Sunday, June 27, 2010

Salvation and abortion

1. Some Christians believe that all dying infants are saved. (By “infant” I mean anyone who dies before the age of discretion.) As I recall, Warfield took that position. In our own time, I think Samuel Storms takes that position. And, of course, there are others. I’m just citing two reputable spokesmen for that position.

One argument which abortionists sometimes use to generate a dilemma for Christians is to say that if all aborted babies are saved, then a surefire method of evangelism is to abort every baby. Abortion is their nonrefundable ticket to heaven. The abortionist is the missionary par excellence!

2.I myself don’t have a firm position on the fate of infants. That’s because the Bible has so little to say one way or the other.

3.But let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that this is true. Has the abortionists created a genuine dilemma for the Christian?

The objection contains a suppressed premise. The unspoken assumption is that if Randy grew up, and died of old age, he’d go to hell–but because he died prematurely, at the magic age of immunity, he got in just under the wire. The same individual would be saved or damned depending on when they die.

However, even if you believe in universal infant salvation, that is not a necessary premise of the argument. Indeed, it’s a parody of the sawdust preacher who tells his ragtag congregation that if you die of a heart attack a minute before you answer the altar call, you’ll roast in hell.

But that turns salvation into a gimmick of timing, as if we can trick God into saving us or somebody else if we time things right down to the last minute, then slip under door before just before it slams shut. Is God so shortsighted or easily duped that if Randy goes to the alter on Sunday, and dies on Monday, he’s heavenbound even though he was going to sign a pact with the devil on Tuesday, had he lived a day longer? Can we game the salvation business by playing the margins?

If you do believe in universal infant salvation, here’s a more plausible premise. God determines when and where we will die. Of those who will be saved, God arranges their lifespan so that all those who die in infancy will comprise a subset of all those who will be saved. Had they died of old age, they would still be saved. It’s not as if they were going to chuck the faith in middle age, then die in a Bolivian bordello.

13 comments:

  1. I know some Operation Rescue kind of people who like to think that babies aborted might be in hell.

    And so when someone murders a murdering abortionist, it's saving souls from hell, maybe.

    The Scripture is quiet on this subject, and so I am as well. Though i surely like to lean toward these babies that are killed are with the Lord.

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  2. You bring a very good question forward that has no very good answer!

    I have two portions of one book as food for thought because of this dilemma.


    Ecc 3:11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.

    This verse applies to all conception in the womb.

    Now for that grave despair:


    Ecc 4:1 Again I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun. And behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them! On the side of their oppressors there was power, and there was no one to comfort them.
    Ecc 4:2 And I thought the dead who are already dead more fortunate than the living who are still alive.
    Ecc 4:3 But better than both is he who has not yet been and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun.

    The argument goes:

    "One argument which abortionists sometimes use to generate a dilemma for Christians is to say that if all aborted babies are saved, then a surefire method of evangelism is to abort every baby. Abortion is their nonrefundable ticket to heaven."

    The problem is Ecc 3:11. God is the one Who puts eternity in our hearts. Who are we then to be party to it by that rationale that abortion is their nonrefundable ticket to heaven?

    Two questions I would put on the table from Ecclesiastes are these:

    Ecc 3:21 Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth?
    Ecc 3:22 So I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot. Who can bring him to see what will be after him?


    If we can answer those questions maybe we can give a good answer to your very good question?

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  3. 2 Timothy 2:19
    Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.

    God is able to deliver His people from the wrath to come. He promised.

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  4. I've never heard anyone making that argument about aborted fetuses before, not even when I was at my most active in the pro-choice movement. Still, I don't think the idea of killing someone in the material world with the idea that this will provide some spiritual benefit holds up. Seems like a rewording of "Shoot 'em all and let God sort it out."

    Still, I don't that that the argument in the last passage holds up either. If we do have free will, then yes, it is possible that a person who would have gone to heaven if he or she had died as an infant could commit sins and go to hell if he or she dies in old age. Free will can cut both ways. If free will exists, then God doesn't decide ahead of time who will sin and who won't; we do.

    The right reason to keep abortion legal is because of the direct benefit it provides to women and the benefit that treating women fairly then provides to society. It seems pretty clear that abortion provides no measurable benefit to the fetus or embryo.

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  5. "I myself don’t have a firm position on the fate of infants. That’s because the Bible has so little to say one way or the other."

    Me too!

    But that being said, abortion is murder and a heinous sin.

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  6. DARKFROG24 SAID:

    "Still, I don't that that the argument in the last passage holds up either. If we do have free will, then yes, it is possible that a person who would have gone to heaven if he or she had died as an infant could commit sins and go to hell if he or she dies in old age. Free will can cut both ways. If free will exists, then God doesn't decide ahead of time who will sin and who won't; we do."

    The question at issue is whether God decides ahead of time who will be saved or damned. If you grant divine foreknowledge, that is not as if God has to wait to see the outcome.

    So God's saving all infants (ad arguendo) needn't be premised on the notion that some of these individual would be hellbound had they grown up. For even on libertarian grounds, God could arrange for all those who die in infancy to be individuals who would be faithful to the end had they enjoyed a normal lifespan.

    (Of course, freewill is incompatible with foreknowledge, but that's another argument for another day.)

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  7. Steve,

    Do you have an opinion on when ensoulment occurs?

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  8. I incline to traducianism. I think ensoulment occurs at conception.

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  9. You make it seem like it's all about the baby. Given the command not to kill, it certainly doesn't glorify God to kill babies before they are born. Rather, properly raising a baby into spiritual maturity is a great testimony of God's longsuffering toward all of us he redeemed.

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  10. Steve, if you don't mind a follow-up question, why do you incline towards traducianism and think that ensoulment occurs at conception?

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  11. Children share certain character traits with their parents, as well as their siblings. That's easier to explain on traducianist grounds than creationist grounds. We not only get our body from our parents, but to some extent character traits are also transmitted from parent to child. (Keep in mind that I'm still a dualist.)

    Related to that are other phenomena like national character and "racial memory."

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  12. Steve, Your mind must work overtime attempting to reconcile what you think is "good" with what the Bible says about God, heaven, hell, infants dying, etc.

    Do you really believe that God pre-arranged every which way each infant would perish and made sure that he implanted eternally saved souls inside each such infant?

    So, you know God's secret concerning every infant that has died? They're all going to heaven? Or are you admitting that you're simply inventing your own personal best guess?

    Maybe God does damn some people no matter how young. It's his Calvinist right to do so, isn't it? Didn't Calvin himself believe in infant damnation as well as Jonathan Edwards?

    You really know nothing certain concerning this situation as I believe you admitted. You've merely added another guess that you and other Calvinists might like to believe.

    I spoke with a Calvinist mother of many children via email. She was a member of Phelps' church, and she told me she was distressed over a miscarriage or two she'd suffered, and the fate of that soul.

    She was suffering over the very real possibility of infant damnation, one of her own infants.

    Yet you can't prove to her or anyone else just what DID happen to that tiny infant. So, don't you live with disconcerting and diverse views concerning the ETERNAL damnation of babies? You admit you really don't know and the Bible gives you little clue.

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  13. Ed Babinski wrote:

    "Or are you admitting that you're simply inventing your own personal best guess? Maybe God does damn some people no matter how young. It's his Calvinist right to do so, isn't it? Didn't Calvin himself believe in infant damnation as well as Jonathan Edwards? You really know nothing certain concerning this situation as I believe you admitted. You've merely added another guess that you and other Calvinists might like to believe."

    You're framing the issue in a misleading way. We don't need a "certain" answer in order to consider some possibilities or reach a conclusion about what's probable. And citing evidence for a high-level possibility or arguing for a probable conclusion isn't just a "guess". Furthermore, why only mention men like Calvin and Edwards? The most relevant extra-Biblical sources would be individuals who lived during Biblical times or shortly afterward. People living shortly after the apostles, for example, might have had some reliable information about what the apostles taught on a subject that's ambiguous in scripture or isn't addressed there, for example. One of the reasons why I believe in universal infant salvation is that it seems to have been a widespread view among patristic sources of the second century. Those sources represent a wide variety of locations, personalities, theological positions, etc. That sort of evidence carries some weight that the testimony of somebody like Calvin or Edwards wouldn't have.

    And you should be more careful about the timing of your posts. You didn't reply to Steve until more than a week after his last post. How many people are going to read your reply that late? And what if Steve hadn't seen it, since the thread was already so dated when you posted there? There can be good reason to post late in a thread, but you seem to do it far too often for it to make sense every time. If a thread is old and inactive, and you don't have much to add to it, why post at all?

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