I just read an interesting blog post by Greg Boyd at his Christus Victor site entitled "Baby Universalism and Reasonable Infanticide." I have filed this in my "Things I Have Never Really Thought About and Am Now Confused About" file... which is a huge file indeed. His basic question is that if our free will choice to accept God's love and grace is so important (or else why didn't God create us incapable of not loving and obeying Him), then why do we assume that those who die before they can make that choice (i.e. infants) go straight to God without ever having to choose Him? Boyd suggests that while this view is assumed by most people today, it has not been the common view held throughout much of church history. He furthers asks if all babies go to heaven, then why not just kill them before they have a chance to reject God and go to hell? (Some have evidently argued that point at some point in the past; we call such people "nuts"). Read his blog and tell me what you think. Boyd wonders if infants or children who die before they can choose God in this life are not given some chance to choose in the next life. The Bible is silent here, and that may be our best response as well.
But the point for you is (as my title here suggests), if you can read this, then you can make your choice and are held responsible for it.
3 comments:
I do not claim to know answers to everything, however, I think this view is a little crazy. It is one of those things that some people like to argue about just to make conversation. We will never know the answer to this one until we get to heaven. Greg Boyd should be concerned about his salvation.
The opposite view is that babies burn forever in hell. That or invoke some kind of Eastern reincarnation for infants. But, generally if you believe in infant salvation you should petition in favor of abortion and infanticide because it's saving souls without risking souls. For as much flack as Andra Yates took for killing her children, many Christians argue that they are now in Heaven.
Thankfully things get considerably simpler and you need a very small, "I don't get understand" file if you realize that much of religion is fiction.
Actually we travail over this question of babies' salvation because we refuse to entertain God's absolute Sovereignty. Our choices do not originate from us but are a consequence of God choosing us first. We love God simply and only because He loved us first. He slew His sacrficial Lamb long before the foundations of this world was laid. Babies, like adults, enter salvation ONLY on God's will as decided before the foundation of the world. Nothing and no one takes Him by surprise. Those who cannot accept this Soverign Almighty God who moulds his pottery as He pleases, are those who proudly declare that they have no wish to believe or serve such a God, thus condem,ning themselves by their own words.
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