What happens to babies that die?

Deut 1: "...your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, and your children, which in that day had no knowledge between good and evil, they shall go in thither, and unto them will I give it, and they shall possess it."

I'm posting for those who have lost babies and children and need to know there are Scriptures that state they are with Him.

These are non-Christian writings of heretics. They are non-Christian and therefore no theology can be interpreted from them.

The baby may or may not be a Christian.

Several points:

For one, I think a number of the biblical references brought out to say that babies are automatically saved are weak at best, at worst they're so totally non-applicable that I'm not sure why they were referenced.

Secondly, often here in this sort of discussion an appeal is made to which we go, "Not the babies! Babies can't go to hell, they're babies!" it's a poor theological argument based more-or-less on our personal feelings. Which isn't to say I don't identify with it, I do, the very notion of a tiny infant going to Hell, especially the sort of Hell envisioned by a great swath of 20th century Fundamentalists, is such a dreadful idea that a gut response--if I am to consider myself a decent person--is to find the idea so horrendous as to react quite angrily toward someone who might suggest such a thing. But, again, I fail to see how that alone makes a good theological argument.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, I think this topic can--if we let it--get at the heart of how our theology functions. It can demonstrate either a theological consistency or a theological inconsistency. I think it can also help us re-think our theology if we let it, it can encourage us to reevaluate how we have done theology and to make it better (again, if we allow it).

We're often willing to accept that a little baby is, effectively too innocent and sweet to burn in the fires of hell and yet go on to say that everyone who does not agree with us will burn in the fires of hell, on the sole basis of what they may or may not believe. That is, there is a certain ontological view at work in which "these people" go to hell on the basis that they are not Christians, they are sinners, born sinners and therefore "deserving of hell" as "we all are" and yet in the same breath it is justified that an infant (which each of these persons was when they were born, the same who were born as sinners remember) will not burn on the basis that they haven't done anything "deserving of hell".

The infant is spared the torments of hell for not having done anything to deserve it; while the adult non-believer is condemned, not for having done something to deserve it but because each and every one of us is born deserving of Hell.

Let that sink in for a moment.

A usual argument is that one needs to have reached an "age of accountability" but such an argument is neither biblical nor reasonable since such a concept is entirely arbitrary; and it can reasonably be argued that as far as matters of faith are concerned who can say who is and is not accountable?

That is, if I have not properly understood the Christian message and what I reject isn't the Christian message as it truly is, but a parody either through the fault of the evangelist or my own insufficient human reasoning to what end am I accountable?

Or we can make an interesting case with those who suffer forms of mental illness, consider the sociopath; the sociopath is medically unable to grasp what is right or wrong, to what end is the sociopath truly accountable on a purely moral level?

Here is where, I argue, our confession must rest: That there is no other name save the name of Jesus Christ by which anyone might be saved. We place salvation wholly in Christ who is Savior of the whole human race. That must be our confession, resting and wholly in Christ our Lord who is "the Way, the Truth, and the Life".

Let us also, therefore, permit that in the Divine Mystery of God's grace "who desires that all be saved and come to repentance" and is "the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe" there is space that we cannot probe. It is a space that we cannot look, cannot wander, cannot dictate because it is God's private space which He has not permitted our musings, our limitations, our probing. What I mean is that there are things which God, in His infinite wisdom, has not seen fit to spell out for us, He has not seen fit to tell us or reveal to us. Instead of asserting in an area where we cannot know because God has not told us let us instead allow God to be the God of justice and mercy, of grace as well as wrath to judge and to do what He will do.

That is, permit grace a ranger larger than we can conceive because it is God's, and whether to salvation or condemnation a person goes we cannot know because that is known only by the God who alone is Savior and alone is Judge. The Same who judges is the Same who was crucified, the Same who loves you and me loves everyone else.

So permit mercy its deserved bigness, permit God to still be God, permit that you and I are limited and finite and that it's not our place in this life to stand in the Seat of Judgment which belongs only to Christ. Let us speak of what we can speak, and be silent about what we ought to be silent and in all things trust in Christ and that all His judgments are good and that He is Friend of sinners and Judge of the living and the dead.

-CryptoLutheran