If Babies Go To Heaven, Why Not Abort Them All

[KingsGambit]

This is a good reminder that Christians need a better theology of what heaven is. The popular idea that it's just a disembodied existence in the sky doing nothing has led to all sort of problems.

[Adrift]

This is a good reminder that Christians need a better theology of what heaven is. The popular idea that it's just a disembodied existence in the sky doing nothing has led to all sort of problems.

Absolutely. And in the end heaven and earth will be united at Christ's second coming. As N.T. Wright so eloquently states,

[Sparko]

To spread the gospel, to help our fellow man. To love one another. To do good.

[Cow Poke]

Do humans have an earthly objective while here on earth that only mature adult humans can fulfill?

Occupy til He comes! "And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come." (kids can help )

We have a Great Commission to tell others about Jesus.

If there is an earthly objective for mature adult, why can it only be fulfilled on earth?

This world is not my home, I'm just a'passin' thru - my treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue....

Babies that die prior to fulfilling their objective would fairly and justly go to heaven, so what would they lack in heaven?

There will be no more death' or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.

[Adrift]

To add to my OP (and I mentally predicted this while writing it) occasionally skeptics will attempt to rebuff some of the reasons for finding abortion untenable in the Christian worldview by bringing up apologetic responses to the destruction of Israel's enemies in the Old Testament. The idea goes something like this: Israel was ordered by God to destroy her enemies, which sometimes included women and children. In a way, death provided mercy to the unaccountable among Israel's enemies by opening the opportunity to heaven rather than allowing them to live a life that would pave the way to hell.

This made quite a lot of buzz in the skeptic community when William Lane Craig made the point, but it's certainly not a point unique to him, nor is it an unusual view among Christians in general (I often wonder exactly what skeptics thought Christians thought about this issue before WLC mentioned it in his podcast).

At any rate, there are a couple of responses to this. I think the number one response is found in #6 in Piper's list. God is the judge, not us, and it is presumptive for us to conclude that we have the ability to make the call concerning who should live and who should die in order to attain heaven. Mainly, I think, it robs people of their ability to make free will choices, and since there is no possible way for us to judge what those choices may be, it is something that can only be God's call, and God made that call in these rare OT examples. Not that I think that God desires anyone to die, which leads to the next point...

One MUST understand the context of the OT passages in order to understand why death for the unaccountable children of the enemies of Israel may have been a better alternative than life. The first issue is that the newly established Israel likely did not have the provisions and resources to keep the foreign unaccountable alive. Death may have been a rather unfortunate, and last resort mercy for a people living in an environmentally and socially dangerous wilderness. There wasn't much in the way of social programs in this period. There was no orphan system, or grand social service that could help. There were hard laboring men and women, relatively newly established, who could barely keep themselves and their own families fed. Exile meant certain slow and painful death through starvation, or a life of slavery by competing tribes. Furthermore, there was the possible risk that intermingling would further undermine the safety of the Israeli people themselves, and the worship of God. Some may respond to this by saying, "well what sort of damage could a child do, especially if he was inculcated from youth?" But the Bible has a perfect example of the damage that can be done in the person of Moses himself, who was adopted by Pharaoh in his youth, yet later in life, led a powerful movement against Egypt that saw widespread death and destruction. Furthermore, I think there's a psychological component to all of this. We know that pre-exile the Jewish people already whored after other gods. What sort of psychological motivation to continue worshipping the God of Israel could there have been if a large percentage of your population was no longer a descendant of Israel? I think a whole thread could be written on just this topic, but I'll leave that at that.

More to the point, though, is the fact that we're talking about a pre-Christ, pre-Holy Spirit people. A lot of skeptics, and even a lot of Christians don't fully comprehend how powerful the line of demarcation is between pre and post Christ. In a world pre-Christ, sanctification came only through keeping the law, and doing good works, and knowledge of the law came only through special covenant with God. God did not desire that anyone should die, but that all should live and come into knowledge of him, but, in a manner of speaking, God's hands were tied in providing unmerited mercy in preparation of the incarnation. It is only post-Christ that His grace and life everlasting has become available to all. It is only through Christ that the options limited to Israel have been broken wide open. Is is only through Christ that the Holy Spirit is able to move powerfully among us and draw us into knowledge of God. From that time forward death was no longer a viable option or last resort measure to use against the enemies of God's people or to save the unaccountable among them. Rather, laying one's own life down for others, in likeness to our savior has become our last resort option.

1 Peter 2:21 For to this you were called, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving an example for you to follow in his steps.

[Adrift]

Occupy til He comes! "And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come." (kids can help )



We have a Great Commission to tell others about Jesus.



This world is not my home, I'm just a'passin' thru - my treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue....



There will be no more death' or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.

I'm so in agreement with all that you have to say here, but that ol song line from This World is Not My Home is something I kinda bristle at. I understand the overall intention of the song, and what it's attempting to convey, but it's also responsible in a way of convincing many Christians of a sort of Gnostic thinking of earth, and heaven, and our purpose in both. This earth isn't just a place I gotta get through in order to get to my real home. Earth is my home in a sense, and one day heaven and earth will be one,



And as joint heirs with Christ we will reign on earth with Him (though of course in a position under submission to him).

Scripture Verse: 2 Timothy:11

This saying is trustworthy: If we died with him, we will also live with him. 12 If we endure, we will also reign with him.

© Copyright Original Source

So, yeah, probably a bit nitpicky, but I think we need to be careful about the correct theology of these sorts of things because a lot of people (a lot of Christians) just don't really understand the bigger picture.

[Cow Poke]

I'm so in agreement with all that you have to say here, but that ol song line from This World is Not My Home is something I kinda bristle at. I understand the overall intention of the song, and what it's attempting to convey, but it's also responsible in a way of convincing many Christians of a sort of Gnostic thinking of earth, and heaven, and our purpose in both. This earth isn't just a place I gotta get through in order to get to my real home. Earth is my home in a sense, and one day heaven and earth will be one,

I'll buy that, but I'm not one for getting my theology from songs. It's just a song.

And as joint heirs with Christ we will reign on earth with Him (though of course in a position under submission to him).

Scripture Verse: 2 Timothy:11

This saying is trustworthy: If we died with him, we will also live with him. 12 If we endure, we will also reign with him.

© Copyright Original Source

So, yeah, probably a bit nitpicky, but I think we need to be careful about the correct theology of these sorts of things because a lot of people (a lot of Christians) just don't really understand the bigger picture.

Yeah, a bit nitpicky, but just a bit.

[Adrift]

I'll buy that, but I'm not one for getting my theology from songs. It's just a song.



Yeah, a bit nitpicky, but just a bit.

If you have a chance, I really can't recommend N.T. Wright's book Surprised by Hope enough. It's an easy read and it really gets to the heart of the problem with not just these sorts of lyrics, but with the whole mentality that some Christians (not you of course) have about heaven. In my opinion, he goes a bit off the rails towards the end of the book on Christian stewardship of this world (which I'm in agreement with, but he goes on too long about it I think), but it's really the first part of the book that's the meat and potatoes.

[Cow Poke]

If you have a chance, I really can't recommend N.T. Wright's book Surprised by Hope enough. It's an easy read and it really gets to the heart of the problem with not just these sorts of lyrics, but with the whole mentality that some Christians (not you of course) have about heaven. In my opinion, he goes a bit off the rails towards the end of the book as he concentrates a bit too much on Christian stewardship of this world (which I'm in agreement with, but he goes on too long about I think), but it's really the first part of the book that's the meat and potatoes.

I'm finally at a place where I can catch up on some reading. We sold our ranch, I'm no longer in the cattle business, I've retired from my computer consulting job (though I have one client who simply refuses to let me fully retire, but it's OK, cause he pays really well and is fun to be around), I live much closer to the Church, so I don't have 16 hours of driving eating up my week.....

Perhaps I'll start with this one -- heading to Amazon.com.

[Adrift]

I'm finally at a place where I can catch up on some reading. We sold our ranch, I'm no longer in the cattle business, I've retired from my computer consulting job (though I have one client who simply refuses to let me fully retire, but it's OK, cause he pays really well and is fun to be around), I live much closer to the Church, so I don't have 16 hours of driving eating up my week.....

Perhaps I'll start with this one -- heading to Amazon.com.

Awesome. Well you won't regret it if you pick it up.

[Cow Poke]

Awesome. Well you won't regret it if you pick it up.

Prolly be even better if I actually read it!

[princesa]

Another thing I'd add is the idea that babies automatically go to heaven is a pretty big assumption. We can't be sure. I don't believe that babies go right to hell but the fact is the Bible doesn't outright say the opposite, either. For all we know, maybe they get an opportunity to be preached to sort of like what 1 Peter 4:6 says.

Either way, even if for some reason somebody didn't buy all the other reasons not to abort babies... it would be terrible to make such a decision based on an assumption we're not even sure about.

[Obsidian]

OP: I think you are wrong to downplay, or run away from, the issue of carrot-and-stick theology. The Bible makes an enormous deal out of God's punishment/discipline. That is a huge part of what the whole idea of a "kingdom of heaven" is about.

Zechariah 5:1-3
Then I turned, and lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a flying roll. And he said unto me, What seest thou? And I answered, I see a flying roll; the length thereof is twenty cubits, and the breadth thereof ten cubits. Then said he unto me, This is the curse that goeth forth over the face of the whole earth: for every one that stealeth shall be cut off as on this side according to it; and every one that sweareth shall be cut off as on that side according to it.

And I think people who slaughter babies are going to be tormented tremendously, either on earth, or in hell, or both. If you murder your child, it absolutely will not profit you. Whether it will profit the child's own soul is a coin toss, because the child might have otherwise gotten saved and done great things for God, or might have lived a depraved life. I guess it could be argued that anyone wicked enough to murder their own child probably would not have evangelized the child or raised the child right anyway. But regardless of whether the child's soul profits from being murdered, the crime absolutely will not profit the killers.

[Christianbookworm]

What about postpartum psychosis? It's where the mother goes insane from a chemical balance and kills her baby and possibly herself too? Of course, she would feel awful if/when she returned to sanity.

[Obsidian]

Madness is a curse, either upon an individual or else upon the society where the individual lives:

Deuteronomy 32:28-29
The Lord shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart: and thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness, and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways: and thou shalt be only oppressed and spoiled evermore, and no man shall save thee.

I think that's why we have such serious mental health problems today. Regardless, we are talking about abortion, not postpartum psychosis.