I don't know her personally myself, but I've seen and heard enough from her to indicate that the gospel is reduced to acceptance and no repentance/new life -- that is, of course, unless you stand firm in the faith on orthodox/traditional teachings and practices of the faith.
So if a baptized infant dies before reaching the age of being able to repent by confessing sins and receiving forgiveness, they cannot be saved by God? Does God accept infants before they are able to repent and receive the new life given in Christ or does God's acceptance depend on something we do first?
Perhaps what might be more applicable is would God punish a child whose parent(s) didn't take the time to see that the child was baptized?
John Dornheim
Would the angel of death kill the firstborn son of parents who didn't take the time to put the blood of the lamb on their doorpost?
Does your question presume a specific model of atonement?
Erik Doughty
Minneapolis, MN
My question assumes that God cannot be unjust whether he gives or takes life, whether He damns or saves. Since we all confess to having been born in sin and that we "justly deserve Thy temporal and eternal punishment" (well, those of us who grew up on TLH do, at least) what we're saying that is that pure justice leads us to the conclusion of universal damnation, not universal salvation. What is impossibly good, inexplicable to reason, is that we are saved by grace through faith. The question of whether God would damn a baby because the parents were too lazy or foolish to get the child baptized frames the whole thing wrong due to the word "because". No, He wouldn't damn anybody because of that; He would damn them, if He did, because they were damnable sinners (which we know we all are, including the baby the question). Framing the question in this way confuses mercy with justice, as though since some are saved by mercy, it is a matter of justice that all must be saved by mercy. Romans 9 ought to puit an end to such speculation. Universalism is the ultimate perversion of law and Gospel, at least in this sense, in that it makes salvation a function of God's justice-- how could he be so unfair as to save one and not another-- rather than grace. Now, in order to avoid that pitfall, rather than asking why God would damn anyone, we might ask on what basis God would save anyone. And the only thing that satisfies justice and mercy is a sacrificial model of atonement and the righteousness of Christ given by grace and received by faith. If we simply assume that God saves the unbaptized, we're making baptism meaningless. Might He save them? Sure. If you jumped off a pinnacle, He might send the angels to bear you up lest you strike your foot against a stone.
Chesterton made the point somewhere that when we object to the possibility of eternal consequences for this or that ritual or act, we're really objecting to the whole idea of real consequences to any action and therefore to the divine condescension of human agency. Unless it is a matter of dogma that all are saved, with or without repentance or faith, whether they want to be or not, or unless even what God has revealed remains unsure such that everything that happens is truly random, then we're stuck with the idea that a simple ritual, as far as we know, has eternal consequences, but paradoxically, only one way. Baptism saves, but lack of baptism does not damn. If there is any drama to the Passover, then the blood on the door really means something. The Hebrew really is saved by the blood of the Lamb, but the Egyptian does not die for want of such blood, but because of Pharoah's hard-heartedness. God calls the blood, just like the rainbow, not so much a sign for us (though it is that, too) but a sign for Him. When He sees it, He will act according to the promise He attached to it. The same, it seems to me, applies to Baptism.
BTW there is an interesting set of prayers in the TLH Liturgy edition that distinguishes the death announcements for adults and young children. I was thinking of writing an article on it sometime. If anyone wants to look it up and comment, I would welcome your thought. I don't have it with me right now or I would post it. Anyway, good night.
