----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Chris Arnzen" <carnzen@...>
>Every passage that I can recall specifically mentions those who are being
sent there are being damned for >their wicked DEEDS.

This is why Romans 9 is important.  Esau was damned before he was born.  If
we allow "deeds" to be the sole qualifier in soteriology we are no better
than the Arminians or Shepherdians/New Perspectivists.  And John the
Baptist's situation is also important on this point... if we grant that John
the Baptist had been given faith in the womb, then we must grant that
unbelief can be pre-natal as well... or worse... unbelief is inherent to
human depravity (which I tend to believe).  And contra the guy you knew who
believed all dead infants are damned, Jacob was redeemed before he was born.
What is good for Esau is good for Jacob, and vise versa.

>I am also not certain why many Calvinists who reject that all dead infants
are among the elect reject 2 >Sam.12:23 as a support that all dead infants
are of the elect, where David, speaking of his dead son, said: >"But now he
is dead, wherefore should I fast? can I bring him back again? I SHALL GO TO
HIM, but he shall >not return to me." I have heard from some that David's
statement "I shall go to him" is not referring to Heaven >but merely the
grave. I am not certain why David would have found comfort in that (it
appears he is now in a >state of comfort and peace since he ceased fasting
and weeping).

Personally, I don't think it matters whether David is referring to Heaven or
the grave.  The best reading of the text is that he is speaking of heaven.
The problem is hermeneutical: it is always a dicey thing, and in this
instance - unwise (IMHO), to base theology on the narrative.  There is not
enough indicative in the narrative, a mere sentence, to build an entire
theological paradigm with the intentions of giving comfort.  Far better for
us to allow the volumnous weight of reformed theology on the typical ordo
salutis and fit our infant theology into the volumnous material, rather than
cram a system of theology into one sentence in the Old Testament.  Was David
speaking with authoritative revelation about this child's redemption?  On
what basis does this quote carry any more authority than any number of the
hundreds of quotes in the OT?

>Are you who reject that all dead infants are among the elect saying that
even CHRISTIAN parents who grieve >the death of a very young child or infant
cannot find *doubtless* comfort in Paul's words in 1 Thes.4:13-18?:

I don't find this to be problematic.

>But if we are honest as Baptistic brethren, we believe there is an "age of
accountability" where a child >reaches a stage where he or she can make a
credible profession of faith in order for him or her to be >baptized and
receive the Lord's Supper. I think we have to be careful with how we word
our protests to an >"age of accountability" lest we begin to sound like
paedobaptists or paedocommunionists.

And here's where I hop off the baptist bandwagon to join the paedobaptists,
even in my credobapticity. :-)  Are we suggesting that it is the profession
that saves?  We must not confuse the age of accountability in profession of
the table with the "age of saving faith" (for lack of a better term).  If
you or I had died before having the chance to say the sinner's prayer or
make a public profession would we have been saved or damned?  We must
insist, if regeneration precedes faith is true and faith is a gift is true,
that the profession is a fruit of regeneration.  My daughter has never said
the sinner's prayer.  I've never encouraged her to.  But I have encouraged
her to trust Jesus as her savior and as her satisfaction.  I've seen her
simple child-like faith in the various statements she's made about Jesus.
Somewhere along the way, I think she has believed... and who knows... that
gift of faith may have been given to her as an infant.  What I refuse to do
is load the profession with more soteriological meaning than it warrants,
which is what the age of accountability does, IMHO.  And contra the
paedobaptists, it is her regeneration that places her into the body of
Christ, not the professional baptism (part of the problem... another rabbit
trail with implications... is how we've disconnected baptism from
regeneration with "baptism/membership classes" and "probationary
validation", etc...The moment it is obvious that there has been
regeneration, there should be a baptism.  The early church knew nothing
about a profession of faith outside of baptism.  But I digress....)

I don't really have a problem with those reformed who believe "only elect
infants die"... so long as they recognize the "special dispensation" they're
"creating", and do not ground the belief in God's morality, but allow that
God could/might allow reprobate infants to die.

Chad Bresson
Xenia, OH