Infant Salvation, Original Sin and the Age of Accountability

One particularly difficult theological issue that I have wrestled with on and off for several years is the question of what happens to infants and young children who die without making a personal profession of faith in Christ. As I was reading through Book XXI of Augustine's City of God last night, I was forced to think about this issue once again.  Growing up, my parents always reassured me that there was an "age of accountability" before which God would never hold a child responsible for sin.  For many years I simply took this view for granted and propped it up with a few scant proof texts from the Old Testament (most notably 2 Sam 12:13-23).  In recent years, I've come to question this position for a number of important theological reasons which I will outline briefly:

Theological Concerns about Infant Salvation:

First, I've become convinced that the so-called "age of accountability" finds little more Scriptural grounding than the Roman Catholic doctrine of Purgatory. It simply cannot be firmly substantiated from Scripture itself however well intentioned it might be from a pastoral point of view.  With emotionally sensitive issues like the passing away of a child, the temptation is very strong for us to construct speculative, and perhaps even unbiblical doctrines in order to give a certain measure of pastoral comfort to grieving parents.

Second, the doctrine of infant salvation as commonly formulated by Evangelicals appears to me to be a form of 'inclusivism' which holds that salvation is possible apart from faith.  In answering the infamous question about what happens to the unevangelized pagan, the majority of conservative Evangelicals deny that God will save him apart from faith in Christ.  Those of us who accept this view (called 'exclusivism') believe that Natural Revelation is enough to condemn and to take away excuse, but not enough to save (cf. Rom 1).  A minority of Evangelicals hold a form of soft 'inclusivism' that says that God in His mercy will save people in this situation apart from personal faith in Christ. 

To hold that hundreds of thousands of people who have never been evangelized will go to hell, while teaching that all infants go to heaven seems to somewhat inconsistent as I've reflected on it.   This double standard was driven home to me several years ago at McGill when a student from China asked me in the cafeteria how I could possibly believe that all of his relatives were in hell when they had never even heard the name of Jesus before.  Shortly after this incident, another international student, whose mother had committed suicide before hearing the gospel asked me the same very difficult question.  It is often easy for us to speak theoretically about who is or is not in hell, until we are confronted with a real pastoral situation where we are expected to give real answers to very personal and emotionally loaded questions.  Does a just and good God condemn unevangelized people to an eternity in hell?  The Bible seems to indicate that He does even though this seems incredibly hard for us to accept or understand at an emotional level.  Does a just and good God condemn infants and young children to hell?  This is a question that has troubled me for several years - especially now that I am a father with two young children of my own.

Thirdly, popular Evangelical views on infant salvation and the age of accountability frequently rest on a Pelagian foundation that denies (or at least significantly weakens) the doctrine of Original Sin.  Western Christians from the time of Augustine have agreed that the dire consequences of Adam's sin are somehow transmitted to every human being, as the apostle Paul so clearly teaches in Romans 5.  Significant disagreement persists, however, on some of the specifics with regard to the nature of original sin and the mechanics of its transmission from one generation to the next.  Several important distinctions must therefore be made in sorting out this critical issue as it relates to the salvation of infants:

1) Transmission of Guilt vs. Transmission of Pollution
Some Christians hold that the guilt of Adam's sin has been transmitted to his posterity, while others hold that only the polluted nature has been transmitted.  Those who take the former view, believe that all human beings (infants included) are held responsible for Adam's sin and merit an eternity separated from God.  Those who take the latter view believe that infants receive a sin nature that guarantees that they will commit actual sins at some point in the future, but are not held personally responsible for the original sin of Adam.

2) Participation vs. Imputation
The means of transmission has been an issue of contention and speculation since the 4th century. Augustine held the position that all of humanity was 'seminally' present in Adam's loins and therefore actually participated in the crime.  In other words, we were all physically present in the garden with Adam and committed the crime with him.  For obvious reasons, this view is no longer widely held.  The more prominent view among contemporary Reformed Evangelicals is that Adam functioned as the "Federal Head" or representative for all of humanity.  As our federal head, the guilt of original sin was imputed to all of us by God so that we are implicated in Adam's sin.

3) Immediate Imputation vs. Mediate Imputation
Some have held that  the guilt of original sin is imputed immediately to the child from the moment of conception, while others hold that the guilt of original sin is imputed mediately to the child as soon as (s)he commits the first conscious act of sin.  With respect to the issue of infant salvation, mediate imputation appears to offer a certain degree of comfort since is makes it possible to believe that all infants who are miscarried or who die in infancy are innocent in God's eyes and therefore not liable to condemnation.  Unfortunately, mediate imputation does not offer comfort to parents of children over the age of 1 or 2.

4) Baptismal Regeneration
Many, Christians historically have held a doctrine of Baptismal regeneration which teaches that the guilt of original sin is washed away through the sacrament of water baptism. Baptized children who died in infancy and are expunged of original sin would go directly to heaven, while unbaptized children would either go to hell, or to limbo where the punishment is minimal. Others have speculated that unbaptized children will be given an opportunity to hear the gospel after death.  'Postmortem evangelism' has been an attractive option in recent years for a number of Evangelicals (particularly of the Arminian persuasion) who wish to offer some kind of pastoral comfort to grieving parents.  The surface comfort of this position loses much of its force, however, when the grieving parent comes to realize that there are no guarantees that their child will not reject the gospel in the next life and still spend eternity separated from Christ.

Personal Reflections and Conclusions:

My own theological convictions as a Reformed Baptist makes the issue of infant salvation quite challenging to resolve on pastoral level.  I am a federal theologian who accepts immediate imputation and denies Baptismal Regeneration.  I see absolutely no compelling evidence for postmortem evangelism in Scripture and even if I did, I do not believe that it is a comforting doctrine.  Furthermore, I find most of the common proof-texts such as the example of David's son fairly inconclusive.  As mentioned above, they are about as convincing for me as the Roman Catholic contention that Matt 12:32 is a canonical reference to Purgatory.  Does this mean that all children who do not live long enough to make a profession of faith are automatically condemned to a Christless eternity?  I will conclude this post with some personal reflections and tentative conclusions on this subject:

1) It is critical to maintain a robust doctrine of original sin regardless of where you fall on this issue.  Children and infants, like all of us are totally depraved, guilty and liable for judgment from the moment of conception. We are not "born innocent" as Sarah McLachlan would have us believe. God cannot merely overlook or forgive sin in a child because that would be a travesty of justice and a violation of His own essential character.  To say that God can forgive a person (adult or child) apart from the sacrifice of Jesus Christ is closer to an Islamic worldview than it is to Biblical Christianity.  If God can forgive anyone He wants, the substitutionary atonement of Jesus becomes superfluous.

2) I reject any form of baptismal regeneration as a form of works righteousness that denies sola fide and compromises the heart of the gospel.  References in the NT that appear to teach baptismal regeneration are better understood as instances of 'metonymy' since Christian conversion is a cluster of events with terms that are often used interchangeably by the NT authors even though they must be distinguished theologically.

3) I accept that God can regenerate a person apart from faith if He chooses to do so.  The one clear example of this that I see in Scripture is John the Baptist who appears to have been regenerate from his mother's womb.  Although God does not normally work this way with adults since "faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God", it is at least theoretically possible for Him to regenerate any person that he chooses at any time He chooses on the basis of the substitutionary atonement of Christ.  Technically, this is a form of Evangelical inclusivism which places me on a slippery slope.  If I concede that God could regenerate an infant through Christ apart from personal faith, theological consistency demands that I also concede that He could ini theory regenerate an adult apart from faith should He chose to do so.   The danger of this view is that it opens the door to universalism and more radical forms of inclusivism.  The strong monergistic emphasis that lies at the heart of Reformed theology (ie. the view that salvation is all of God's initiative and none of our own) has historically caused a number of Reformed theologians to slide toward a form of universalism or radical inclusivism (ie. Ulrich Zwingli, Heinrich Bullinger, Karl Barth, etc.). 

4) In conclusion, I tend to agree with Spurgeon, Warfield and many other Reformed theologians that all young children and infants are among God's elect and are regenerated by the Holy Spirit apart from water baptism or an explicit profession of faith in Christ.  Historically, many Conservative Presbyterians have held a modified version of this teaching  by restricting election to the children of believers on the basis of covenant theology and the exegetically disputed 1 Cor 7:14. Although this view will be comforting to believing parents who have lost a child, it makes no guarantees whatsoever to the children of non-believers.
 I will readily admit that there are no crystal clear verses in Scripture that demonstrate that all children are among the elect, but there are a number of verses that do seem to hint at it in a very vague way.  Spurgeon once preached a very helpful sermon on this topic entitled "Infant Salvation" where he outlines most of the pertinent passages: http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/0411.htm  Ultimately, our responsibility as parents is to consistently preach the gospel to our children from a young age, to pray earnestly for their salvation and to call them to repentance and faith when they are intellectually capable of making an informed response.  Beyond this, they are in the hands of our loving and sovereign God who will act justly.

5) Although I wish that Scripture was more clear on this particular issue, I feel that my case is strong enough to give parents who have lost a child some theological basis for assurance that their child is present with the Lord.  Ultimately, I would want to point them to character of God and give them assurance that He is good, just and worthy of our trust.

6) Everything said above with respect to Infant Salvation also could be applied to individuals born with various mental or developmental incapacities that would prevent them from understanding the gospel message.