Even without providing scripture I feel confident in stating that I believe that all people who die as infants are in Heaven.
Is there any good argument to the contrary? Thanks in advance!
I'll act unafraid to weigh in on a difficult subject.
I think people are like seeds and plants. If you plant a certain seed you get a certain plant. If a seed corresponding to God's election is planted, then the resulting plant is an elect of God...from birth. If a seed corresponding to willful rejection of God's word is planted, then the resulting plant is not what God originally elected Man to be. They are children of Satan, who willfully rejected God's word.
I don't believe Adam and Eve willfully rejected God's word completely. They were both willful in their rebellion but deceived and under duress. So the resulting seed of Man has produced both what God originally wanted of children, the elect, and those who are products of Man's work apart from God's word, ie those who choose to live autonomously, apart form God's word.
The difficulty in this particular conversation has to do with the injustice of "sending to Hell" infants who are not old enough to make a reasonable moral decision. However, at a very young age I had a conscience. I remember as an infant when I cried as my blanket was taken away. I was eating it, and as I screamed in a rage I knew within that I was faking it, that I had suffered the loss of my blanket due to my eating it.
Well, that doesn't mean I should go to Hell for having been born in Sin--yes, I believe we're born with a Sin Nature. But having a Sin Nature never consigned people to Hell, since Christ came to give us an alternative to that fate.
So how do infants avail themselves of Christ to avoid Hell? They are judged by God on the level of their maturity. If they are mindless, they are judged as such. But going to Heaven or going to Hell is not a matter of willful Sin, but rather, of having been born of the seed of Autonomy from God. It's just that having done little sin there will be very little punishment "in Hell."
You see, I think we've overdone "Hell." It is a place where people remain until final judgment, having entered into the state of physical death. Hell is burned up in the Lake of Fire. And people who are not God's elect also go into the Lake of Fire, which merely means that the people who go there cease to be in the present world. They pass into Outer Darkness so as to not be close to the Lord, being disinterested in His word.
We think of the Lake of Fire as Dante's Inferno, as a place of horrid ongoing punishments, flesh burning, and cruel afflictions. But God is not like that. The punishment He gives is indeed awful, but it is not evil.
People are separated from paradise, and that is awful enough. But they receive different levels of "stripes," or punishments. The infant separated from God's close presence receives the least of the punishments, which is simple separation from the close presence of God, where God's word must be meticulously obeyed.
It's pure speculation on my part, but it's what I think. And yes, I was born in church, baptized as an infant, confirmed as an adolescent, and have been in church nearly every week of my entire life. I believe in all of the activities of the church if we don't overly-sacralize them, and pursue them in true faith. But at the bottom of it all is the importance of what we begin life with. Are we "good seed" or "bad seed?"
We may think that it is unjust for someone to be born an "evil seed," but a tiger will simply make a tiger's choices if allowed to grow up. The child born with the word of God being distasteful and stultifying to him will simply choose according to his latent interests.
And at the bottom of it all we must appreciate that what we ourselves do with God's word has an impact on future generations. If we live by God's word that "seed" will not go out void, but will accomplish everything God intended it to be. Children of faith will be born, as God sees fit--even knowing that we also sin.
But if we try to bypass or rebel against God's word, the end will not be pretty. Our rebellion will grow and infect all who come into contact with it. Children will be born who hate the control of God's word. Obey God's word and prove that you are children of God. That's my exhortation to you.