Do babies automatically go to heaven if they die?

Question

If so, wouldn't it be better to die while you are still a baby?

If not, isn't that kind of mean of God?

Answer 1

If the answer was that all babies DO automatically go to heaven when they die, then you are correct, it would be better to die while still a baby rather than risk any chance whatsoever of an eternity in hell past the age of reason. Great justification for abortion, yes? So we are down to whether God is mean and not all loving as he should be.

Reading through the answers, it seemed like your atheist had the best answer to your question to this point, with mass genocide of infants taking place in the Old Testament. But who were these infants? They were the ones that were outside of God's family of Israelites (and even the Israelite babies weren't saved automatically if God loved Jacob but hated Esau even though both were circumcised). Unfortunately, the atheist makes the wrong conclusion about the "inhumane side to the deity" in making the assumption that man starts off as innocent. Even more unfortunate is how the Christians view infants the same way as atheists and make the same error in man's innocence. Yet they make God loving for the same reason the atheist makes God mean!

Here's how I see it: ever since the fall of Adam, mankind has lost fellowship with God. He does not deserve heaven. This is supposedly the Protestant faith (and the reason for the split between the Catholic and Protestant faith -- that man does not achieve heaven through a sufficiently holy life), yet when exceptions are made we end up with conundrums that cannot be resolved, or at least when they are resolved, come to a scary conclusion as you've pointed out.

The fall of Adam gives a stark view of who man is before the Lord, and therefore gives us a God who would not only be righteous in leaving us in our sins, but for a remnant Israel (expanded in the New Testament to the Gentiles), we have a loving God who calls his own unto himself since man, left to himself, is guilty before the Lord and would never choose God of his own ability.

And it is that guilt before the Lord that justifies the wiping out of those who do not follow him in the OT. God owes man nothing! But the theology has crept in over the years and somehow justified man with exceptions that assume innocence where there is none, "chances" for salvation as if God must give them to us or else he is "mean," ways for man to not need a Savior. To me this is humanism, arrogance, and even blasphemy to take the prerogative of God and give it to ourselves. God would be praying to us if that was the case.

Answer 2

Babies are not at an age of accountability. Meaning they don't understand the conception of sin in there life. They do not have enough education to decide for themselves if Jesus will be there Lord and Savior. They will definitely go to heaven. But there is alot of grieving when we lose someone so young. Don't know the reason for your question but don't worry about the little ones there saved automatically. Till they get old enough to make a decision for Jesus or the world.

Answer 3

I think that most Christians try to rationalize this question. But in fact, there really isn't anything anywhere in the bible which states that babies go to heaven...One would think that with that amount of scripture there would be some kind of concrete answer to that question; but there just isn't.
This sounds terrible and cruel but like the mass genocide of men, women and children (including infants) ordered by "THE LORD GOD" in the Old Testament, there is an obviously brutal inhumane side to the deity that so many place their trust in.

Answer 4

Yes, all babies,children under age of accountability(don't understand sin), or the mentally challenged all go to Heaven if they die. I'd rather live out my life knowing I'd earned Heaven. But I do have days!! Nothing God does is ever mean or unjust.

Answer 5

I have seen several good answers here on the list already.

Babies go to heaven. Someone mentioned the age of accountability, that is true. You do not know what sin is. Mentally challenged children and adults will also be in heaven, they do not understand sin.

Jesus said we are to be like the little children and have their faith. Children are capable of so much love, forgiveness, and pure joy. Some people do not understand how children can keep on forgiving abusive parents. It's simple. They have the ability to love and forgive that Jesus wants us to have. So Jesus loves children and they are with Him.

The best biblical authoritative answer I can give is when King David's and Bathsheba's baby dies, King David states....

II Samuel 12:23 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.

This is a statement of fact from King David, one of the men in the family of Jesus' earthly family line.

Answer 6

We all go to the same place, no matter what we have done in this life, or not done, etc etc.
Because we are all spirit in human bodies - we go to the afterlife or spirit world. Not exactly heaven, but not hell also.

Therefore all religions who talk of heaven and hell - are of course lying to us. And what else do they lie about?
Almost everything else.

They play the game of 'control and manipulation' through instilling false beliefs into our psyche - so that they can claim to know what happens... but they obviously don't.
The majority of the unconvinced remains far larger than the believers - who are conditioned (brainwashed) in believing...

Answer 7

I think that they do. They have not had a chance to hear and learn the word of God, so they have not had a chance to get saved and they have not had a chance to commit sin. They are holy and innocent. In the bible it says that we are not like children, we sin.
I think that God is not mean. He has given us life. He has been such a kind God to let us live things of hapiness and love. Why would that be mean?

Answer 8

Yes. Jesus said little children are better models of Purity.

"And He called a child to Himself and set him before them, and said, "Truly I say to you, unless you are Converted and become like Children, you will Not enter the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 18:2-3)

..."Let the children alone, and do Not hinder them from coming to Me; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." (Matthew 19:14)

Answer 9

my nephew died when he was 3 years old. i would rather him be in the presence of the Lord than be here.

if i die tomorrow, no, i wouldn't think that God is mean. it means that i full-filled my purpose and i was ready to go home and be with the Lord.

Answer 10

back in the day you could only go to heaven if you were babtized. for babies that died before being babtized the church made up limbo. since then limbo has been dismissed.