Infants, Imputed Guilt & Interpreting Romans 5:12

[RBerman]

But science recognises that juveniles cannot be made culpable for crimes? Judaism sets 13 years as the age for asking for responsible action from children (bar/bat mizvah) and 30 before spiritual maturity allows kohanim to begin training during the temple era. Besides, if you're proposing a graded system, when does the low accountabilty become sufficiently high to pin blame? Conversely, when does it regress to immunity? Backward to the viable fetus? Forward to senility? Never ever? If more revelation means higher expectation, you could argue that infants have been given NOTHING.

1) I don't know what science has to do with this discussion, apart from showing the biological processes which lead to increasing maturity and thus increasing accountability.
2) I do not argue that infants have been given nothing.; I believe in common grace, given to all. YMMV.
3) We hold infants accountable for their actions; even a breast feeding infant can learn not to bite, for instance.
4) We're not debating whether there is a graded system; we agree that some people are held more accountable than others. I haven't seen a positive argument made from Scripture that accountability ever reaches zero.

[RBerman]

This is why bouncing around in speculative and explorative syllogisms is a bad idea...

Then you ought not to engage in false syllogisms such as, "If the kingdom of heaven is populated by those like children, then all children are in the kingdom of heaven." Such speculations were your idea, not mine. All I've said is that people are accountable in proportion to their capacities, and so far no one has disputed that idea.

The Greek double emphasizes the IS, first by putting it in the sentence at all, and second by placing it dead center in middle of the sentence... In ordinary Greek construction, the unemphasized IS would be implied, and it would literally say: "Of such as these, the Kingdom of Heaven." So SOMETHING very important is being communicated by Jesus in this statement, for it is DEFINITIVE of the Kingdom of Heaven.

OK. We just disagree about what important fact is being communicated. Your interpetation stems from your faulty syllogism of assuming the converse.

Now against this, you seem to be proposing that according to Calvinist Dogma, these children are evilly and totally depraved and headed into hell unless any of them happens to be one of the pre-determined Elect who has no choice but to go to heaven. And THAT is just NOT a part of this passage whatsoever, and is, in fact, utterly contrary to the whole import of these words and blessings of our Lord.

IIRC, I have not appealed to Calvinism in this discussion. I have noted that accountability increases with mental capacity. You and others have claimed that children have zero accountability, which apparently means that they must have zero capacity for moral agency. No evidence has been presented which supports that claim; it simply seems to be an article of faith for you. As for me, I believe children are people, capable of knowing right and wrong.

[footwasher]

RBerman wrote:
"1) I don't know what science has to do with this discussion, apart from showing the biological processes which lead to increasing maturity and thus increasing accountability."

Well the justice system operates on the basis that parties can't be punished for actions which they can't control. So if a cobra strikes when disturbed, the scientific explanation that it is an instinctive reflex saves the animal from destruction. This is the principle for offering immunity to the immature and the insane. The system recognises zero accountability.


" 2) I do not argue that infants have been given nothing.; I believe in common grace, given to all. YMMV. "

I think you will be hard put to offer proof for that view, empirically or rationally.


"3) We hold infants accountable for their actions; even a breast feeding infant can learn not to bite, for instance. "

How do you eliminate instinctive origins for that action?

"4) We're not debating whether there is a graded system; we agree that some people are held more accountable than others. I haven't seen a positive argument made from Scripture that accountability ever reaches zero."

Zero Accountability Scenario 1
Babies don't have law in their world.

We are not accountable if there is no law:
Romans 4:15 because law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression.



Zero Accountability Scenario 2
Common grace, defined as revelation through nature, does not reach babies.

We are not accountable if we have not been given grace:
Romans 1:20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

[RBerman]

RBerman wrote:
"1) I don't know what science has to do with this discussion, apart from showing the biological processes which lead to increasing maturity and thus increasing accountability."

Well the justice system operates on the basis that parties can't be punished for actions which they can't control. So if a cobra strikes when disturbed, the scientific explanation that it is an instinctive reflex saves the animal from destruction. This is the principle for offering immunity to the immature and the insane. The system recognises zero accountability.

Are you comparing human babies to cobras? Cobras are not persons. Human infants are persons.

" 2) I do not argue that infants have been given nothing.; I believe in common grace, given to all. YMMV. "

I think you will be hard put to offer proof for that view, empirically or rationally.

There's no way to prove empirically whether some circumstance is the result of God's grace. Common grace is taught in Matthew 5:45. The spiritual awareness of infants is seen in verses like Psalm 22:9 and Luke 1:41. The battle between Jacob and Esau began prenatally. (Gen 25:21-23)

"3) We hold infants accountable for their actions; even a breast feeding infant can learn not to bite, for instance. "

How do you eliminate instinctive origins for that action?

I neither can nor need to do such a thing. "Instinct" simply refers to inborn predisposition. Some people are predisposed to grow up and be alcoholics, but that doesn't make them non-persons or absolve them of moral responsibility.

"4) We're not debating whether there is a graded system; we agree that some people are held more accountable than others. I haven't seen a positive argument made from Scripture that accountability ever reaches zero."

Zero Accountability Scenario 1
Babies don't have law in their world.

We are not accountable if there is no law:
Romans 4:15 because law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression.

Zero Accountability Scenario 2
Common grace, defined as revelation through nature, does not reach babies.

We are not accountable if we have not been given grace:
Romans 1:20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

You have Romans 4:15 backwards. It's part of an argument that "law" did not begin at Sinai, because there was sin before Sinai, and sin by definition is violation of God's law, so there must have been law before Sinai as well. Romans 1:20 is evidence of the common grace of which I spoke; all men have innate knowledge of God, which they suppress due to their sin. Babies have rudimentary awareness of the world. Even a newborn knows and trusts his mother more than others.

[lee_merrill]

As for me, I believe children are people, capable of knowing right and wrong.

One person I read, made this point by asking "When was Jesus God in the flesh?" At his conception, so it certainly indicates that personhood starts at conception. Also, this discussion seems focused largely on the body, on physical development. But when does a body first have a soul? Again I would say at the time of conception. Who knows what a human spirit can do, even from the start? I'm certainly not going to set any boundaries.

Blessings,
Lee

[Rdr. Arsenios]

As for me, I believe children are people, capable of knowing right and wrong.

The point of this is that it is the LITTLE children who are in view, and they are in the process of LEARNING right from wrong, and they are under the authority of their parents [we hope]...

And maybe that is the essential feature we should discern, the "being under the authority of" that little children all have... And in that tutiledge, they are learning right from wrong... And so likewise the Christian, in his discipleship within the Church, is to become as a little child, taking the word of his Christian Elders in trust, and in obedience, that he learn the way of Christ in imitation of them, as Paul instructs...

Arsenios

ps - It was not you, you are right, who said that little children are morally evil...
It was another Calvinist... Forgive me again! [For the umpteenth-plus-one time...]

A.

[Rdr. Arsenios]

Then you ought not to engage in false syllogisms such as,
"If the kingdom of heaven is populated by those like children,
then all children are in the kingdom of heaven."

I do think we can safely syllogize thus:

The Kingdom of Heaven is of such as are little children...
Therefore little children are not evil...

Whatcha think?

Arsenios

[RBerman]

The point of this is that it is the LITTLE children who are in view, and they are in the process of LEARNING right from wrong, and they are under the authority of their parents [we hope]. And maybe that is the essential feature we should discern, the "being under the authority of" that little children all have. And in that tutiledge, they are learning right from wrong. And so likewise the Christian, in his discipleship within the Church, is to become as a little child, taking the word of his Christian Elders in trust, and in obedience, that he learn the way of Christ in imitation of them, as Paul instructs.

Children do grow in their autonomy. Of course, none of us reach complete autonomy; in various relationships we all somehow remain, like the Centurion, a "man under authority." I agree that Jesus is making a statement about how Christians must have that atittude if they truly belong to God. He's not making a statement that all children are in fact in the Kingdom of Heaven. About which:

I do think we can safely syllogize thus:

The Kingdom of Heaven is of such as are little children.
Therefore little children are not evil.

Sorry, George. That's the same "affirming the converse" fallacy you were making earlier. Still wrong.

[footwasher]

RBerman wrote:
"Are you comparing human babies to cobras? Cobras are not persons. Human infants are persons."

The operative word is "competent". When a jury member is presented for acceptance, the prosecuting counsel runs a batch of questions by him, because competence is a broad range of skills, social, moral, rational in the main. Competence to serve jury duty is dependent on such. Similarly, competence to make moral decisions is what counts in fixing culpability.

"There's no way to prove empirically whether some circumstance is the result of God's grace. Common grace is taught in Matthew 5:45"
Matthew 5:45 NET
so that you may be like your Father in heaven, since he causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

Common provision of care, no revelation seen here.


"The spiritual awareness of infants is seen in verses like Psalm 22:9"
Psalm 22:9 NET
Yes, you are the one who brought me out from the womb
and made me feel secure on my mother’s breasts.

Again material security, not spiritual awareness.


"and Luke 1:41"
Luke 1:41 NET
When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.

Holy moley! Sounds like a suspension of individual autonomy there, that Charismatic started real young!


"The battle between Jacob and Esau began prenatally. (Gen 25:21-23)"

No empirical or theoretical proof for sentience here.


"I neither can nor need to do such a thing. "Instinct" simply refers to inborn predisposition. Some people are predisposed to grow up and be alcoholics, but that doesn't make them non-persons or absolve them of moral responsibility."

In spite of government recognising these predispositions and taking affirmative, proactive action to give those so challenged, a headstart?

"You have Romans 4:15 backwards. It's part of an argument that "law" did not begin at Sinai, because there was sin before Sinai, and sin by definition is violation of God's law, so there must have been law before Sinai as well. Romans 1:20 is evidence of the common grace of which I spoke; all men have innate knowledge of God, which they suppress due to their sin. Babies have rudimentary awareness of the world. Even a newborn knows and trusts his mother more than others."

I used Rom 4:15 to form the bases of an argument, a conclusion. It states the situation where wrath is averted, wrath brought down through enemity with God, by trangression of law. However, Jesus highlights the acceptability of children in the Kingdom, indicating the absence of law in their world:

Matthew 18:10 NET
“See that you do not disdain one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven."

Btw, here is the process for reconciliation for you and I, how the law has no hold on us:

Romans 5:1-10 NET
Therefore, since we have been declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of God’s glory. Not only this, but we also rejoice in sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance, character, and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. (For rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person perhaps someone might possibly dare to die.) But God demonstrates his own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, because we have now been declared righteous by his blood, we will be saved through him from God’s wrath. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, how much more, since we have been reconciled, will we be saved by his life?

NOW, our angels "always see the face of my Father in heaven." Hallelujah! Thanks be to God we do not have to fend for ourselves:

John 9:21 NET
But we do not know how he is now able to see, nor do we know who caused him to see. Ask him, he is a mature adult. He will speak for himself.”

[Rdr. Arsenios]

I do think we can safely syllogize thus:

The Kingdom of Heaven is of such as are little children.
Therefore little children are not evil.

Sorry, George. That's the same "affirming the converse" fallacy you were making earlier. Still wrong.

So perhaps you are beginning to see the fickleness of human reasoning in matters of Faith...

Here's a syllogistic quiz for you:

In the Kingdom of Heaven is no evil...
Of such as are infants and toddlers is the Kingdom of Heaven...

THEREFORE

Infants and toddlers are:
a) evil
OR
b) not evil

And ANOTHER one:

Salvation is through Faith...
Logical proof is not Faith...

THEREFORE

Salvation
a) is through logical proof
OR
b) is not through logical proof

Hard and bouncy little things these syllogisms...

Arsenios

[RBerman]

So perhaps you are beginning to see the fickleness of human reasoning in matters of Faith..

That sounds very odd coming from someone who has been applying human reasoning to Jesus' words about children and the kingdom of heaven. But certainly an outside party reading this thread has ample opportunity to observe examples of fallacious thinking.

[RBerman]

RBerman wrote:
"Are you comparing human babies to cobras? Cobras are not persons. Human infants are persons."

The operative word is "competent". When a jury member is presented for acceptance, the prosecuting counsel runs a batch of questions by him, because competence is a broad range of skills, social, moral, rational in the main. Competence to serve jury duty is dependent on such. Similarly, competence to make moral decisions is what counts in fixing culpability.

The skills required to serve on a jury are indeed substantial. Are you saying that children are totally incompetent to make moral decisions?

"There's no way to prove empirically whether some circumstance is the result of God's grace. Common grace is taught in Matthew 5:45"
Matthew 5:45 NET
so that you may be like your Father in heaven, since he causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

Common provision of care, no revelation seen here.


"The spiritual awareness of infants is seen in verses like Psalm 22:9"
Psalm 22:9 NET
Yes, you are the one who brought me out from the womb
and made me feel secure on my mother’s breasts.

Again material security, not spiritual awareness.


"and Luke 1:41"
Luke 1:41 NET
When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.

Holy moley! Sounds like a suspension of individual autonomy there, that Charismatic started real young!


"The battle between Jacob and Esau began prenatally. (Gen 25:21-23)"

No empirical or theoretical proof for sentience here.

Your responses are so cursory and/or tangential as to give me nothing to which to respond.

"I neither can nor need to do such a thing. "Instinct" simply refers to inborn predisposition. Some people are predisposed to grow up and be alcoholics, but that doesn't make them non-persons or absolve them of moral responsibility."

In spite of government recognising these predispositions and taking affirmative, proactive action to give those so challenged, a headstart?

I hope you're not making an exegetical argument based on what government does. Also, I'm not aware of any proactive action taken by government concerning alcoholism, unless you're talking about the drinking age perhaps.

"You have Romans 4:15 backwards. It's part of an argument that "law" did not begin at Sinai, because there was sin before Sinai, and sin by definition is violation of God's law, so there must have been law before Sinai as well. Romans 1:20 is evidence of the common grace of which I spoke; all men have innate knowledge of God, which they suppress due to their sin. Babies have rudimentary awareness of the world. Even a newborn knows and trusts his mother more than others."

I used Rom 4:15 to form the bases of an argument, a conclusion. It states the situation where wrath is averted, wrath brought down through enemity with God, by trangression of law.

That is not correct, for the reasons stated in my previous post and quoted in this post just above. Paul argues throughout Romans 1-5 for the universality of sin, and thus of law and of God's judgment upon sin.

However, Jesus highlights the acceptability of children in the Kingdom, indicating the absence of law in their world:

Matthew 18:10 NET
“See that you do not disdain one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven."

This is the verse under debate, so quoting it in favor of your position begs the question.

[Rdr. Arsenios]

Children do grow in their autonomy. Of course, none of us reach complete autonomy; in various relationships we all somehow remain, like the Centurion, a "man under authority." I agree that Jesus is making a statement about how Christians must have that atittude if they truly belong to God. He's not making a statement that all children are in fact in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Infants and toddlers do not know right and wrong...
Children are learning right and wrong...
Without knowing right and wrong, how can they be good and/or evil (yet)?

You mentioned nipple biting babies... They do not yet know that it is wrong to bite nipples... They get told and it does not register... They feel their mother wince and it does not register... They hear her cry out and it does not register... But when the nipple is taken from them for 15 minutes just as they bite, with a sharp rebuke, and they are still hungry and want to be nursed, THAT registers... They are learning right from wrong through consequences, and in this the mother is their teacher...

Now you can say that they are doing evil, by continuing to bite, until they are finally GIVEN the consequence of going hungry [combined with the sharp "NO!", mind you], but in so doing, you are applying adult standards to an infant, and err... The parenting challenge is to find ways to help a child learn right from wrong that establish a natural and safe set of consequences for each, and to do so consistently, because children need a lot of repetition...

They are in a process of learning, and you are right, it begins at conception, but it proceeds in STAGES, and for you to judge an earlier stage by the standards of a much later stage is simply mistaken... The child biting the nipple is not doing anything wrong in terms of sin... Even though ontologically, he is hurting his mother... He does not yet even understand that he CAN hurt anyone... Let alone that he IS... And that he should NOT... All that stuff comes together in a child's mind in stages, and infants and toddlers are VERY early in the process...

And not knowing evil, they are very close to the Kingdom of Heaven... To DO evil is to KNOW that something is evil to do, and then to do it... Infants and little children do not have this category yet...

So do those in heaven know evil?
Do infants and toddlers?

Can we now put together your favorite instrument of Faith,
The almighty syllogism?
Can we pronounce tiny children morally evil?
Calvinists sure seem to WANT to do so...

Arsenios

[Rdr. Arsenios]

Paul argues throughout Romans 1-5 for the universality of sin, and thus of law and of God's judgment upon sin.

Do you agree that sin is imputed through Adam's sin to us by our death even when we have not sinned, as those who are miscarried die before they get a chance to sin? Is our being born in death the imputation of Adam's sin to us?

Or do you think that we commit sin at conception?

Arsenios

[Rdr. Arsenios]

That sounds very odd coming from someone who has been applying human reasoning to Jesus' words about children and the kingdom of heaven. But certainly an outside party reading this thread has ample opportunity to observe examples of fallacious thinking.

You ducked the issue of the syllogisms...
You have not answered the two I quizzed you with...
a) or b) or neither or both???

The Faith of Christ is understood rationally...
It is not proven logically...

Do you understand the difference?

And the greatest understanding is to be found in the greatest exemplars of the practice of the Faith, and not in Bertrand Russell, who was a master of logic and mathmatics... [and philosophy therein]

RB - If you are going to live by the sword, you will die by the sword...
And if you insist on living by syllogism, you cannot close your eyes when it goes wrong...
And go wrong it will, in this Christian Faith...

Paul ran out of logic and said: "Who are YOU, you of clay, to interrogate the Potter who made you?" We CAN reason together, and I HAVE BEEN because of your insistence, and now you have pulled your eject lever and are flying into space awaiting the deployment of your 'chute...

And for a fact, I think we ARE approaching, in the matter of their NOT KNOWING EVIL, the reason for Jesus saying that it is of such as are infants and toddlers that IS the kingdom of heaven... We do in fact begin in innocence, and the evil that we accrue is ours to accrue...

But I think you want to say that unborn children are sinners from their conception, due to other doctrines you hold, and so you do not want to allow sinlessness to be the reason for Christ saying that those in the Kingdom of Heaven are AS these little infants and toddlers...

Correct me if I am wrong, please!

Arsenios