The PuritanBoard - View Single Post - Al Mohler: All Babies dying in infancy go to heaven

DMcFadden · #2 (**permalink**) 07-01-2008, 12:09 AM

Here are a few observations by Curt Daniel on the subject:

Quote:

D. Theoretically, there are several options open to the question:
(1) We don’t know. Some writers say that Scripture does not reveal the answer.
(2) All dying infants are lost. I know of no theologian, Calvinist or otherwise, who asserts
this.
(3) Baptized infants are saved, but unbaptized dying infants are lost and reprobate. As
we shall see, there are several theologians who have made this claim. But extremely few
Calvinists, if any, have aligned themselves with this view.
(4) Some are definitely saved (such as baptized infants), but we do not know about the
rest. This has been the position of some Calvinists, such as FrancisTurretin, Herman
Hoeksema, and several of the older Reformed theologians.
(5) All dying infants are saved and elect, whether baptized or not. This is by far the
prevailing view among Calvinists, such as Charles Hodge, B.B. Warfield, C.H. Spurgeon,
A.M. Toplady, Ulrich Zwingli (probably the first to say so in no uncertain terms), Lewis
Sperry Chafer, W.G.T. Shedd, Loraine Boettner, etc.

E. The classic statement in Reformed confessions is that of the Westminster Confession (X: 3):
“Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who worketh when, and where, and how He pleaseth. So are also other elect persons, who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word.” Some non-Calvinist critics read this and feel that it insinuates that there are some non-elect infants, but the Confession does not say that. Almost all Reformed theologians take this as a pronouncement that all dying infants are elect. At the least, it is only an assertion that some are elect but we do not know about the rest (a few theologians take it this way). In 1903, the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. approved a Declaratory Statement giving the official interpretation of this article: “It is not to be regarded as teaching that any who die in infancy are lost. We believe that all dying in infancy are included in the election of grace, and are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who works when and where and how He pleases.”