (cf. Italian lembo or English limb).
In theological usage the name is applied to (a) the temporary place or state of the souls of the just who, although purified from sin, were excluded from the beatific vision until Christ’s triumphant ascension into Heaven (the “limbus patrum”); or (b) to the permanent place or state of those unbaptized children and others who, dying without grievous personal sin, are excluded from the beatific vision on account of original sin alone (the “limbus infantium” or “puerorum”).
I think I’ve stated my opinion before, but here goes…
Sin is the voluntary separation of the self from God. The operative word being “voluntary”. If you don’t have the chance to exercise your volition, you can’t sin. Yes, I realise this can be taken as contradictory to the notion of Original Sin. My take on OS, though, is: we are all born sinful, OK, but Christ has redeemed that sin through His sacrifice, therefore it’s only what we choose to do subsequently that matters. (Furthermore, the Incarnation and the Crucifixion operate sub specie aeternitatem: Christ’s sacrifice, once made, applies across all of space and time, so those who were born and died before Christ’s time are still saved, if they want to be.)
Since we retain the ability to make wrong choices, though, it’s helpful to have the right ones pointed out to us: Christ Himself, after all, did a lot of teaching (and even those who don’t accept His divinity have been known to approve of His moral teaching). So, missionary work is not without value.
As a side note: my interpretation of “No one comes to the Father, but by me” (John 14:6) is that Jesus is that aspect of God that seeks to communicate with us, so anyone who is truly seeking God will find that aspect first - even if they don’t necessarily call it Jesus. This raises the possibility of non-Christians (or at least non-nominal-Christians) being saved; since Jesus came to Earth to save people, I don’t think He would disapprove of this. It also raises the possibility that there may be things of value in non-Christian religions and philosophies - a possibility which the Pope has conceded, so I don’t think I’m much outside the mainstream of Christian religious thinking here.
I too don’t think it is an age but an understanding. Also at around year 0 AD (does that = 0BC?) 15 was concidered an adult and might have had children by this age. Childhood had been extended by man artifically.
Pace Sister Annunciata, my understanding (having been raised Catholic) is that, in fact, the unbaptised go to hell (as far as Catholics are concerned). The sacrament of Baptism is when the soul receives, for the first time, the gift of God’s grace. To sin is to fall from grace, to receive the sacraments of confession, communion, confirmation and extreme unction is to return to a state of grace. The reason babies are baptised (as opposed to adults) is because Catholicism as a religion harks back to times when the infant mortality rate was frighteningly high, and unless a baby were quickly baptised, it might well depart the world having never received God’s grace.
Even to day, if a Catholic mother-to-be is (say) struck by a car in the final stages of pregnancy, or is in some other fashion put in a “either mother or the baby will live” scenario, a priest will be called in to perform an emergency baptism if possible. Sometimes the father will be asked to choose, in fact, between the life of the mother (who will receive the Last Rites) and the child, who can not be allowed to die in utero and unbaptised.
For Protestants (or at least Scottish Prestbyterians) Baptism is received at adulthood i.e. is the definite, informed choice of the individual. Which attitude I prefer, to be honest.
On the other hand, you could bomb an Oklahoma Federal Building, be unrepenant throughout your trial, get the death penalty, and get yourself saved by repenting the morning of your scheduled execution. Just ask Tim McVeigh.
