Response To R. Albert Mohler: Do Infants Who Die Go To Heaven?

R. Albert Mohler, of the South­ern Bap­tist The­o­log­i­cal Sem­i­nary, wrote an arti­cle pro­claim­ing that infants do indeed go to Heaven on the basis of:

  1. “We believe that Scrip­ture does indeed teach that all per­sons who die in infancy are among the elect.”
  2. “…the Bible teaches that we are to be judged on the basis of our deeds com­mit­ted ‘in the body’ (2 Corinthi­ans 5:10). That is, we will face the judg­ment seat of Christ and be judged, not on the basis of orig­i­nal sin, but for our sins com­mit­ted dur­ing our own lifetimes.”
  3. “…the Bible does not teach that we will answer for Adam’s sin. We will answer for our own. But what about infants? Have those who die in infancy com­mit­ted such sins in the body? We believe not.”
  4. “The key issue here is that God specif­i­cally exempted from the judg­ment those who “have no knowl­edge of good or evil” because of their age. These “lit­tle ones” would inherit the Promised Land, and would not be judged on the basis of their fathers’ sins (based upon Deuteron­omy 1:39).”
  5. “We believe that this pas­sage bears directly on the issue of infant sal­va­tion, and that the accom­plished work of Christ has removed the stain of orig­i­nal sin from those who die in infancy. Know­ing nei­ther good nor evil, these young chil­dren are inca­pable of com­mit­ting sins in the body â?? are not yet moral agents â?? and die secure in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
  6. “Jesus instructed his dis­ci­ples that they should “Per­mit the chil­dren to come to Me; do not hin­der them; for the King­dom of God belongs to such as these (Mark 10:14).” We believe that our Lord gra­ciously and freely received all those who die in infancy â?? not on the basis of their inno­cence or wor­thi­ness â?? but by his grace, made theirs through the atone­ment He pur­chased on the cross.”

I was dis­ap­pointed to read this arti­cle as I have found Dr. Mohler’s com­men­tary very Bib­li­cal in the past. He first rejects the argu­ment that a reformed indi­vid­ual might uti­lize: “Some per­sons may sim­ply sug­gest that elect infants go to heaven, while the non-elect do not, and must suf­fer end­less pun­ish­ment. [This answer] is unsatisfactory.”

The prob­lem with Mohler’s argu­ment is that it stems on the foun­da­tion that all infants are of the elect due to the assump­tion that infants com­mit no sins in the body (fash­ioned around rea­son­ing that infants can­not dis­cern between good and evil), and they are not held account­able for orig­i­nal sin. This argu­ment, that is the lack of respon­si­bil­ity of orig­i­nal sin, reminds me of the Pela­gian denial of orig­i­nal sin. By say­ing we are not account­able for our rep­re­sen­ta­tive Adam’s trans­gres­sion likens the logic that we were never imputed (and then imparted) with his sin in the first place. To imply such a sug­ges­tion would mean that we are born depraved, but we do “sin for judge­ment” until we sin in the body (Pela­gian, not in a direct sense, but a hypo­thet­i­cal “blank slate”).

He will ren­der to each one accord­ing to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immor­tal­ity, he will give eter­nal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unright­eous­ness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribu­la­tion and dis­tress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for every­one who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no par­tial­ity.
Romans 2:6–11

For when Gen­tiles who do not have the Law do instinc­tively the things of the Law, these, not hav­ing the Law, are a law to them­selves, in that they show the work of the Law writ­ten in their hearts, their con­science bear­ing wit­ness and their thoughts alter­nately accus­ing or else defend­ing them,
Romans 2:14–15

Now we know that what­ever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become account­able to God; because by the works of the Law no flesh will be jus­ti­fied in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowl­edge of sin.
Romans 3:19–20

And Mohler can­not deny, as a reformed the­olo­gian, that the infant is born com­pletely depraved and acts out of his sin­ful voli­tion (Eccle­si­astes 9:3). And every­thing not out of faith is indeed sin (Romans 14:23). Mohler affirms orig­i­nal sin and it’s bear­ing on human kind: “…the Bible reveals that we are “brought forth in iniq­uity,” (Psalm 51:5) and thus bear the stain of orig­i­nal sin from the moment of our conception.”

‘More­over, your lit­tle ones who you said would become a prey, and your sons, who this day have no knowl­edge of good or evil, shall enter there, and I will give it to them and they shall pos­sess it.
Deuteron­omy 1:39

I believe this verse refers more to the con­text of allow­ing the younger gen­er­a­tion the oppor­tu­nity their fathers for­feited (in a finite sense). Mohler’s argu­ment begs the ques­tion of the very trans­gres­sion Adam (and Eve) com­mit­ted in the Gar­den: “…you will be like God, know­ing good and evil” (Gen­e­sis 3:5).

Lastly, Mark 10:14 serves more to illus­trate the very qual­i­ties that Jesus per­ceives as nec­es­sary for sal­va­tion, that being “child-like” faith and not that: “our Lord gra­ciously and freely received all those who die in infancy â?? not on the basis of their inno­cence or wor­thi­ness â?? but by his grace, made theirs through the atone­ment He pur­chased on the cross.” The fol­low­ing verse in Psalms has weight in this issue (although not dealt with by Mohler or Piper).

The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray from birth, speak­ing lies.
Psalms 58:3

This ques­tion is a con­tro­ver­sial and highly emo­tional one to wres­tle with, although we must remem­ber we can­not attempt to assume a truth from the Bible. The Bible teaches we are born with Adam’s sin (Romans 5:12) and thereby account­able (Gala­tians 6:7) . Those who receive sal­va­tion are those that God the Father chose (Eph­esians 1:4), that Jesus Christ died for (John 17:9–10), and the Holy Spirit calls (1 Tim­o­thy 6:12) and secures (1 Peter 5:8–10). I don’t know who is a part of the elect (cf. Hyper-Calvinism), nor do I desire to know. Wait, maybe the Open The­ists know…