All people start out at birth being an innocent child of God...
ImCo
When someone can answer my three objections to the doctrine of the innocence of babies, I will switch...I want to know how you reconcile my objections.
Are they innocent? No.
1. If just newly created they have no free will to be saved or damned.
2. They are treated the same as those judged for sin.
3. Why are not all men saved this way?
Have you considered God's wrath? Noah's flood and the innocent babies in his day...?
Gen 6:11 Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence.
12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways.
13 So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.
Also, when God smote the nations did He not order the killing of everyone? Do we not see that as judgement for sin?
EX 12:29 The Lord kills all the first-born in the land of Egypt.
NU 21:3 The Israelites utterly destroy the Canaanites.
DT 2:33-34 The Israelites utterly destroy the men, women, and children of Sihon.
DT 3:6 The Israelites utterly destroy the men, women, and children of Og.
Children are not treated as innocents, are they? I guess it is not proof they are sinners since it may be (though not likely) that GOD killed them in their innocence to send them on to heaven (except why do they get to be the lucky ones?).
Have you considered The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah?
God was asked about sparing a city if HE found righteous people within it. God responded by saying that he would not destroy a city that had righteous people within it. To be righteous, one must have eschewed evil and embraced holiness, right?
2 Timothy 2:22 Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness [i.e., pursue doing righteous works].
2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness [i.e., in doing righteous works].
Titus 3:5 He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.
These three scriptures, and some others, use “righteousness” to mean, “
doing what is right before God.” Presumably Sodom and Gomorrah had many babies inside them. Why didn't God spare those cities since there were
innocent babies in the cities if innocent means righteous?
Genesis 18:32 Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?” He answered, “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.” Not even ten babies in all of two big cities? No, I think there was a normal contingent of babies and pregnant mothers etc, but I don't think they were counted as innocent in the eyes of the LORD's wrath. They may have been young but they were indeed under condemnation for sin.
I also think
the wages of sin is death means that
death is the proof of sin. Do those who think babies are innocent have proof their death is NOT from sin?
We know that a house divided against itself will fall so somehow this GOD of wrath must be reconciled with the Jesus who calls children to HIM and says that we must become like them to go to heaven ourselves. Either there must be two different classes of children involved in these stories or there must be some other difference, because we know that there is no difference between the Persons of the Trinity and Jesus mentions Sodom and Gomorrah without any hedging about children.
PLUS:
You need free will to sin
AND to be saved for being sinless:
If babies who die prior to the age of accountability automatically go to heaven without any free will choice to become saved or to reject salvation, by a God who does not want people to go to hell as per:
2 Peter 3:9: ....He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance,
then
WHY are NOT all humans saved this way if it is a legitimate way to be saved?
Why do some die to automatically go to heaven and some live to get tested, some to their annihilation or eternal torment? Why some and not others?
I feel left out of the automatic heavenly club - God should have killed me as a child!! What a lot of suffering it would have saved the people I've hurt.
Peace, Ted