The Salvation of Infants

Last night I finished the paper that was due in one of my seminary classes. It deals with the topic of whether children who die in infancy go to heaven. (My position is that all who die in infancy are saved/elect/in heaven/however you want to phrase it) If you are interested in reading it you can click here. The paper is about 13 double spaced pages long (not including title page, works cited, etc.). I just cut and pasted it from Word 2007 so some of the formatting (table of contents, footnotes, works cited) may look a little "off," but I don't have the patience (or coding skill) to try to fix it right now. Only footnotes 1, 9, 20, 24, and 25 are content footnotes ... the rest are just citations.

If you don't want to take the time to read the paper, here's a brief summary:

-All human beings, including infants, inherit a sinful nature thanks to Adam's sin (Romans 5:12-21, especially verse 12).

-Jesus Christ's death is the act by which all people can receive justification and eternal life (Romans 5:1-21, especially verse 18).

-Salvation is a free gift graciously provided by God (Romans 5:12-21, especially verse 15).

-The free gift of salvation is, under normal circumstances, accepted by faith (Romans 5:1-11, John 3:14-18, Ephesians 2:8-9), but infants are mentally incapable of exercising faith.

-Saving faith itself is graciously provided/enabled by God since no one properly seeks God on their own (John 6:44, Romans 3:11, Ephesians 2:8-9). i.e. faith is part of the free gift.

-Thus it would not be inconsistent with the nature of salvation as a free gift for God to bestow it upon an infant who dies before being mentally capable of exercising personal faith.

-There are concrete Scriptural examples of infants who were saved that show that God can and does save at least some infants: (Luke 1:15, II Samuel 12:15-23 - especially verse 23).

-Those whom God judges and condemns are condemned on the basis of their own personal works/sins (Ezekiel 18, John 3:36 - "not believe" here denotes active disbelief/rejection, Revelation 20:11-15).

-Whatever their nature, infants do not possess the mental ability to personally commit righteous or sinful acts (Deuteronomy 1:31, Isaiah 7:16).

-Thus, infants do not fall into the category of those whom God condemns.

-Jesus Christ loved little children and set them up as examples of the humility and acceptance (faith) necessary to enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 18:1-14, 19:13-15, and Synoptic parallels)

-Jesus said, "it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones perish.” (Matthew 18:14)

Summary quote by Frederick Howard Wines: Infants do not consciously and willfully sin against God. Infants do not reject Christ. Infants do not resist the Holy Spirit. Infants cannot destroy themselves. What, then, will destroy them? Not the Savior; for he who is not willing that any should perish, loves children with a peculiar love.

Obviously, there are more transitions and answering of objections in the paper itself which you can read by clicking here if your interest has now been piqued.