Logic Problem?
I haven’t really posted anything too controversial lately, so here’s something a little more feisty:
I can’t remember if it was a book that started me thinking about this, but recently I have been mulling two separate and seemingly mutually exclusive beliefs held by many followers of Jesus:
1. Believing in Jesus is the only way to be have a reconciled relationship with God, and live with Him eternally.
2. Babies go to Heaven (to live with God eternally) when they die.
If believing in Jesus is the only way to be saved/have a reconciled relationship with God/live with God eternally, then babies (who arguably do not have the capacity to believe) do not go to live with God eternally when they die.
If babies DO go to live with God when they die, then believing in Jesus is NOT the only way to the Father.
My point is not really about whether babies go to Heaven when they die. It’s more about coherency in your worldview and what you believe.
What do YOU think about either subject? Are there beliefs that you or others hold that, upon closer examination, seem to be contradictory?
Gracie responds:
Posted: August 15th, 2006 at 7:06 am →
This is something I’ve pondered, myself….because we have some tiny ones in Heaven, and I REFUSE to believe that a 4-month old could be condemned to Hell because she wasn’t baptized. One of the pastors at our church at the time said she wasn’t saved, and that was it; another one assured us we WOULD see her in Heaven, in her full womanhood, not as the baby we’d known and loved. When your whole world has blown apart and a child dies….the last thing we ever wanted was any ambiguity.
Betsy Rose was baptized a few months ago, just before we moved here…and it was one of the things we talked about–knowing that now we three would be able to be together in Heaven. We explained that some churches baptize their babies but we believe that it’s supposed to be your personal choice, as it was for me and for her Daddy and now for her.
As if life weren’t confusing enough, right?
Playtah responds:
Posted: August 15th, 2006 at 7:50 am →
Great thoughts, Gracie! Yes, I would have a hard time reconciling God’s nature with the thought of babies being separated from Him. Especially when Jesus loved children so much. I tend to think that somehow they are in Heaven.
(And I would kick the pastor in the crotch for saying at your darkest time that “she wasn’t saved, and that was it.” Then I’d hold him down in the baptistry till he stopped moving, then I’d drag him out, revive him, and kick him again.)
I didn’t know Betsy Rose was baptized! That’s wonderful! What a happy day for you all!
Chad Zaucha responds:
Posted: August 15th, 2006 at 6:51 pm →
While it is not popular and is of no comfort to parents in a time of crisis, I truly believe that the theological answer to the question is election.
Romans 9:14-21 (NIV)
What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! [15] For he says to Moses,
“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
[16] It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. [17] For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” [18] Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
[19] One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?” [20] But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ ” [21] Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?
All I can say is that we trust in God who is loving, just, and merciful. I don’t know much beyond that.
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