Do All Babies Really Go to Heaven When They Die? Pt. 2 | An Interview with Conley Owens

The all the arguments that people are going to make on the basis of like the universal salvation of the infants they're all like inferences that you're drawing and they're not direct statements right there.

I mean they're basically all inferences that you're going to draw. But it seems like that god could could have made this issue like crystal clear. He could have made it as crystal clear as he makes you know.

If you repent of your sins and believe the good news you will be saved.

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Saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask. We're your host harrison kerrigan pastor tim mullet and today we're joined again by pastor conley owens to help us answer the age-old question.

Do all babies really go to heaven when they die. And and so obviously this is the part two uh to the episode that we let out last week where we answered a pretty difficult question and one that we you know all agreed is is honestly pretty neglected throughout the evangelical world in general.

It's just something that i think most even even you know uh faithful pastors really try and distance themselves from it because it's such a difficult a topic to talk about it's so emotionally charged.

And uh towards the end of the last episode we spent a lot of time sort of talking about some of the different arguments that we hear conley basically your position in all of this was that um some some babies go to heaven under extremely specific circumstances but the reality is that most most babies who die whether it you know whether it's uh in the womb or you know three years old five years old whatever whatever um they they don't just automatically go to heaven just because they're a child.

Right. That's correct. Yes yeah and and so so that's your position and where we towards the end of the last episode we spent some time just talking about hey what are some what are some arguments uh that people give to try and prove that that that children actually do go to heaven.

Right. And and we're kind of given arguments that we're coming from more of like a um uh arminian sort of uh understanding of the bible that that type of theology and you know the difficulty with that is just sometimes when you're when you're talking about an arminian uh understanding of the bible it kind of feels like you're you're picking on your little brother a little bit like like when you're refuting their arguments it's just like there's just not much they're going to be able to do to really stop you they just there's not a whole lot there when it comes to uh when it comes to their understanding of some of these things and so so that's probably not fair to do um so i figured the better place to start this time would be like all right why don't we take some of the some of the guys from our own camp.

Why don't why don't we pick on someone our own size here uh and and look at some of the things that they're we're not picking on anyone this is connelly we're making you're right connelly it's time to pick on someone your own.

Size. Man um we we we take no responsibility for this episode at all this is this is all connelly.

So so why don't why don't we look at some of those guys and say like hey what are what are they saying specifically about these things. And and what are our thoughts. Um on their stances and their explanations for why they think that uh that children do go to heaven when they die because as we talked about last episode connelly and you you pointed this out a few times.

Um even even reformed christians most reformed christians think this way. Right. And so so why don't we start there. Uh. And and connelly uh just you know give us some of the things that you've heard uh reformed guys say and then and let us know your thoughts on them.

Sure. Yeah i mean we can start off with the objection that because romans 5 13 through 14 says that for sin was indeed in the world before the law was given but sin is not counted where there is no law.

That because uh the children don't know the law yet uh they can't be held accountable to the law. There's no sin imputed to them. So sure they may have sinned but they're not held guilty on account of that sin because the sin is not imputed to them.

So that's that's uh one that i've heard occasionally the thing is in context there it's talking about people's recognition of the law. It's talking about why god gave the law. And paul talks about in romans 7 how uh without the command to not covet he wouldn't have known you know the depth of his sin.

And so god god gives the law so that we all recognize it. Because as it says in romans 1 we're suppressing the truth and unrighteousness. So none of this when it's talked about imputing sin or imputing uh guilt well it speaks of sin.

Specifically when it talks about imputing sin it's not saying that god does not impute sin to us. He doesn't count us as sinners as if we don't know. Rather it's saying that man doesn't consider himself a sinner without the law being made clear to him while he's suppressing his truth that truth and unrighteousness.

Right. So i think that's the primary thing that's going on. There is people count that imputation. You know there's a lot of times theological words are used in the bible or words that we have adopted as part of our you know systematic theologies.

And people read them with those definitions. So you see impute. And you immediately think okay that's talking about god crediting this sin to someone you know a good example that would be justification.

Right. The bible used the word justification a lot. We've got a pretty good definition of that of being made right with god. Yeah. But then you come to james too and suddenly justifications not being used exactly in the same way.

Right. And so if you if you take that word justification and think that we're using a textbook definition of it every single time uh you're going to end up being.

Confused. And the same is true with the word impute. The same thing happens with sanctification in general or a lot i mean almost all the all the westminster theological terms at various points uh are suffering from the same kind of problem that if you read those terms as as as if they're uh terminus technicus or you know technical terms in every instance you're going to be led astray.

Yeah the bible's the bible's not a textbook i mean it gives us everything we need but it's not a it's not written as a textbook so that each word always means the exact same thing. Well and that's that's.

Something that people um you know just in terms of word study fallacies in general as they're approaching the bible a lot of people are making those kind of mistakes um where they think that anytime a you know a corny greek word shows up it's going to show up in the same way in every single instance and that's just simply not the way that language works.

Uh you know you can just think about a word like trunk in english and you ask yourself well what is the meaning of the word trunk. And it's like well i have no idea. It depends you know you're talking about an elephant or a tree or a car or you know something you carry something in and you just have no idea.

And but people frequently make that kind of assumption with um language in general and that betrays kind of just a lack of sophistication as to how language works. But what other objections you have. Yeah i'll throw.

In there that i had someone in a bible study recently that was trying to you know pull out lexicons on me and this is a this was a bible study that wasn't part of a um it wasn't in a church setting it was in a work setting.

So they didn't know how much familiarity i have with greek which is frankly not that much but i have taken multiple greek classes. I'm in my third greek class at this point and you know they're making a lot of the arguments that you're describing and i'm i'm trying to explain that's that's not how you do this.

They were. Yeah it's hard to get it through to people a lot of times you can't just you can't just look at words that way you know.

What is the amplified bible. That gives you a list of all the possible range of meanings and then people just go through that and pick the one they want at any given time or they include all of them.

Right that's another thing is you know i i once heard a preacher uh preach on um how there was something where it said this is a good word and he looked at all the definitions for callos you know and just imported all of them into the meaning.

You know it's just a standard greek word for good but you know he made it mean everything the word good can possibly mean in every context.

Well people do that with ecclesiastes too with the word you know. Um uh for vanity at that point where they import in into that word every single sense of the word that can possibly be. And you know that it's it's a problem but anyways continue.

Good uh one more objection that people often make.

Is that they look at the words of ezekiel and the words of jeremiah where it talks about people saying that our fathers ate sour grapes and our teeth are set on edge. And that it shouldn't be the case that the sins of the fathers are visited on the children.

Well first of all i think it's important to observe that in the very next chapter of jeremiah it says. You show steadfast love to thousands but you repay the guilt of the fathers to their children after them.

So that language coming from the second commandment talking about sins being visited on subsequent generations the consequences of sins and the same thing with good deeds right those who are righteous the effects of their righteousness having ripples effect ripple effects to thousands of generations after them.

Given that jeremiah speaks of these things in context of a new covenant that god is giving i think the right way for us to understand this is not that it's saying that there are never consequences on children uh given their parents actions.

But rather that uh anytime a child repents anytime any person repents uh god is faithful to honor that repentance. But anytime someone continues in sin following as their parents have sinned then uh they will suffer sin as they will suffer the judgment on sin as well.

Now when it comes to original sin. Well that's.

Kind of the weird this that's where it's a weird objection coming from like reformed people. It's it's weird in that like reformed people should have a doctrine of original guilt and so if you have a doctrine of original guilt then you're basically putting this argument forward.

This is.

Basically a pelagian argument. So it really is. Yeah. And so we're talking about generational retribution we're talking about consequences. These are not talking about original sin right. They're not talking about the covenantal imputation of guilt given adamson you know if you throw that away like i said last time you're throwing away also the imputation of christ's righteousness because it's that same mechanism of being counted in adam or being counted in christ.

Whereby uh you know we have salvation. Yeah now from reformed folks who are trying to maintain some sort of notion of original guilt as it relates to this topic. And you know if you're not familiar with those terms original guilt is just the idea that we inherit not only just a sinful orientation as a result of adamson but we actually inherit the actual guilt of that act.

And that's obviously demonstrated in the fact that we all die. You know it's the point of the man wants to die and after that's judgment we live in a fallen world. There's obviously entailments of adams and adams act in the garden.

But you know as i'm saying a lot of reformed people they will basically try to adopt some sort of hybrid view as it relates to this the imputation of adam's guilt. I was reading through jesse johnson's article on um let's see if i can figure out what the name of that was.

Uh what happens to infant when they die. He had a series on that and he gave old testament answers and new testament answers. But one of the things that he was mentioning essentially is that it's almost some sort of hybrid position there where infants can inherit the guilt of adamson only as it relates to kind of the temporal but then not as it relates to the eternal consequences of that.

So what kind of response would you give to that kind of.

Performed objection. Right. Yeah. And i don't know how explicitly he said that too but it that seems to be the implication of what he's saying that. Yeah there are there are consequences for your for being a sinner temporally even as an infant but but not eternally.

Um yeah. Why. Why would it be right if god treats children as innocent as truly innocent in light of eternal judgment. Why would it be right for him to uh to take their life early at all. Why would it be right for anyone to suffer if they are innocent.

You know if you come into this world innocent why should you ever be subject to suffering the only pain. Yeah or pain. Right. The only the only person who ever suffered innocently was jesus christ. And he did so voluntarily you know he chose to be sent by his father and and suffer pain in this world.

Uh children and everyone who grows up in this world the reason why we suffer pain is because we are indeed sinful. It is because of our guilt before.

God even as infants. Well that's what's so weird about the objection so that that kind of objection um you know if you take that principle like the children should never suffer from the father's choices and you turn it into like if you absolutize it you bring it bring it all out to the end like there's no like if that's like if that's true then they're like it seems like you like if you have no mechanism for saying that children should ever die should ever be sick should ever suffer should have any pain uh if that's what those passages are saying um it doesn't seem to make sense to try to carve out just a special exception as it relates to eternal things but not as it relates to temporal things.

But do you have any other thoughts related to that.

No i i think that's exactly right. Yeah god doesn't set up those distinctions. Um yeah every. Yeah. Every sin deserves god's wrath and curse both in this life and in the one to come. So that's the westminster shorter catechism right there.

So the. Yeah it is the case that all sin and that includes adamson that's imputed to us that is credited to us. So if you're trying.

To make that some sort of carve out at that point do you consider that to be a denial of the doctrine.

Of original guilt. I do yes and yeah i get that people are inconsistent they still want to hold.

On to that. But it is it is implicitly a denial. Why. Maybe you can elaborate why is it. Why is it implicitly a denial. Like are you not allowed to make the what if someone were to say hey you're just it's.

I believe in original guilt. I'm just being nuanced right. Well if you believe in.

Original guilt that is so powerless that god wouldn't actually hold it against you in a court of law. You know what. What does it even mean. Like what is guilt at that point if if you can't be counted guilty in court on account of it like it's just not guilt anymore.

I don't know what else you.

Call it but what else do you have. Godly like reform objections that you. Yeah well i mean a.

Related one to that one that you just mentioned uh it's it's been said by some or at least one that we're saved by grace but damned by works right. Or judged or judged on the basis of our work. So you see all these passages in scripture that talk about um god's judgment on judgment day according to the works that we've done on the body whether good or evil.

And so a lot of people will look at that. And they'll say okay so i get that there's this thing about original sin. But that original sin never comes up on judgment day. Right. We're only judged according to our works.

And if children don't have evil works then they're they're free here in this regard. I i just don't i i just don't get that at all. I mean i know i said this last time but i don't understand how anyone who has been around children can look at children and say yep there is no sin there.

You know i mean even in the even um like in the womb. Right. Like i mean they're having thoughts now they're now are they the same kind of thoughts that you know we're having as fully fully developed adults.

Probably not. But they are having thoughts. And the reality is that they are human. They are human in the womb. And and um and so you know and apart from faith thoughts are sinful. Right. Right. And and so i don't know how you look at all of that and spell that out.

Conley. Yeah. So uh hebrews 11 6 says that without faith it is impossible to please god. Romans 14 23 says that anything that does not proceed from faith is sin. So if you have if you have thoughts that are not uh that you're thinking about yourself you're thinking about your world around you.

Even if your world around you is very small it's just the just the encasing around you in the womb. It's still the case that those thoughts are supposed to honor god by recognizing him as above all things.

And the bible tells us that our natural state is to not honor him as god. And therefore even a child's very small thoughts are sinful in the eyes of god because they are not honoring god as god. And i i want to point out too that i think it it seems like uh the reformed christian their their understanding of whether or not children are sinful is not consistent like it seems like some people are saying uh they're not they're just not sinful.

And then it seems like there's another portion of this camp that's saying well they are sinful right. And they're probably feeling the tension that you're bringing up conley um there so they are sinful.

But then they don't either. The explanation is either you know they're only sinful as far as they've inherited from adam right. Or they're sinful in their own actions as well as what they've inherited from adam.

But then they don't know that they're sinful. And so because they don't know they're sinful then they can't be held accountable for those things. And that kind of gets us back into the whole you know um sin is not imputed where there is no right right.

And i know i understand we already talked about that but i'm more just trying to make the distinction is not only do i not understand how anyone anyone can say hey kids aren't sinful. But then it seems like even reformed christians who like all you know out of all of the reformed christians who don't believe the who who believe that children go to heaven all of them they don't even agree on whether or not children are sinful or not uh and and so it's that's pretty concerning you know if you're talking about like hey where do they go for eternity.

And you can't even agree on are they sinful or not. And and i've been i've been kind of flabbergasted i you didn't mention the names you know of of the people who are saying some of these things but i i have been i mean just kind of flabbergasted at the people at who it is that's saying you know saying some of these things.

Yeah it's up to you whether or not you want to mention names but these are these are people that you would not expect to be saying these absolutely not. Not when no no um but yeah i i guess i won't say right now but um it is it isn't it's very um jarring i guess so one of the things that um jesse johnson in that uh article i mentioned was saying tim's like yeah anyways jesse johnson no no.

No i'm i'm i'm responding to you. Uh yeah. Yeah the uh i'm happy to mention names but one of the things he was saying is he's basically saying it's not that they're not sinful. Uh children not sinful but they fall into sin like you might fall into gravity.

It's kind of his point. So they fall into sin like they might fall into gravity whereas adults when they sin it's heavy-handed. Yeah. So that's basically the distinction they're making. So they don't.

It's not that. Um yeah.

You've got the intentional sins and you've got the you know the high-handed sins and right. So what's your response. Why don't we just call them mortal and venial while we're at it. So yeah for anyone who doesn't get that those are the roman catholic distinctions.

Um yeah and that's and that's essentially what this comes down to. You're going to start making distinctions between sins in this way. And uh i mean you all had an episode recently. You all recognize that some sins are more heinous than others.

But that doesn't mean that uh there are some sins that deserve death and other sins that don't deserve death like they all deserve death. And we just yeah we just uh to round this out a little. You know yeah we've said that this episode and last that actual sins are happening far earlier than people imagine you know most likely in the womb as the child's having thoughts.

And but even if you didn't have that if you have guilt adam's guilt that we have and we we must bear but you don't make that a guilt that can make you guilty in court. It's not real guilt like it doesn't.

It doesn't have any meaning. And in this this example with jesse johnson this seems like a case where you have this doctrine of original corruption so that someone is um is orientated towards sin like you said.

But not but not in a way that that orientation itself is such a corruption that god would count it as guilt. Or that adam sin is counted towards you. So there's just there's three types of guilt here that are.

Not being counted right. Well and that's what. Um the only way that that makes sense again you know even though they're reformed like the only way that makes sense to me is if you're treating sin only as if it's some sort of volitional act of a libertarian free will or something along those lines.

So like that's that's the assumption that seems to undergird that kind of project. Right to say that you can be oriented towards sin but it doesn't count unless you know you have like knowledgeable intentional volitional high-handed rebellion.

But then i mean it doesn't really pass the smell test as far as that goes and it doesn't really feel very calvinistic. But yeah it's only.

When you're like pushing the boundaries beyond your total depravity or something. I yeah it really.

Doesn't make sense all right. What else you have. Godly. Yeah connelly. I i know you're holding back.

Man i i know you're holding it based off of what what we were talking about before we started started recording. I know you're holding back so yeah. So my favorite one my favorite one i'll read this quote this is from another uh thinker who i won't name.

Uh sam storms. I wasn't gonna say it just because i didn't i didn't know he said it so but tim is like throw him right under there throw him right under there. Okay. So he qualifies this. He goes he goes ahead and says he he recognizes this is the subjective argument however he goes ahead and makes the argument and he says given our understanding of god's character as presented in scripture does he appear as the kind of god who would eternally condemn infants on no other ground than infant election of adam's transgression.

Or adam's transgression. Again this is subjective and perhaps in the mental question but it deserves an answer nonetheless. So so my response is it doesn't deserve an answer. It deserves a rebuke. You know this is the kind of thing where paul would say who are you.

Oh man to answer back to god. We don't get to make god in our image. You know and say is god really the kind of god that would do this. You know i think he'd be more like me and and give a free pass to to these um to these little infants.

Uh this is uh i feel like this is a very dangerous way of thinking about scripture and and so many other categories. You know we are very ready to say hey you can't think about this in terms of your feelings.

You've got to think about this in the terms of what scripture actually says. And he says okay but you know we know god is love. So let me take my picture of love and describe to you what i think it should look like you know it's it's uh yeah it's a very backwards way of considering what god's actions are.

Yeah and i think that's kind of what what has been so jarring for me is um one of the things that i appreciate so much about uh many of the reformed christian teachers out there is you know their willingness on so many other topics to say hey look it doesn't matter how we feel when you know when we're when we're reading the bible.

It doesn't matter how we feel it matters what the bible says because we know that god's word is true. And we know that ultimately god's ways are higher than our ways. Right. I mean who you know who could counsel god.

Certainly not man you know his wisdom far exceeds our own. And and and it's not even it's not even close to close. You know and and and that's what i've appreciated so much about reformed christians in general.

Um which is why it's so jarring to see them kind of completely throw that out the window. And i mean it really does it really does seem like uh the the guys who who do think that all babies go to heaven.

It really if you could just take some of their quotes you know like i said on the last episode that i had read um that i had been reading through the book that john mcarthur wrote um i i still can't i still can't remember the name of it um safe in the arms of god.

And and um you know i think you could probably just take some of those quotes some of the quotes out of that book and just cover up the name you know who who said it. And you really you really couldn't tell it apart from you know like a charismatic you know uh like person trying to interpret the bible right and even looking i'm looking at this um uh this jesse johnson article and i think i'll probably just end up linking this to the episode so people can look at it themselves too but even even just looking at this this jesse johnson article uh you know point um point four says god refers to children.

This is an argument for why children uh go to heaven if they die. God refers to children and pagan families who are murdered as innocents in uh jeremiah chapter 19 verse 4. Uh and that i mean that just sounds like a poor like just just reading that one sentence sounds like a you know this looks like like i mean i don't i hesitate to say this but it really does look like the same exact sort of hermeneutical approach that you would see like a prosperity gospel teacher take to try and prove that you know that the the promises made to israel and the old testament apply to christians and apply to christians in the exact same way.

I mean i was i was tim when he showed me this article about the tale. Yeah and and and tim showed me this article and i you know i was scrolling through it kind of skimming through all these points i think there's like how many are there here 16.

And at the very bottom it's a i didn't know who wrote it he just he just sent it to me and i was reading it and um at the very bottom it said the master seminary and i was just i was like what this is this is coming from the master seminary.

Are you kidding me i mean this is like you can read point by point and and refute these instantly you know and and so i think i think that's kind of what's disappointing and and i say all that just to say it really does seem like for whatever reason when it comes to this topic this is the topic that even for uh even for reformed christians you are just simply not allowed to read the bible and understand the bible and take the bible for what it says instead you are supposed to be for informed uh primarily by your emotions right.

And because because obviously like who wants to think about uh children you know who didn't even get a chance because their mothers hated them so much that they went and you know they they sought out an abortion and murdered their baby in the womb and now that baby is in hell.

Right i mean no one wants to think about that but then the reality is like that's what's happening you know for or at least like for um you know at least for uh most you know most babies right according to what the bible is saying and so no one wants to think about that but then the reality is that's what i mean that's just how all this works you know it's it's hard to it's hard to imagine that there is some sort of age of accountability or you know um it's it's hard to imagine that children just don't sin now apparently you know i i can't wrap my head around these things and really it is it is quite surprising i i feel like we should just play a game sometime where it's like take the quote from the reformed guy and and black out the name and you know guess who said this.

You know and i don't think i think yeah reformed armenian i think we would all fail but we were formed yeah so look at that if you look at armenian books on this topic like uh i believe his name is adam hargrave he has one and you know very pelagian but then you know i read the books from calvinist thinkers and it's uh same argument the same arguments.

Yeah it's wild. Well something you brought up harrison that will transition is something i wanted to ask connelly about here. So you know harrison your operating assumption is that um the weight of scripture would lead us to be very pessimistic about the reality that very many infants at all would be saved.

And one of the things connelly you're making a case not just like for agnosticism at this point. So like meaning like you're making a case um like you can make different kinds of cases here. So you know in terms of my own posture towards this issue i'm kind of i would be more i think in um you know uh agnostic middle ground.

And probably both of you here and i got more like a principled agnostic on this question meaning like if i'm if i if you force me to defend like the universal salvation of infants i'm going to just say i i can't make work you know i can't i can't go there.

Um and then you know as i'm reading the bible it seems like there's so many um positive passages that i can go to about the nature of salvation and the exclusivity of salvation that you know i i'm going to have a very hard time um i'm going to i'm going to have a very hard time defending um the position of universal salvation of infants i don't i don't think the bible teaches that at all.

Uh but then um you know if you ask me to say you know make the case on the other end i'm gonna i'm gonna be a little more attentive about it. But both of you are very confident. Okay but i'm more agnostic i'm more in the middle but then so when.

You say when you say agnostic you mean maybe maybe all infants are saved. That all infants dying in infancy are saved. It's possible. You just couldn't show it from scripture. Yeah i'm happy to.

Be surprised you know. Okay. Yeah. Or um like you know that's um that's a possibility that they all i mean in my mind it could. You know. Maybe maybe it could be that that's just a surprise or something.

Um that if there is like a concept of an elect infant so to speak. Right. So if you say hey there's a concept of an elect infant then then maybe i just. Okay. Maybe maybe they're maybe they're all elect.

You know god just decided to elect them all. Um i'm open to that possibility. I don't think it's likely but i'm open to it. I'm more adopting kind of a middle ground posture. But then kindly you're you're going further than that.

You're saying um. Then harrison you're definitely you're definitely going further than that. Yeah. Yeah. You're you're saying um. You're saying no. That would be unbiblical to expect a high percentage of infants.

So we need to adopt more of a a. Um. It's probably probably not hardly any of them kind of posture. Yeah. I'm not gonna make two strong.

Statements about ratios but certainly yeah i think there's 100 percent there's a yeah it's less than.

All of them definitely less than but you would say probably few too right. You're saying oh yes.

Yeah at that point but at that point i'm speaking less confidently. Oh okay all right all right. So.

You're all right but go ahead and make your case. Why. Um so what. Yes. What would push you over from like uh just uh hey the bible doesn't say and i and i'm uh i think that the bible says things on the opposite which should encourage pessimism.

I'm just um you know it may be just i'm emotionally just saying um adopt a middle ground neutral posture. But what would push you over to be more.