The Salvation of Deceased Infants

According to Christian theology, the only way for a human being to be saved is for them to repent of their sins, believe in Jesus, and choose to follow Him as His disciple.  It is difficult to know how to apply this theological idea to infants.  Infants do not have any beliefs, nor are they capable of making conscious decisions.  And because they are incapable of making conscious decisions, they have not committed any actual sins from which they need to repent.  

This difficulty of applying Christian concepts of salvation to infants is part of the reason why the validity of infant baptism has been a hotly debated theological issue for centuries, down to the present day.  For Catholics and some Protestants, baptism is understood as a sacramental ritual that washes away the stain of original sin, whether performed on adults or infants.  For Anabaptists, in contrast, baptism is a sign of a person’s faith and decision to follow Jesus, and so cannot rightly be performed on infants. 

Regardless of one’s beliefs about the validity of infant baptism, the question of what happens to infants who die before they are baptized is a perplexing problem.  Unbaptized infants have not yet been saved and united to Christ.  Yet, the idea of infants who have never actually committed a sin being damned simply because of humanity’s curse of original sin seems monstrous and absurd.  

Pondering this problem, some Medieval theologians speculated that in addition to Heaven and Hell, there was a third post-mortem state, which they called Limbo.  Since unbaptized infants had not been washed of the stain of original sin, they could not enter the presence of God in Heaven.  But, since they had not committed any actual sins, they did not merit any punishment in Hell, either.  So, they would experience the neutral state of Limbo, experiencing neither the joys of Heaven nor the torments of Hell.  

While somewhat interesting, this theological theory of Limbo is highly speculative.  It has never been officially taught as doctrine by any church, and is believed by very few Christians today.  

Instead of believing in Limbo, many Christians today believe that all deceased infants, baptized and unbaptized alike, are saved and experience eternal life.  To most people, it seems like common sense that an innocent baby would end up in Heaven rather than Hell.  And for parents who have lost a child, it is certainly comforting to confidently believe that one’s child is in a better place.

Yet, upon closer analysis, the idea that every single deceased infant will certainly end up experiencing eternal life is problematic.  Is it really the case that every single human being who dies before the age of accountability gets an automatic “free pass” into salvation, while any adult who wants to be saved must choose to make a radical, costly decision to follow Jesus as His disciple in order to do so?

The idea that every single deceased infant will certainly end up experiencing eternal life has bizarre ethical implications.  If we really believe that 100% of infants who die will certainly experience eternal life, then this would seem to entail that infanticide, rather than being a monstrous evil, is actually a good thing.  Evangelism can be very difficult, and more often than not, adults who hear the gospel refuse to believe it and receive salvation.  Why would we waste time on this very uncertain venture if we have a surefire way to give someone eternal life: by killing them before they grow up?  Every act of infanticide, then, would be doing the child a big favor by completely removing the possibility that they might be damned, and sending them straight to Heaven.  This reductio ad absurdum argument shows that the widespread belief among many Christians that 100% of deceased infants are automatically saved is unreasonable.

The only reasonable alternative, then, seems to be to believe that deceased infants, like all human beings who die unevangelized, are somehow given a post-mortem opportunity to accept or reject God’s offer of salvation through Christ.  

Admittedly, this theory raises all sorts of questions.  If infants are incapable of having beliefs or making decisions, how can they make a decision to accept or reject God’s offer of salvation after death?  It seems they would first have to somehow develop to adulthood before doing so.  Does this happen while they are disembodied souls?  It is difficult to see how a disembodied soul could undergo the process of human growth and development.  So does this happen after they are resurrected?  It would seem there would then need to be some period of time between resurrection and final judgment for this to happen.  But what would this look like, and where would it take place?

I do not have sure answers to these questions.  We are in the realm of theological speculation, and have little data to go on.  But I do believe that this theory of deceased infants needing to eventually make a decision to accept or reject Christ is more reasonable than the alternative theories that all unbaptized children go to Hell or all unbaptized children go to Heaven.  And it is less speculative than the theory of Limbo, which invents a third ultimate eschatological state for people that is hinted at nowhere in Scripture.  All human beings, including deceased infants, will at some point be given an opportunity to accept or reject Christ, and their eschatological fate will be determined by what they choose.  No one will be given automatic passage to Heaven or Hell.  

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