What happens to miscarried babies? - Page 2

[doubledutch]

so do you believe in "damnation by default" for any and all people who have not heard the gospel? so all people who died prior to jesus' life/death on earth, and all people who die before having a chance to hear and accept the message of salvation by grace through faith in jesus christ? (i'm intrigued, if you couldn't tell!)

[Smokering]

Because they dont have that mental capacity they dont need faith because of that they are pure. The same goes for an adult with a mental issue who cannot know right from wrong. Because of this they are automatically a child of God and will go home to be with him.

It's a nice thought, but where's the Biblical data on it?

so do you believe in "damnation by default" for any and all people who have not heard the gospel? so all people who died prior to jesus' life/death on earth, and all people who die before having a chance to hear and accept the message of salvation by grace through faith in jesus christ? (i'm intrigued, if you couldn't tell!)

I believe damnation is the default state of humans, yes... that's why it's called "salvation". I believe there were believers in the Messiah pre-Christ who were certainly saved (Abraham, for one).

[Kailey's mom]

Originally Posted by MCatLvrMom2A&X

Because they dont have that mental capacity they dont need faith because of that they are pure. The same goes for an adult with a mental issue who cannot know right from wrong. Because of this they are automatically a child of God and will go home to be with him.

[MCatLvrMom2A&X]

I will have to get back to you on the prof since my dad is the Bible expert I will need to contact him and have him look it up for me. I do know all my life this is what I have heard preached and taught in church.

[Kailey's mom]

Originally Posted by Smokering

It's a nice thought, but where's the Biblical data on it?


(Abraham, for one).

Samuel 12:22-23says,

22 David said, While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, Who knows whether the Lord will be gracious to me and let the child live? 23But now he is dead; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me

[xekomaya]

Originally Posted by zech13_9_goforgold

I agree with that. [URL="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Samuel%2012:23&version=NASB"]If you are asking this question because you are dealing with a miscarriage of your own, then I am very sorry. There is a pain wrapped up in such a loss that only a mother can feel.

Thank you so much for the kind words.
I miscarried in July and have been having a tougher time these last few weeks. I guess they say grief is a wheel not a ladder.

Originally Posted by Smokering

I hesitated to post this because people who believe in UID tend to be characterised as horrible, terrible people who believe it because they hate babies. But, well, you asked.

Of course it doesn't make you horrible. This has been the teaching of the Catholic Church for over 700 years, and despite the milder language of the current catechism, it has never been refuted.

It is actually questions surrounding this that led me to post the more general question. This idea was formalized by St. Augustine. His mother St. Monica prayed and sacrificed so devoutly that God granted her not only her son's conversion, but he became a great Saint. If through Monica's dedication she can be granted the favor of her son's conversion despite deliberate sinning, how can my baby go to hell when I would give anything to go in her place, when I would have baptized her. And then if my sacrifices could save her, how could any baby be damned who has not sinned?

I guess I'm just not very happy with it from a theological perspective and have been hoping there is some other answer. Rolling it all around in my head...

Thank you everyone for sharing. I'm really enjoying reading the different answers.

[MCatLvrMom2A&X]

This verse is pertinent I think

Mark 10:13-15 (King James Version)

13And they brought young children to him, that he should touch them: and his disciples rebuked those that brought them.
14But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.
15Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.


Luke 18:15-17 (King James Version)

15And they brought unto him also infants, that he would touch them: but when his disciples saw it, they rebuked them.

16But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.

17Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein.

[Smokering]

xekomaya: I'm not Catholic and don't believe in Limbo or in infant baptism, just for the record. And my intention is not to make your grief any worse, but simply to present the arguments as I see them. I'm sorry for your loss.

Yes, Monica prayed for Augustine, and it's not unreasonable to think that her prayers impacted his conversion. But he wasn't saved despite unbelief or non-belief; he was saved by grace through faith, which the Bible says is the only way to go to heaven. He repented. He believed in God. His life post-conversion demonstrates evidence of that repentance (although I think it was a scurvy trick to abandon his mistress, but that's another story for another thread!). In other words: his mother's love didn't save him, and there is no Biblical evidence that loving another person is enough to give them salvation. Rather, his mother's prayers were taken into account by God when God sovereignly declared, from before the foundations of the world, that Augustine would be one of the people saved. And because He purposed Augustine to be saved, I would argue that He allowed Augustine to live until the age when he had the mental capacity to make that possible through the means defined in Scripture.

MCatLvrMom2A&X: I believe those verses are referring to a childlike spirit of teachability, trust and humility, not to being a child per se (otherwise the last verse you quote would seem to prohibit heaven to those converted as adults!). I certainly believe that children, even fairly small children, can be saved by grace through faith; I just don't believe anyone can be saved apart from it. And I don't believe that a person being a loved one, or being small and adorable, is a ticket to heaven any more than being old and craggy and sickly and unloved is a mark against it, you know? I have a one-year-old; I'd like to believe that if she died, she'd go to heaven. But my understanding of the Biblical data is that she won't; and I trust that God knows what He's doing, and that at the end of things I'll recognise that whatever He did was loving and holy and right, and the best outcome for the universe that could have been. But I know that's easy to say, with her sitting beside me on the couch very much alive. It's a tough issue emotionally.

[doubledutch]

Originally Posted by Smokering

I believe there were believers in the Messiah pre-Christ who were certainly saved (Abraham, for one).

i don't really think there was any concept of a messiah during abraham's lifetime. i could be wrong.

[Smokering]

I believe the first hint of a messiah/savior figure was given in Genesis 3. YMMV, of course.

[Bluegoat]

Originally Posted by xekomaya

This has been the teaching of the Catholic Church for over 700 years, and despite the milder language of the current catechism, it has never been refuted.

That's not quite true - the Church has taught that we cannot know the fate of the unbaptized for sure, children or adults.

As far as my views, the soul is present from conception - there is no such thing as matter without form, and the form of a living thing is a soul. A human soul is by nature an immortal, rational soul, even if much of it's abilities are in potentiality. So the fate of a miscarried baby has the same consideration as the fate of any other soul.

As for the question of whether the person you would meet in Heaven will be a "baby" still. Heaven is not the final destination of Christians. Those in Heaven are souls without bodies, enjoying the beatific vision. Without a body, I am not sure the designation baby makes much sense, though obviously the person will have had different experiences.

But the real end place is the New Earth, when all creation is remade and perfected, including our bodies. In this state, I think we will all be remade to fulfill all of our potentiality, so I think one could imagine that we will all be physically grown up and perfect in body and mind, according to our nature.

C.S. Lewis once observed (maybe in The Screwtape Letters?) that the vast majority of human life never lives a "full" human life. And that God must very much love and want all of those infants and small children with him for some reason. It seems likely that in the final equation, such people who never lived an adult life on Earth will make up the majority of the population in Heaven or on the New Earth.

[Collinsky]

Originally Posted by xekomaya

Thank you so much for the kind words.
I miscarried in July and have been having a tougher time these last few weeks. I guess they say grief is a wheel not a ladder.

Me too... it does come and go, often in surprising ways IME. It is certainly not a linear process.

[SunshineJ]

All I can tell you is what I know I guess. When I miscarried, my husband told me that our time for our baby would come, but that little one I was carrying wasn't meant for us to be his/her parents and that someone else out there needed that child more than we did at that moment. Within a month a lady I knew who had been trying for literally years to get pregnant concieved her first child. I've always wondered if that was where the child I almost had was really supposed to have been all along. A few months later I got pregnant with DD. So I guess that's my answer.

[cappuccinosmom]

Wow, Smokering, it's wierd to find myself disagreeing with you.

But I do. I don't think you're horrible, though.

I completely believe that salvation is through Jesus alone. However, I don't know what evidence there is that God is bound by a certain formula for who is the right age to be saved, or born in the right country or era in order to hear the Gospel as we hear it, or has the appropriate mental capacity. I believe God is gracious, just, and merciful, and is not limited in his ability to show those qualities, or to save people, by our human limitations.

[CrunchyChristianMama]

I think you may benefit from doing a little research on the concept of the Age of Accountability concept. It's a very interesting one. This site presents the idea nicely without saying that it's something we understand or know for sure. It makes a lot of sense to me though and is something I've believed for years.

[NSmomtobe]

Originally Posted by Collinsky

I had a m/c last summer, and while it was very sad, I don't know that I truly believe that baby had a soul. I've never said that to anyone, and certainly believe that some lost babies did have souls... but I just don't know that my baby was ever going to be a person. I guess that doesn't mean s/he didn't have a soul... perhaps that baby was nothing BUT a spirit passing through, never meant to be a person, but here for a brief time for another purpose - either its' own, or for my benefit.

I also question whether my miscarried baby had a soul. Since I miscarried at 6 weeks and it might have been a blighted ovum, I feel like there wasn't enough time for a soul to develop or be implanted into the embryo. Or maybe the soul that didn't have the chance to come to earth then is now in my current baby. There is no doubt in my mind that this one has a soul and I believe that if something happens to it now, it will go to Heaven or return to God.

One thing I know is that if I hadn't miscarried last year, I would not be pregnant with this little one now.

[Smokering]

Meh, cappucino'smom, don't sweat it; I'm mostly surprised these days on the occasions when people don't disagree with me.

I completely believe that salvation is through Jesus alone. However, I don't know what evidence there is that God is bound by a certain formula for who is the right age to be saved, or born in the right country or era in order to hear the Gospel as we hear it, or has the appropriate mental capacity. I believe God is gracious, just, and merciful, and is not limited in his ability to show those qualities, or to save people, by our human limitations.

God is certainly gracious, just and merciful - of course, justice doesn't mean "sending everyone to heaven". But I do believe He is "limited" in the sense that He made the rules and sticks to them. And as far as I can tell, the rules are that salvation is by grace through faith; to put it another way, that repentance and belief are necessary for salvation. I also believe that He is sovereign over when and how people are born and die, so I don't think He's ever in the situation of saying "Well, I would have liked to save Jo, but he was born in the wrong century, drat it all" - I think God works His purposes out. If He wants to save someone, He will put that person in the position of being savable in human terms - ie, making sure that he/she hears the Gospel and believes it.

The age of accountability doctrine is one I'm familiar with, but again, I don't find much Biblical data supporting it. The link you mentioned doesn't provide much in the way of exegetical data supporting it - in fact its conclusions are so tentative I agree with them to a large extent, despite not believing in the age of accountability! God's salvation is sufficient for all doesn't imply it is efficacious for all, and citing God's love and mercy to the exclusion of His wrath and justice likewise gives a distorted view of the subject. And I think the article is reaching with the quote about David's son, as I addressed upthread. The linguistic data just doesn't support the idea of heaven - that's not what Sheol means.

[umsami]

I posted about Islam, and thought I'd try and find my old denomination's views on it. Couldn't find something exactly, but did find this article
http://www.redeemerlutheranchurch.org/jmc00010.htm

Regarding the salvation of children who died in the womb Luther states, "Who would doubt that the children of Israel who died before having been circumcised on the eighth day were saved through the prayer of their parents based on the promise that God wanted to be their God? Therefore, we ought to speak differently and more comforting with Christian people from the way we speak with the heathen or, what is the same thing, with reprobates. This we should do also in those cases in which we do not know God’s secret judgment."

I went through three miscarriages. All were emotionally draining, and affected me far more than I expected. One site that I found that had some great resources was http://www.ritualwell.org/lifecycles...gnancy%20Loss/

[SunshineJ]

Originally Posted by umsami

I posted about Islam, and thought I'd try and find my old denomination's views on it. Couldn't find something exactly, but did find this article
http://www.redeemerlutheranchurch.org/jmc00010.htm

Regarding the salvation of children who died in the womb Luther states, "Who would doubt that the children of Israel who died before having been circumcised on the eighth day were saved through the prayer of their parents based on the promise that God wanted to be their God? Therefore, we ought to speak differently and more comforting with Christian people from the way we speak with the heathen or, what is the same thing, with reprobates. This we should do also in those cases in which we do not know God’s secret judgment."

I went through three miscarriages. All were emotionally draining, and affected me far more than I expected. One site that I found that had some great resources was http://www.ritualwell.org/lifecycles...gnancy%20Loss/

Ah that's nice. Only comfort *your* people, the rest are criminals anyway so their feelings don't matter or aren't worth worrying about? Wow can I just say how glad I am that was a quote from another source and not the original thoughts of someone posting here?

[Smokering]

Uh... if you read the quote, what he said was that the situation was different for the babies of believers (saved by the faith of their parents), so the response should reflect that. I don't agree with his views on covenant theology, but there's nothing intrinsically heinous about assuring people their baby's in heaven only in the circumstances one believes that to be the case.