Credobaptism Before The Reformation

I discussed infant baptism at length in some posts here in 2006. I don't think I've addressed the subject much since then. I want to revisit it.

Annihilation and infant damnation

There are roughly three positions on hell:

A. Infernalism

On this view, eschatological punishment is never-ending. The damned suffer conscious eternal misery. 

B. Universalism

On this view, hell has a back door. Everyone will be saved in this life or the afterlife, although some may have to suffer remedial posthumous punishment to be saved.

C. Annihilationism

The impenitent will cease to exist. In principle, they could simply pass into oblivion when they die and that's it. That would dovetail nicely with physicalism. 

However, the Bible has a doctrine of the general resurrection, so annihilationists need to tack that on somewhere. The solution is to say the impenitent will be physically restored at the general resurrection, then annihilated. It's an ad hoc harmonization but the best they can do given the hand they dealt themselves. 

1. A related issue is the final fate of those who die below the age of reason. Because Infernalism is historically the dominant position, there's a traditional debate about whether some who died below the age of reason experience eternal misery.

However, as annihilationism gains grounds in nominally evangelical circles, that raises a parallel question in annihilationist eschatology regarding those who die before the age of reason. For instance:

Blake Giunta “Does Paul think all Jews who stay Jews are judged sinners and condemned to hell?” I answer: YES. Does this commit me to saying all children are likewise condemned? No. (Long discussion.) Moreover, I’m an annihilationist so I don't really mind saying they go to hell–i.e. punishment unto outer darkness. (E.g. I suspect my 6 month old would go to hell. It’s just that, unlike sinful adults who will first consciously suffer God’s just punishment/wrath prior to annihilation, innocent children like my son Luke would simply and immediate go right back to non-existence without pain. On my model, God has good reason to do this, and does no wrong because God does not owe Luke any more existence than he was already gifted.) 

2. That raises a number of questions. Blake doesn't seem to view annihilationism for those who die before the age of reason as punitive. The principle, rather, is that God never owes them existence in the first place, so God doesn't wrong them by not prolonging their existence. 

3. Does Blake think this is what happens to everyone who dies before the age of reason? It isn't punitive with a view to what they'd do if they grew up? It's not about their counterfactual future. 

4. God may have no obligation to initiate their existence, but having done so, does he assume a responsibility to and for rational creatures if he makes them? For instance, I may have no obligation to father a child, but having fathered a child, do I not thereby assume a parental duty to the child I fathered? Is there a duty to carry through with what I  began? 

Let's say I don't own my son existence, but I father a son anyway. At that stage, do I have the prerogative to make him revert to prenatal nonexistence, as if he never existened in the first place? 

One problem is that it isn't really a rollback the status quo ante, but a positive loss. My son now had the experience of conscious existence. So he has something to lose.

5. It seems to mean human existence has no inherent value. They don't exist, then they do exist, then they cease to exist. Their existence or nonexistence is entirely arbitrary. Like putting them in a time machine and sending them back to before they existed. Like flipping a coin. 

6. It seems to make creation gratuitous, as if there's no purpose for their existence. Like evolutionary dead-ends. Take the child who dies in a spontaneous miscarriage. On the annihilationist view, his existence simply terminates at that point. There's no intermediate state. No general resurrection for him. It was just a glitch. It arbitrarily ends at that point. 

What if Stalin died at 5?

1. I'm going to revisit a vexed issue in pastoral theology. For purposes of this post, I'm using "infant" (or "baby") as shorthand for anyone below the age of reason.

At one level we don't have to have an answer to the question since there's no definitive revelation on the topic. To be sure, the Bible is not an encyclopedia. We don't get all our information from Scripture. But this is the kind of question that only divine revelation can really answer. 

2. This dilemma is that while we'd be justified in leaving this an open question, it's a very practical, unavoidable question. So it seems necessary to say something about it. To offer some possible answers to grieving parents (grandparents and siblings). 

3. Here's a more optimistic treatment:

https://triablogue.blogspot.com/2018/10/father-of-fatherless.html

4. However, for purposes of this post, I'd like to briefly discuss the possibility of infant damnation. That's the most controversial position.

I suspect much of what makes it inconceivable for many critics is a mental picture of what they think it means. Roasting babies in the fires of hell. Or subjecting babies to psychological torment. 

5. If there is, however, such a thing as infant damnation, that's not anything like the model I'm exploring. 

i) Suppose Stalin died at 5. Might be from an accident or childhood illness. Doesn't matter.

His soul passes into the intermediate state. He's in the same psychological condition after he died than before he died. The intermediate state is neutral in the sense that for him, it doesn't add anything to make his psychological condition worse. There's no external factors that torment his five-year-old mind. He's just in his own mind. The intermediate state might simulate a playground. Nothing unpleasant or painful. A natural enjoyable setting for a five-year-old. 

ii) There seem to be two logical possibilities for the intermediate state of babies. They are frozen at the psychological age at which they die. That never changes (at least during the intermediate state). Or else they psychologically mature in the intermediate state until they have adult minds. They run through the same stages as the living, but without physical bodies. 

iii) Let's go with the second option. Eventually, Stalin has an adult mind. But suppose his psychological makeup is evil. He's morally warped. So he turns out much the same way as if he hadn't died at 5, but lived to be 20. 

So the intermediate state of Stalin, as he passes through the phases of cognitive development, from infancy to adulthood, becomes increasingly dark and hellish. That's not because he's tormented by external conditions. Rather, for him, the intermediate state is a hellish projection of his own twisted imagination. 

iv) Of course, that revisits the nature/nurture debate. Perhaps my scenario is not entirely realistic. It depends on the presence or absence of common grace and saving grace. Absent grace, residual good will be extinguished and evil will take over. Absent divine intervention, the default condition of human beings is prone to evil. Left to run its course, that's how it develops. A bad childhood can accelerate and exacerbate it, but doesn't create it. Babies aren't a blank slate. 

The fate of the unevangelized

An exchange I had on Facebook, slightly edited. 

Hays 

The assumption of Scripture is that human beings are born lost. They come into the world in a lost condition. They don't have to do anything special, anything extra, to be in a lost condition. That's their default situation. The Gospel takes for granted that they are already lost. That's what they need to be rescued from, if they are not be rescued at all.

Caleb 

Sure. But the question is is there the opportunity for them to be rescued, if they've never heard of the solution?

Hays 

If they never hear and believe the Gospel, that's a way of saying the remain in the same condition into which they were born. Nothing changed to shift their original lost condition.

Caleb 

Yes, but should they not at least be given the chance to hear the message that will change their condition?

Hays 

Why? To be spiritually lost is not simply an innocent misfortune, but a preemptive punishment for sin and willful alienation from God? In Scripture, it's not as if they are lost through no fault of their own.

Caleb 

No, but their geographic location (which is relevant to whether or not they may hear the solution to their condition) is through no fault of their own. God decides where and when people are born.

Hays 

1. They're not lost because of their geographical location. Their geographical location simply keeps them in their lost condition. It's like If I'm bitten by a cobra and don't have access to antivenom, so I die. In a roundabout sense you could I died because I didn't receive antivenom, but I wouldn't need it in the first place unless I was dying from snakebite. Lack of antivenom is a secondary cause of death, but the primary cause is snakebite.

2. The fact that some people live and die outside the pale of the Gospel is God's preemptive judgement.

Caleb 

I agree that their geographical location does not condemn them. But a better analogy would be that you for bitten by snake, and God chose whether or not you'd be in a location where there is Anti-Venom. Shouldn't everyone get access to the Anti-Venom, and have it up to the people as to whether or not they will accept or reject that cure?

Hays 

No, because a person's moral condition can be a disqualifying factor. If a serial killer was bitten by a cobra, he's not entitled to antivenom. It's no injustice to let him die. Indeed, it's an injustice to let him live.

Caleb

But wouldn't the sense of humanity mean that everyone is a serial killer in the situation? It seems more plausible to say that either all killer should die, or that all of them should be given mercy. If all of the killer sins are the same, why would some be saved over others?

Hays 

1. If no one deserves to be saved, no one has a right to God's mercy, so it's not unjust for God to discriminate. Discrimination is only wrong in cases where two or more individuals have equal claims.

2. We need to resist the temptation of wanting too hard for something to be true just because we wish it was true, then creating a belief system because we want so hard for that to be the case. Like a teenage boy who's hopelessly in love with a girl who doesn't share his affection. He may convince himself that she's the only girl for him, he won't settle for anyone else, and he passes up realistic opportunities vainly pining for the unattainable.

3. Now, if we wanted to wax speculative, it's possible that God created a multiverse in which the lost/unreached in our world are evangelized/saved in parallel world. But that's just conjecture. Might be true but not something we can bank on.

Caleb 

That multiverse theory is basically Molinism

Hays 

1. Molinism has no monopoly on counterfactuals and possible worlds. Leibniz wasn't a Molinist. Counterfactuals and possible worlds fit into Calvinism, too. Molinism has a theory of middle knowledge, based on God's alleged insight into what nonexistent agents with libertarian freewill would do under various circumstances. The speculative scenario I floated doesn't have or require all those assumptions. It's entirely compatible with predestination.

2. Regarding what happens to the souls of babies:

i) We don't have any definitive revelation on that.

ii) It's possible that God saves everyone who dies below the age of reason. 

iii) That, however, is rather arbitrary. Salvation or damnation through lucky or unlucky timing.

iv) Why would Stalin be saved if he dies at 5 but not at 20–given how he was going to turn out?

What if he dies at 5, passes into the intermediate state, and matures into what he was going to be like at 20 if he hadn't died at 5?

v) I'm sure God saves some dying babies. On a positive note, in Scripture God has a special regard for orphans. And no one is more orphaned than a dying baby.

Paedo/credobaptism

I think the traditional arguments for infant baptism and believer's baptism are indecisive and basically cancel each other out. I think the strongest argument for infant baptism is sociological: Was there a 1C cultural presumption that the religion of (underage) children is the religion of their parents? A default ascriptive status. If so, ir carries the presumption that the rite of Christian initiation extends to children of Christian parents. Conversely, if believer's baptism was, in fact, the original position, then we'd expect the NT to be much more explicit since it would need to counter the cultural presupposition. I recently linked to a detailed exposition of that argument:

https://www.academia.edu/34577884/Infant_Baptism_in_the_First-Century_Presupposition_Pool

I find the sociological argument mildly persuasive, although it's not a knockdown argument. 

I think the best argument for believer's baptism goes like this: the church fathers began to view baptism as a rite that washed away the guilt of original sin. That development led to the complementary development of infant baptism. Dying unbaptized babies were damned because they died in a state of original sin. Given high rates of infant mortality, infant baptism was a preemptive measure to ensure the salvation of dying infants. 

I think that's a plausible historical reconstruction. Although patristics is not my bailiwick, I think it's easy to document that confluence of factors. 

However, it's possible that infant baptism was the original practice, with a different rationale. What happened wasn't the novel introduction of infant baptism, but the novel introduction of a new rationale that co-opted the original rationale. 

As a Zwinglian, I don't think either side has much to gain if they are right or much to lose if they are wrong. The real danger is when faith in the (alleged) efficacy of the sacraments usurps faith in Christ. It becomes important when people make it more important than it is. 

What to tell a dying child

Here's a follow up to my previous post:

https://triablogue.blogspot.com/2018/11/deathbed-atheism.html

A longtime reader of Triablogue ran my query by CA. On Twitter, he responded as follows:

@CounterApologis

In fact, if my child did have a terminal illness, depending on the age you wouldn't want to tell them if they couldn't handle it. But you would make them as comfortable as possible and spend as much time with them as possible. /1

What is the alternative? Tell a child who can't handle the reality of death they're going to be with a god that let them get sick and won't heal them, taking them away from their parents? As if that'll make them feel any better. 2/2

1. CA is struggling to be a consistent atheist. Does CA think it's wrong to tell a dying child a comforting lie? Most atheists don't think lying is intrinsically wrong. From a secular standpoint, if it's a choice between a child who dies in terror if you tell it the truth and a child who dies in peace if you tell it a comforting lie, what should an atheist say? Should he speak as an honest atheist or speak as a loving parent? 

This dilemma is less about the child than the atheist. It goes to the question of whether atheism is livable. 

2. Some atheists might bite the bullet and say it doesn't ultimately matter if the child died in peace or died in terror because he won't remember how he died. What difference does it really make whether he was happy or terrified in the last few weeks, days, or hours prior to death? Death wipes out everything that went before. 

3. CA evades the issue by casting the Christian alternative in the most jaundiced way he can think of. To begin with, death will take them away from their parents according to Christianity and atheism alike. And from a secular standpoint, that's permanent, whereas, from a Christian standpoint, there's the hope of reunion. 

Yes, it makes a dying child feel better that he won't pass into oblivion, but go to a nicer place. I had an Aunt Vera who died of diphtheria at 3 1/2. Her last words were, "Kiss me papa, I'm going to Jesus!"

Father of the fatherless

1. In this post I'm going to present my own arguments for infant salvation. I'm using "infant" as shorthand for children who die below the age of reason. That includes miscarriage. I think universal infant salvation is possible, but I'm skeptical about that. However, I think God saves many dying infants. 

2. If Scripture affirms something, then we have assurance on that point. If Scripture denies something, then that's out of bounds. 

If Scripture is doesn't answer certain questions one way or another, then that leaves the door open to consider the logical possibilities. That's in the realm of theological speculation. Some theological conjectures are more reasonable than others, but we can't be dogmatic. 

3. Both Calvinists and freewill theists usually think some or all dying infants are heavenbound, but for different reasons. 

i) Calvinists believe infants are liable to original sin, but elect infants are redeemed by the atonement of Christ.

ii) Modern-day freewill theists usually deny that infants are guilty of original sin.

iii) On the other hand, traditional freewill theists like John and Charles Wesley probably took a sterner view. They were Anglican clergymen. If you read the ordinance of baptism, it teaches baptismal regeneration, and implies that unbaptized infants are doomed:

http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/1928/Baptism.htm

4. Calvinists typically think some or all dying infants are elect. In my experience, many Calvinists think that dying infants of believers (or "covenant children") are presumptively elect. Depending on the Calvinist, they may not think there's the same presumption concerning dying infants of unbelievers. 

5. Is there any reason to suppose that God is more likely to save the dying infants of believers? The only reason I can think of is that Christian parents wish to be reunited with their children. End up in the same place. That's understandable, and God may honor that up to a point. Of course, some grown children of Christians are infidels, so God doesn't necessarily honor parental wishes in that regard.

6. What about the dying infants of unbelievers? There the comparison seems to be asymmetrical. Why should the fate of infants be chained to the fate of unbelieving parents? If God saves the dying infants of believers, that benefits both parties. But that doesn't work in reverse. To damn the infants of unbelieving parents doesn't benefit either party. Should infants suffer for the sake of their godless parents? 

I'm not saying that means God saves all the dying infants of unbelieving parents–any more than I'm saying he saves all the dying infants of believing parents. The question is why God should care whether their parents are believers or unbelievers. He might care if the parents are believers for the sake of the parents. But does that mean he shouldn't care for the sake of the infants? 

Suppose I'm a soldier who discovers a war orphan. His parents aren't necessarily dead. They may have been separated. One motivation for me to rescue the child is in hopes of finding his parents and reuniting him to his parents. That's good for the parents and child alike.

However, that shouldn't be my only incentive. I can't count on finding his parents. Maybe they're dead. Or maybe there's no possibility of locating them. That doesn't mean I should leave him behind. I should still rescue him for his own benefit.

So even if God has an additional reason to save some or all dying infants of believing parents, I don't see how that's a necessary reason in the sense that he wouldn't save the infants of unbelieving parents. There can be multiple motivations, any one of which might be sufficient. To suppose that God cares about the fate of kids by believing parents doesn't imply that he has no regard for the fate of the kids by unbelieving parents. Those are separate issues. Affirming one doesn't disaffirm the other. 

My point is not to take a position on percentages, but to reject the linkage, as if the fate of kids by believing parents is inversely linked to the fate of kids by unbelieving parents. Seems to me that the cases are independent of each other. 

7. In addition, God might save some dying infants of unbelieving parents to show that salvation is a matter of grace rather than parentage. We see the same pattern among adults. God saves some grown children of unbelieving parents while some grown children of believing parents are infidels. Election and reprobation cut across bloodlines in both directions. 

8. If you have parents, they can make a big difference. That has a tremendous conditioning influence on kids. Parents and children are psychologically linked in life. But dying infants no longer have their parents. So why would their eternal fate still be tied to their parents? That doesn't settle the question of their eternal fate. Rather, that must be settled on grounds other than parentage.

9. As I've said on multiple occasions, I don't see why election has an age cutoff. Take two brothers: Bobby and Billy. Bobby is 6 while Billy is 7. Suppose for argument's sake we say the age of reason is 7. Both die. Lucky for Bobby that he gets in just under the wire while his brother just misses the chronological boat. 

So my objection cuts both ways. Just as it's ad hoc to suppose that everyone who dies below a certain age is heavenbound, it's at least equally ac hoc if not more so to suppose that everyone who dies below a certain age is hellbound. Why would an age boundary be germane to God? How is that an intrinsic criterion? 

10. Those are some considerations from philosophical theology. What about exegetical theology? Here's one consideration: in Scripture, God is the God of orphans. He expresses a particular concern for the plight of orphans. 

Now there are different ways to become an orphan. You can be a lost child, permanently separated from your parents. Or your parents may die. Or you may die. 

If your parents die, you lose your parents in this life. You are still alive while they are dead. But if you die, you lose your parents in the afterlife. They are still alive while you are dead. Death separates parent and child in either direction–whether by his death or their death. Death orphans a child in one direction or the other. Either they pass out of your life or you pass out of theirs. 

According to Scripture, few things are worse than to be an orphan. You have no one to look out for you at a very vulnerable stage of life–physically and emotionally. 

But what about a dead child. He's orphaned on the other side of the grave. If there's no one waiting to adopt him in the afterlife, he's incomparably worse off than if he was orphaned on this side of the grave. But if God is the God of orphans in the lesser case of dead parents, is he not the God of orphans in the greater case of dying children–greater where the need is greater? If God has a merciful disposition towards living orphans, is he suddenly unmerciful towards dead orphans? Like what Jesus said: if God was Lord of the patriarchs while they were alive, will that not carry through into the afterlife? 

I'm not saying that's an argument for universal infant salvation, but I think it's a neglected consideration in the salvation of at least some dying infants. 

11. In addition, Scripture rages against child sacrifice. But what happens to the victims of child sacrifice? If all victims of child sacrifice go to hell, they suffer a fate even worse than their harrowing experience as sacrificial victims. But if Scripture treats child sacrifice as especially abominable, is God even harsher to them than their heathen executioners? 

I'm not saying that's an argument for universal infant salvation. The pagan priests used to be children, too–who grew up to be child-killers. But I think it's a neglected consideration in the salvation of at least some dying infants.

Born of the word?

In this post I'm going to respond to somebody who thinks everyone who dies before the age of reason is damned:

If it were enough be regenerated to be saved then the gospel was useless, the sacrifice of Christ would have been in vain. God could save those he wanted by simply regenerating them by sending the Holy Spirit.

i) That misses the point. This doesn't involve a universal principle, as if it must be the same for everyone regardless, but whether what's necessary under normal circumstances is necessary under abnormal circumstances. 

Keep in mind that the content of faith is subject to progressive revelation and redemption. So it's not the same at all times and places. 

ii) It hardly renders the atonement in vain. God only regenerates the redeemed. 

iii) To take a comparison, ancient Israel had military conscription (Num 1:2-3,45). Yet there were exemptions (Deut 20:5-8; 24:5).

Notice, though, that there's no stated exemption for men who are blind, quadriplegics, or hemophiliacs. Does that mean blind men, quadriplegics, and hemophiliacs are not exempt? If they don't enlist, are they draft dodgers? Are they derelict in their duty? Have they broken God's law?

The silence of Scripture on possible exceptions doesn't mean there are no possible exceptions. It would make the Bible far too long to list every conceivable exception to commands and prohibitions. The Bible typically deals with commonplace sins, crimes, and duties rather than exotic cases or remote hypotheticals. 

Biblical commands and prohibitions have an implied context. In this case, able-bodied men. The command is inapplicable to blind men, quadriplegics, and hemophiliacs. It doesn't envision that situation. It doesn't address the question of whether brains-in-vats are mandated to engage in hand-to-hand combat. 

Reformed exclusivism

Critics of Calvinism regard Calvinism as an especially harsh version of exclusivism. They castigate unconditional election and they criticize the Reformed position that regeneration is causally prior to faith. The point of this post is not to defend those tenets directly, but to consider a potential fringe benefit. 

i) In traditional evangelical exclusivism, premortem faith in Christ is a prima facie prerequisite of salvation. But there are caveats. That's usually confined to mentally competent individuals. Exceptions are often made for those who lack the cognitive faculties to exercise Christian faith. People below a certain age. People with severe congenital brain damage. 

Christians who become senile. Christians with brain cancer. The latter two lose their faith, but they don't lose their salvation. Rather, they lose the cognitive faculties to believe. 

That's not necessarily the same thing as declaring all those groups to be heavenbound. Because Scripture doesn't give definitive answers to the salvific status of special cases, some evangelical theologians suspend judgment while others stake out the universal salvation of all who die before the age of reason (to take one example). 

ii) Although Scripture attributes salvation to faith in Christ, Scripture also attributes salvation to regeneration. It's lopsided to focus on saving faith to the exclusion of saving regeneration. 

iii) According to evangelical freewill theism, faith causes regeneration. According to Calvinism, regeneration (in tandem with the Gospel) causes faith. In Calvinism, regeneration is causally and sometimes temporally prior to saving faith. There can be a chronological gap between regeneration and saving faith. For instance, God can regenerate someone as a young child or even in the womb, but they may not come to faith until they reach the age of reason or later. Likewise, in Calvinism, election is logically/teleologically prior to conception (indeed, prior to time). 

iv) Suppose (ex hypothesi) that God regenerates a Muslim with a view to the Muslim coming to Christian faith, only God regenerates the Muslim several years before he comes to faith in Christ. At that stage in the process, the Muslim hasn't been exposed to the Gospel. But suppose the effect of regeneration is to make him doubt or lose faith in Islam. At that stage he lacks an alternative. But regeneration broke through the social conditioning which made Islam unquestionable prior to regeneration. And suppose that prompts him to search for religious alternatives–until he discovers a Bible. Regeneration planted a seed that eventually germinated in faith. But there was some delay.

v) In principle, God might elect or regenerate someone who's killed in a traffic accident before coming to faith in Christ. I wouldn't press that. In general, God coordinates election and regeneration with the Gospel. 

That said, I'm not sure how we can rule out the possibility that God elects and regenerates some people who die before coming to Christ. Their faith will be postponed to the afterlife. Indeed, many Calvinists already believe that happens in special cases (see above). Is salvation a matter of lucky timing? If you die a minute before, you're damned? 

Ironically, something freewill theists find so objectionable in Calvinism has the potential to make it more magnanimous than traditional evangelical freewill theism. Not something to bank on, but an open question in Reformed theology.  By contrast, faith and regeneration are chronologically inseparable in traditional evangelical freewill theism, resulting in a harsher version of exclusivism. 

Unconditional election and infant salvation

From a Facebook exchange:

It is clear from the Institutes that Calvin taught double predestination. When, according to Calvin, does God predestine some to salvation and some to damnation? Would the predestined person's age have anything to do with anything? How could one consistently argue something different than double predestination from Calvin?

In and of themselves, election and reprobation are consistent with universal infant salvation. It's just up to God who he chose to elect or reprobate. That can't be inferred merely from the principle of double predestination.

Sounds like having your cake and eating it to. Either election is unconditional or it isn't. Seems to me you're wanting to make it conditional when it makes the doctrine more palatable.

Unclear what you think unconditional election means. The concept of unconditional election is not a restriction or imposition on God. What makes you think unconditional election means God can't elect all those who die before the age of reason, if that's what he wanted to do?

BTW, since you don't know my actual position, it would behoove you to avoid conspiratorial interpretations.

Completely true- God can do what He wants. I personally just find it inconsistent to hold to an unconditional election based solely on God's sovereignty, but then apply a condition to it (the age of reason).

The basic principle of unconditional election is that since all Adam's posterity will be guilty as well as unresponsive to spiritual good apart from grace, there's nothing to distinguish one human from another that accounts for God's choice. God could choose fewer or God could choose more. If everyone is in the same boat, choosing a particular subclass of the total (e.g. all who die before the age of discretion) is perfectly consistent with the unconditionality of election.

There's an ambiguity to how you're using "condition". To take a crazy hypothetical for illustrative purposes, suppose God elected all and only people with green eyes. Would that make it "conditional" election. If the notion is that having green eyes causes, constrains, or impels God to choose people with green eyes, then that would be conditional. If, however, the elect status of green-eyed people is the effect or result of God's choice, then that's not conditional.

Like I said, I would think from an unconditional election point of view, that God is sovereign. He can do what He wants. Not really interested in what He might do. I think he has declared what He will do: he who believes is not condemned. 

Hypotheticals are a way of testing whether a generalization is true or false in principle.

There's an elementary difference between what an individual Reformed theologian believes, and whether his position is a logical implication of Calvinism. Put another way, a difference between what's consistent with Calvinism and what's entailed by Calvinism.

Traditionally, the original rationale for infant baptism was to remove the stain of original sin. Unbaptized babies who died were consigned to hell. That wasn't based on Calvinism. What was the position of Arminian Anglicans like John and Charles Wesley?

Angels and ghosts

http://bnonn.com/angels-and-ghosts/

Their angels always see the Father's face

10 See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven (Mt 18:10). 

15 They said to her, “You are out of your mind.” But she kept insisting that it was so, and they kept saying, “It is his angel!” (Acts 12:15).

Commentators find the reference to "angels" in these passages somewhat puzzling, but they usually settle on guardian angels as the best identification (Carson is a notable exception.) However, the comparative literature they adduce for that identification is scant and tenuous. The closest analogy is the role of the Archangel Michael. However, he's the guardian angel of Israel. One can't extrapolate from that to a doctrine of guardian angels for every individual.

One problem is that Bible scholars, like other scholars, suffer from tunnel vision. They may know a lot about their area of specialization, but not much outside their specialty.

Given widely reported apparitions of the dead generally, as well as crisis apparitions in particular, I think it's more likely that Acts 12:15 reflects popular belief in apparitions of the dead. Belief that, at the moment of death, or shortly thereafter, the decedent may appear to friends and relatives. Or may appear to friends and relatives when they are undergoing a crisis. That fits the context of Acts 12 like a glove. On that view, Rhoda figured that Peter had died in custody, and this was his way of saying good-bye before he went to heaven.  

I'm not using this as a prooftext for apparitions of the dead. It reflects the viewpoint of a figure in the narrative (Rhoda), and not necessarily the viewpoint of the narrator (Luke). Moreover, Rhoda is not an inspired speaker or normative character.

Nevertheless, if this identification is correct, it presumably reflects popular folklore about ghosts and apparitions of the dead. And what would give rise to that belief? Well, maybe real encounters of that kind.

Assuming this interpretation is correct, it sheds light on Mt 18:10. If "angel" is sometimes a synonym for a ghost or apparition of the dead, then that refers to the souls of the departed. And if that's the correct identification, then this may be the most promising prooftext for universal infant salvation. 

An objection to that inference is that Jesus is using "little ones" as a metaphor for Christians. Since, however, he introduces his comparison by using a child as an object lesson, it would seem rather incongruous to exclude literal children from the tally when he presents them as the exemplary standard of comparison which Christians are required to emulate in that regard. But I admit this isn't a knock-down argument.  

The development of the doctrine of infant salvation

https://archive.org/details/twostudiesinhist00warf

Celestial orphanage

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 incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word (WCF 10:3).

i) From time to time I discuss the question of the salvation of those who die before the age of reason. I mention that presumably they continue to mature psychologically in the afterlife. Now I'd like to flesh out the "logistics" of how that might occur. Obviously, what I say will be speculative. However, the speculation is an extension of things we know.

ii) In this post I'll confine myself to heaven for those who die before the age of reason. By "heaven", I mean the intermediate state for the saints. A disembodied condition for those dying in a state of grace. 

iii) The Bible contains visions of heaven. Now, these may be symbolic, so that doesn't necessarily tell us what heaven is really like. Perhaps, though, the question of what heaven is really like might be the wrong way to frame the issue. It's like asking what a dream is really like. To take a comparison, consider the Colonial or Antebellum squares in Savanna, Georgia. We can say what these are really like because they are physical spaces with physical objects (e.g. trees, buildings). They have an objective, durable subsistence. Trees and buildings are located in relation to each other in fixed positions. 

By contrast, I think heaven is like a very vivid, inspired collective dream. A dream has a simulated setting (dreamscape). The dreamer has a simulated body. Other characters in the dream have simulated bodies.

By the same token, people in heaven can have simulated bodies. And that's consistent with heavenly visions in Scripture. Likewise, heaven can have a simulated landscape, or cityscape, or seascape, &c. Heaven can be compartmentalized into a variety of different settings. There's no one way it has to be. 

iv) Apropos (iii), children die in different historical periods. They die in different countries and ecoregions. Some live around mountains, or rivers, or lakes, or oceans, or jungles, or forests, or deserts, or cities, or villages, &c. Some died in the Ice Age. Some died in the ancient Near East. Some died in the Middle Ages. Some died in the 20C. And so on. 

v) Let's pick an age group out of thin air for illustrative purposes: say children between 5-10 years of age. Let's say they go to heaven when they die. 

If heaven has simulated spaces and places, they might to go a "part" of heaven that resembles the time and place they're familiar with. If, however, they grew up in a slum (to take one example), they'd go to a much nicer place. Maybe urban or rural. 

Or childreen might go to a playground or amusement park. Or a meadow. They might live in simulated houses. There might be simulated wild animals as well as simulated pet dogs and cats and horses and whatever. The possibilities are endless.

vi) Children in heaven might be grouped according to age, language, culture, and ethnicity. At least initially. By that I mean, suppose you had pre-Columbian children who lived and died in the Amazon River basin. Maybe in heaven they are grouped together because they have so much in common, which eases the transition. That makes it less initially disorienting. But as they mature, they can branch out to explore other parts of heaven. Meet other kids (now teenagers) from different times and places. 

Or maybe communication is telepathic, so they don't need to speak the same language. 

vii) Heaven is full of men and women who died as adults. Men and women who were parents and grandparents in this life. They could be foster parents to the children. Not only do they have experience in child-rearing, but in heaven they are sinless. They aren't under the stress of life in a fallen world. So they could do a better job of parenting than they did in this life.

On this view, children could mature very normally, because their (simulated) physical and social environment is similar to what they knew before they died, only so much better.  

In the case of children who had a Christian parent or parents, they will be reunited with their parents when their parents die. But at that point they will be grown children. 

viii) Maybe children in heaven interact with angels. In addition, perhaps they get to meet Jesus or even see him on a regular basis. Although Jesus is physical, he can interface with disembodied souls the way a dreamer has a simulated body that enables him to interact with the dreamscape or dream characters. And because it's simulated space, he can be in two or more places at once.

ix) Their education could be individualized in a way that isn't feasible on earth. 

x) Perhaps they can do things in heaven, like flying, that we can only do in dreams. Likewise, skindiving without having to breathe. 

xi) On earth, children pass through adolescence. Hormones not only change them physically, but psychologically. Will there be something analogous to that in heaven? Hard to say. Perhaps that awaits the resurrection of the body.  

Are there babies in hell?

In a debate with James White, atheist David Silverman posed the question, "Are there babies in hell"? Silverman is using that as a wedge issue to show that when you take Christian theology to a logical extreme, many Christians will blink. When push comes to shove, they don't really believe what they say they believe, because they balk at the awful consequences. So I'd like to take a shot at the question.

1. The question is speculative, so any answers will be speculative. If an atheist is going to pose a question like that, he can't turn around and complain that my answers are speculative. If that's his reaction, then don't ask the question in the first place.

2. You can have sincere belief in something without having to have unflinching belief in something. We live in a world that routinely confronts us with hard truths. Even if an atheist succeeds in making a Christian squirm, that doesn't falsify Christian beliefs. Lots of things make us wince, but they can still be true–and often are.

Moreover, it's counterproductive. After all, many people naturally recoil at the grim worldview of atheism, yet atheists don't think that's a reason to reject it. 

3. The question is deceptively simple, with hidden assumptions lurking in the underbrush. Before we can answer the question, we must interpret the question. What do the key terms mean? How do we visualize the damned? How do we visualize hell?

4. The short answer is that I don't know the answer. I don't have an informed answer to give. 

What could be my source of information? The only reliable source would be divine revelation. But the question is too specialized for Scripture to address. Scripture customarily deals with typical cases. Regarding damnation, Scripture says the damned will by judged by their works. That envisions agents above a certain age. 

I don't think Scripture speaks to the fate of those who die before the age of reason. It doesn't address cases of diminished responsibility. 

An atheist might complain that I'm ducking the question. Not so. I didn't choose my epistemology to evade this particular question. As matter of principle, there are some things we're in no position to know apart from revelation. 

5. Still, my ignorance doesn't rule out the possibility in question. So let's examine that. What is meant by "babies"? 

Presumably, that's a synecdoche for children below the age of reason. Children in a condition of diminished responsibility.

In general, what happens to people who die at that age? After they pass into the afterlife, do they stay that age? Do they remain psychologically immature? 

I surmise that they continue their cognitive development until they have adult intelligence. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that some people who die at that age go to hell, they don't suffer as children. Rather, they suffer as adults. Give them sufficient time. 

6. Since the intermediate state is a discarnate state, it's inaccurate to visualize the afterlife containing physical babies, much less naked babies writhing in fire. When a child dies, the child's soul passes into the afterlife. 

I view the intermediate state as analogous to a stable dream or collective dream. A state of mind–or minds. 

7. Let's take some paradigm cases of evil men, viz. Ted Bundy, Joseph Mengele, Charles Manson, Stalin, Tamerlane, Genghis Khan. I'm citing extreme examples to establish a point of principle. 

Suppose one of them died at five. Would he go to hell? The answer may depend on how we answer another question. What made him so sadistic or heartless? 

Suppose he turned out so badly due to crucial experiences during his formative years. If so, then his premature death will interrupt that baleful trajectory. His untimely demise may mean he will turn out quite differently in the afterlife. If he's not evil in the afterlife, then I don't assume he'd go to hell when he died. 

8. But suppose he was always twisted. It may not have been evident at first, but even as a young child it began to manifest itself in ominous ways.

In that event, he will mature into the same evil person in the afterlife that he became in this life, had he not died so young. If so, then I'd expect him to go to hell when he dies. 

9. What do we mean by hell? Suppose, the moment after Hugh Hefner dies, he awakens in a harem. And he's young again. Paradise!

Only there's a catch: when he looks down he sees to his chagrin that he's missing the one organ he needs to take advantage of his newfound opportunities. For Hefner, that would be hell.

Yet that doesn't require demons with pitchforks plunging him into vats of boiling oil. What makes it hellish is deprivation combined with desire. 

A state of mind can be hellish. Take inconsolable loneliness. 

From what I can tell, psychopaths and sociopaths are miserable. Their sadistic mindset makes them miserable. 

Hell can be continuous existence in mental torment. And that needn't be caused by the surroundings of the damned. Even if the surroundings were idyllic, the damned would still be miserable because it's in their character, in their attitude. And I don't think it's unjust for a person in that condition to remain in that condition. 

Abortion, election, and apostasy

Abortionists sometimes cite popular belief in universal infant salvation as a wedge tactic to taunt Christians: If you believe all babies are heavenbound, why do you oppose abortion? This is meant to generate a dilemma: logically, you should either support both or oppose both. 

John Piper recently posted on this subject:

http://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/if-babies-go-to-heaven-why-oppose-abortion

Given the cards he dealt himself, I think he played his hand fairly well. That said:

i) Speaking for myself, I'm dubious about universal infant salvation. All the world's worst people used to be cute little kids. I can't help mentally rewinding the clock. Go back in time from what they are to what they were. 

Seems arbitrary to say that if you die at seven you fly to heaven, but if you die at nine you fry. 

We see children as they are, not as they will be. At least initially. Sometimes we live long enough to see how they turn out–for better or worse. 

So I doubt a key premise of the argument. But even if I didn't, I don't think the argument goes through. 

ii) If this poses a dilemma at all, it only poses a dilemma for freewill theists rather than Calvinists. The unstated premise of the argument is that people can lose their salvation. Hence, if somebody is now saved, killing him now is the way to seal his salvation. If salvation can be lost, it is risky to live another day. To play it safe, die when you are saved. The longer you wait, the greater the risk that you will died unsaved. 

Incidentally, the logic of that argument is hardly confined to infants. It would apply just as well to born-again adults. 

iii) But, of course, Calvinism rejects the operating premise. What ensures your salvation is not when you die, but election–which is unalterable. Not, in the first instance, what happened in time, but what happened in eternity. The elect can't lose their salvation. You either have it or you don't.

From a Reformed standpoint, nothing you do can change the number of the elect. In the classic formulation of the Westminster Confession: "These angels and men, thus predestinated, and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed, and their number so certain and definite, that it cannot be either increased or diminished" (WCF 3:4).

iv) But it might be argued that this misses the point. The claim is not that we retroactively cause God to elect more people if more babies die in the womb. The claim, rather, is that if more (elect) babies die in the womb, then that's how God predestined the end-result all along. Our alternate course of action (i.e. aborting elect babies) is the consequence of God's foreordination, rather than God's foreordination as the consequence of our alternate course of action. 

v) There is, however, a basic problem with that argument. It's a counterfactual scenario. As such, it doesn't refer to the world in which you and I actually live, but to an alternate timeline.

But even if you believe in universal infant salvation vis-a-vis the actual world, you can't just switch to an alternate timeline, yet assume everything else remains the same. Even if your thought-experiment only changes on variable, that's just a thought-experiment. You can conjecture that God might do it that way, but it's not as if you have given God a blueprint which he must follow. 

Suppose there's a possible world in which some people kill their children in the superstitious belief that doing so will ensure their salvation. It doesn't follow that in fact raises the number of the elect. For in that alternate timeline, God may not elect all dying infants, even if he does so in this world. 

vi) Furthermore, even if you subscribe to predestinarian universal infant salvation, that doesn't imply that more people are ultimately elect. It may simply mean a greater percentage of the elect die in infancy, and fewer in adulthood–even though the overall number is exactly the same. The sum is the same. All that's different is how the elect are distributed by time of death. Whether more die younger or older. 

The age of accountability

http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2010/07/age-of-accountability

Canaanite babies

i) Some Christian apologists defend the OT holy war commands by appealing to universal infant salvation. I'm skeptical about that postulate. However, it's pretty speculative either way. Certainly Calvinism has the internal resources to make that possible.

Keep in mind that denying universal infant salvation doesn't preclude God from saving some Canaanite babies. It's not necessarily an all-or-nothing proposition. (I'm using "babies" to cover anyone below the age of reason.)

ii) One objection to this appeal is that it's ad hoc. It superimposes on the texts something that isn't even hinted at. I'd like to comment on that objection.

iii) To begin with, suppose God planned to save Canaanite babies through the retroactive merit of the atonement. Would we expect Deuteronomy to say babies are saved by Jesus dying on the cross? Clearly that would be quite anachronistic. Indeed, it would be unintelligible to readers in the 2nd millennium BC. 

iv) In addition, the retroactive merit of the atonement is the way anyone was saved before the death of Christ. That's the way all OT saints were saved. To suggest that that's how Canaanite babies were saved is not carving out a special exception in their case. It's not concocting a mechanism just for them. Rather, that's a general principle.

v) In considering the silence of Scripture regarding the eternal fate of Canaanite babies, that silence isn't confined to them. What do the holy war commands say about the eternal fate of Jewish soldiers who die in battle? Precisely nothing. The holy war passages don't speak to that issue in reference to anyone. Not just Canaanite babies, but Jewish combatants. But surely some Jewish soldiers were devout Jews. Surely some of them were heavenbound. 

Indeed, it's a bit surprising that doesn't offer Jewish soldiers any hope beyond the grave. Perhaps that's to discourage belief that death in battle is a ticket to heaven.  

There are some OT texts that explicitly or implicitly teach the afterlife. But they don't figure in the conquest narratives or the holy war commands. So I don't think the silence of Scripture regarding the eternal fate of Canaanite babies is prejudicial. If so, that would be equally prejudicial to Jewish combatants who perish in holy war.

vi) Finally, there's nothing about Canaanite babies qua babies that essentially distinguishes them from other dying babies. So there's no antecedent reason, that I can see, why God would save non-Canaanite babies but not save Canaanite babies.