This is certainly some better news. I can’t quite call it good news, seeing as how 41% of Americans think it’s okay to kill an innocent human being without proper justification. But compared to what it was in the 1990s, the pro-life movement has made massive strides. Part of this is because the pro-life movement has logic, science, and ethics on its side. The pro-choice side has selfishness and…well, that’s about it actually.

Someone on Twitter posted a comment that said opposition to gay marriage is at an all time low at the same time that support of abortion is at an all time low, and that any conservative would make that trade. I agree (see my previous post, for example). But we can’t forget that that’s just choosing the lesser of two evils. Better is that opposition to gay marriage and support of the pro-life movement are at record highs. Still, I will choose the lesser of two evils every time, if I have to have an evil.

Obviously, this shouldn’t minimize the fact that homosexuality is a sin, and gay marriage is a bad idea. However, I’ve written before that not all sin is the same, and that God Himself views some sins as worse sins than other things. And the fact is, abortion takes the life of an innocent human being without proper justification, and that is a much worse crime than homosexuals sleeping together. In fact, reading Romans 1, I conclude that rampant homosexual behavior is the result of God’s judgment on society itself, rather than the cause of that judgment.

Again, we cannot condone sinful behavior, and it is right for the church to oppose the mainstreaming of homosexuality. Nevertheless, it remains that our church today is failing to uphold Christ’s words in Matthew 23:23 (ESV): “These [minor things] you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.”

The problem that I see happening is this. Christian churches rise up with righteous indignation against homosexuality, and think that they have now done all that they need to do. Meanwhile, Christian families send their children into public schools where they are indoctrinated into a hedonistic worldview, where they can get an abortion to get rid of any messy consequences. They divorce their own spouses at a rate that rivals that of the secular masses (mainly because many of these Christian families are actually secular families that just happen to go to church). They become functionally indistinguishable from pagans, believing truth to be relative. In all this, they have a faith with no root, which persecution then causes to whither away.

I believe that homosexual advocates do have a valid argument, in that most who claim the name “Christian” do oppose homosexuals out of bigotry rather than out of what the Bible says. (Granted, these homosexual advocates believe the Bible itself is bigoted too, which I oppose.) I would be surprised if even a quarter of Christians who oppose homosexuality can actually quote a single passage of Scripture that addresses the topic—and if that is the case, then it just about has to be bigotry that motivates them to oppose it. Truly, if Christians had a Biblical worldview in the first place, they would have already seen the important issues affecting society as a whole long before Obama became America’s First Gay President (a label given to him by homosexual activist Andrew Sullivan). So to suddenly become concerned about Obama now really does smack of hypocrisy.

Naturally, that doesn’t mean that a Christian who is just now realizing that he has been living a double standard cannot become consistent in his beliefs. In fact, I would implore such Christians to do so. The best first step would be to actually read the Bible we have. There’s plenty of stuff in there that applies to our everyday lives right now, that show us how we should interact with our culture. The Greek and Roman culture that shaped the world that Christ lived in was worse than the culture we have by any objective standard, and living a righteous life enabled the church to flourish during that time.

Christians, do not call what is evil good, nor call what is good evil. Live your lives as holy, unto the Lord. Be prepared for the backlash, and stand up for the truth. That’s the formula for success in the Bible. But to do so requires consistent, constant living. It requires us not to be conformed to the image of the world, but to be transformed into His likeness. If bigotry has moved you to oppose evil, then exchange your bigotry for a truthful opposition to that evil. (You will be condemned either way so it is best not to allow them to condemn you for actual evil.) Do not just stand up against homosexual marriage as if that’s the worst thing that could happen to us. It’s not! Worse things are already condoned and need to be addressed.

The battle is not just against homosexual marriage. That, ultimately, is just a symptom. It’s the judgment of God being poured out on our society. The reason for that judgment is what we ultimately need to address, and that can only be done as we turn our hearts back to Christ.

I wish that last sentence was funnier. Because of how it mirrors the tactics of leftists, though, it’s actually too realistic to be all that funny. It does, however, get to the heart of something I was thinking about earlier, which is that it may be too late to be able to use good arguments alone to win political debates. Now it takes good marketing and slogans that you can hammer people with. The left is good at this, since it’s the left that created the “thought” process resulting in bumper sticker philosophy in the first place. After all, thirteen years of indoctrination in public schools yields graduates who can only think in thirty-second spurts. If you can’t reduce a complex idea like voter fraud into a bite-sized chunk, slapping the label “racism” on works instead. We are trained that “racism” = bad, and therefore if we can insist that X = racism, then X = bad too. Even if X happens to be shooting someone of a different ethnic minority than you are for the sole reason that he is bashing your head into the sidewalk and punching you while you yell for help. That’s too many variables to think of. “Racism” cuts through the clutter and lets people express their rage by randomly beating up other people of different races instead of going after the person responsible for the original offense in the first place. In other words, slapping the label “racist” on the crime has given a free pass to retaliate against all other people of a different race, in the name of “justice.” Slapping “racism” on the original crime allows people to actually be racist towards others…

Of course, while some might be upset with that legislative “gimmick”, the reality is that the entire bill was already simply a legislative gimmick to begin with. Colorado voters have made it plain repeatedly that we do not support granting homosexuals extra rights (and despite the gay lobby claiming they are seeking equal rights, they already have equal rights—they are seeking after super rights). And while this was labeled in terms of “civil unions”, it’s actually a matter of gay marriage. And gay marriage is still not popular. Even a Democrat polling service, Public Policy Polling says:

Hate to say it but I don’t believe polls showing majority support for gay marriage nationally. Any time there’s a vote it doesn’t back it up

And that is the reality. Thirty states, including now North Carolina, have passed legislation against homosexual marriage.

Nevertheless, a small but vocal group of homosexuals remains committed to foisting their immorality upon the country as a whole, so this fight is not over by any means. In fact, it seems likely that in a few years gay marriage will be legalized across America, despite the will of the people. In the end, however, Christians are still called to live righteous lives. No matter what the laws of the land are, we will still serve God. It just may soon cost us more than we can currently imagine to do so.

Update: President Lead-From-Behind (boy does that have different connotations now) has come out today in support of gay marriage, in a move that will shock exactly no one. Elections matter. Remember in November.

I talked with my wife about this article, which incidentally happened here in Colorado Springs. We’re both planning on homeschooling our kids, whenever we have any, and this certainly helps support that idea. Skarlet pointed out a couple of things, which I’m expanding on here.

First, what District 11 has taught students is that it is wrong to defend yourself. This, of course, flies in the face of all logic and reason. Even Christ’s command to “turn the other cheek” was not a command to never defend yourself. (Turning one’s cheek is to be done after a slap, which was a public humiliation in the Ancient Near East, akin to an insult.)

Secondly, District 11 has sent a message to the bullies that it’s perfectly fine to attack other people. After all, a bully is generally not going to be the type of person who cares whether or not he gets suspended. Typical victims of bullies are not other bullies—they’re the nerds and geeks, who actually care about being in school. Therefore, the bully gets a vacation from a place he doesn’t want to be at (whereas the victim is punished for being a victim).

The final point Skarlet brought up is that this teaches that the government can defend you, but you cannot defend yourself—even if the government decides not to defend you at all. This is an excellent point. The victim was told to seek out a teacher, which he did. The bullying didn’t stop.

It reminds me of a couple of quotes. “When seconds count, police are only minutes away!” and “The police are just a janitorial service to pick up the dead bodies.”

If you do not take primary responsibility for your own safety, you will get burned.

Abortion is an issue that causes a lot of division between people, and it is especially so if the unborn was conceived after rape. Such circumstances are enough to cause a rift even among those who are pro-life. This is due to the particularly heinous act the caused the formation of a child. Both sides agree that rape is immoral and evil. The difference between these views lies in the aftermath.

The Pro-Abortion Argument

In order to understand this issue, we must first look at the pro-abortion argument and see why it is that even some pro-life supporters will agree to allow an abortion after rape. Rape is an extremely traumatic experience. It is one that cannot help but scar emotionally the one who has to endure it. Women who are raped are often left with facing many additional pressures they had never planned for. Besides the physical pain that occurs, and besides the obvious risks of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, there is also the general loss of innocence (by this we do not mean that the woman becomes “guilty” for the rape, but rather that her carefree and trusting day-to-day living is replaced by a life of fear and worry, wondering if someone is going to attack from what would have previously been a harmless avenue). Furthermore, personal relationships will also suffer because a woman will no longer know who she can trust and who may attack her. This is especially true given the statistics that show most women who are raped know their attacker. Only a few are anonymous, random attacks.

If a pregnancy results from the rape, then there are even more problems for the woman. She did not want a child and so she may be unable to financially care for one. Furthermore, from a psychological standpoint, the child may very well provide a continual reminder to the woman of the rape she had to endure. As such, the pro-abortion argument says it is justifiable to terminate the pregnancy in this situation.

The Pro-Life Argument

While it is necessary to sympathize with the emotional state of a woman after she has gone through such a vicious and evil act, there are still moral principles that must be considered. One of these principals is the sanctity of human life. As I have argued in other places, abortion is the unjustified taking of a human life. It is scientifically provable that a fetus is both alive and human. The question that we must face is whether or not it becomes justifiable to take the life of a human being because a crime was committed during the creation of that human life.

The first thing that we must examine is whether or not the child is innocent. It is easy to see that the unborn child has not committed any crime against the woman. Just as the woman who was raped had no choice in the matter, neither did the child have a choice in his or her conception. The child was not even alive at the time of the attack, and therefore is completely innocent. Since the child has done nothing morally wrong, then he cannot be justly punished for the rape.

While it is justifiable to punish the perpetrator of such a crime (the rapist), it is not justifiable to punish an innocent human being who had no role in the crime itself. Just as it would be unjustifiable for us to kill a grocery clerk who had nothing to do with the rape, so it is unjustifiable to kill the innocent human life of the unborn child.

But perhaps there are other reasons, besides the fact that the child is not guilty, that could still enable us to justly terminate a pregnancy. Yet when we examine the other arguments put forth, we see that there are problems with these too. Let us examine some of those common arguments.

First, the fact that the child was unwanted. What this argument is saying is that it is okay to end a human life simply because someone else does not want that person to live. If this was the only criteria that must be met in order for murder to be justified, then every single case of murder would be moral. After all, there is no murder unless one person wishes for another person to die and then kills that person.

Secondly, the financial burden. It is true that having a child does create a financial burden on a person, especially if the woman is single. It costs money to raise a child and care for him or her. However, what this argument is saying is that it is okay to kill a human being simply because he or she causes a financial burden on another human being. This, however, cannot be a moral standard. If it were, then it would be permissible to kill anyone who creates a financial burden for you, regardless of their age. Therefore, if you start out in life fine, but your children end up going to the hospital and needing special care such that they become a financial burden to you, then morally it would be okay to take their lives too. Further, to take a bit more obvious example, if the IRS audits you and takes your money creating a financial burden for you, it would become moral to murder IRS agents. But we already agree that such actions would not be moral at all, but rather atrocities.

Finally, the child is a reminder of a rape. Again, we must ask the question: is it okay to take the life of a human being simply because he or she reminds you of an unpleasant or extremely evil event? If so, we would be morally permitted to murder anyone who brought up any story that might cause us to remember trauma. For that matter, suppose that two people were prisoners of war and both were tortured extensively before being rescued. If they see one another, because of what they went through together they will remember the atrocities too. This is not a morally sufficient reason to murder either one. Thus we conclude it is not moral to take the life of someone simply because he or she is a reminder of something evil that has occurred.

As we can see, none of these reasons justify taking the life of a child conceived from a rape. If there is no justifiable reason, then it follows that the abortion of a child conceived through rape is also the unjustified taking of a human life.

Conclusion

It is not my intention to diminish the anguish that women go through after rape. However, we must clearly state forth the principle that two wrongs do not make a right. Sometimes, the morally good thing is for us to do something that causes us more pain that we would wish. In the instance of a woman who becomes pregnant after rape, the moral good is to carry the child to full term, not to seek out an abortion. Though this may very well cause lots of pain, it does not necessarily follow that aborting the child will heal the pain (indeed, even many pro-choice advocates caution against using abortion as a means of healing after rape). It may very well be the case that the child who is born can provide love and support to the mother in such a way that a very great tangible good could come from such an evil action. Such is not unlikely. Indeed, there are many people alive today who are products of rape, some who do not even know it, who bless their mothers through their daily life.

We do not know what the future holds. What we do know is that there is no moral justification for adding the guilt of murder to the emotional pain that comes after being the innocent victim of a heinous crime. Unborn human fetuses are human beings. They have the same basic human rights as anyone, because human rights do not depend on “personhood”, age, intelligence, or anything else—they depend on the fact that something is a human being. Since human fetuses are human beings, they have the same rights as any adult human being, and any arguments made on this topic must take this into account. The only moral reasons that we can take an unborn human’s life would be the same moral reasons that we could take a fully grown human’s life. It is because of this that we must take a stand against abortion, even if the pregnancy occurs because of rape. It is the only moral choice.

I was once engaged in an online debate with a man who said, among other things, that the Calvinist’s God is a monster because it is impossible to have moral responsibility without free will. Since the bounds of the online debate were not conductive for detailed debate, and because at the time I thought written debates to be of more value than I currently do, I challenged him to such a debate. He said he would not do so because he did not want to “eviscerate” me.

Okay…

Anyway, the first and most important thing to note here is that the entire Arminian argument about free will and responsibility is found not in Scripture, but rather in philosophy. Indeed, when I quoted Romans 9:16 (“So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy”) to the above referenced gentleman, he countered that we must interpret Scripture based on what makes logical and philosophical sense, not based on what Scripture actually says.

Now the Arminian argument certainly does seem to have some merit if based solely on philosophical grounds. After all, how “fair” is it to condemn someone for being what he or she is? If someone can’t help but sin, then why should that person be punished?

But while the Arminian tends to focus on the negative—the sinner who can’t help but sin—the opposite aspect cannot be ignored. If the Arminian argument is that it is not “fair” to punish people who had no choice in sinning, it likewise cannot be “fair” to reward anyone who had no choice in doing good either.

Certainly this seems to follow. If we are morally culpable because of freedom, we are only morally praiseworthy if we are free too.

Now this doesn’t seem to be too controversial so far. However, consider the simple fact that God cannot sin. We know from the Scripture that God is perfectly good in His nature. Therefore, God does not have the freedom to sin.

This is not a problem for the Calvinist because Calvinism recognizes that the will need not be free in order to maintain moral responsibility. It is, however, devastating to the Arminian position. Some have tried to get around it by saying that God could do evil, He just keeps Himself from doing it¹. Yet when we read passages like Hebrews 6:18 we discover that it is not an issue of God being able to sin but choosing not to—it is impossible for God to lie, and if we extend that to all sins (as seems logical), then it is impossible for God to sin at all.

If it is impossible for God to sin, then He must necessarily always do good. But if He is always good without the possibility of evil, then according to the Arminian there is no goodness in God’s lack of evil for He could not have sinned in the first place. Accoring to this argument, if God does not have the freedom to sin, then God’s actions cannot be morally good any more than our actions could be morally wrong if we did not have the freedom to do good. It is merely how God is—there is nothing good nor evil about it.

But how logical is it to say, “God is not honest because He doesn’t have the capacity to lie”? How logical is it to say, “God is not just because He doesn’t have the capacity to punish wrongly”? How logical is it to say, “God is not good because He does not have the capacity to do evil”? It is clear that the moral descriptions do not depend on freedom, but rather on what God is.

And how logical is it to say, “Man is not dishonest because he doesn’t have the capacity to tell the truth”? How logical is it to say, “Man is not unjust because he doesn’t have the capacity to punish wickedness”? How logical is it to say, “Man is not evil because he does not have the capacity to do good”? Once again, it is clear that the moral descriptions do not depend on freedom, but rather on what man is.

Someone is evil if he does evil, not if he had no choice but to do evil. Is it just to punish something if it cannot help but be evil? Well, is it just to praise God if He cannot help but be good?

Examine that and you will find your answer.

The most important thing whenever someone enters into a discussion on abortion is to define the terms clearly. Often people will use unclear definitions, which will lead both to the unfortunate case where people talk past each other, as well as making it easier to escape the force of a logical argument. It is also possible to do this in most instances without arguing for the truth of Christianity too (although a Christian apologist arguing against abortion must be able to shift into the presuppositions of Christianity if the need arises).

So let us define some terms now.

Abortion is the unjustified taking of the life of an unborn human being.

This statement combines both a factual truth and a philosophical truth. By “factual truth” we mean a truth that can be argued empirically by the scientific facts of the matter. By “philosophical truth” we mean a truth that depends upon a moral argument rather than empirical testing. The factual statement is “Abortion takes the life of an unborn human being.” The philosophical statement is “Abortion is unjustifiable.”

Let us start with the factual argument: Abortion takes the life of an unborn human being.

The factual argument is commonly attacked first and the most common attack comes from the concept of “personhood.” That is, pro-choice advocates tend to argue: “A fetus is not a person, and therefore is not a human being.”

Firstly, even if someone were able to argue that a fetus is not a “person”, that does not change whether the fetus is a “human being.” This can be seen by asking for the opposite: if a fetus is not human then what is the fetus? Again, let us stick to science here and look at an example of some different fetuses.

Consider a lamb. It is a “sheep.” What type of being is an unborn lamb fetus? It is likewise a “sheep.” The fetus that makes up a sheep fetus cannot make a human being because the ontological nature of the fetus is that it is a sheep, not a human.

In the same way, human beings can only produce other human beings, never anything else. As a result, the ontology (the being) of an unborn human fetus is that it is human. So the scientific fact is that at conception the fertilized egg is a human being in the first stage of development.

After all, why do scientists use the stem cells of an unborn human fetus for cloning and gene therapies for an adult human? Why can’t they just use an unborn sheep, monkey, or pig to achieve these results? It is because they need human stem cells. And the only fetus that can give human stem cells is a human fetus. There is something in a human fetus that one cannot get from any other creature, for if it were possible to get these therapies from alternatives sources then surely scientists would seek to avoid the ethical dilemmas of using human stem cells, and their research would be fairly innocuous.

Therefore, the pro-choice argument is erroneous. Even if we define the unborn as a “non-person”, “being” is not dependent upon personhood. Being refers to what something is.

This human fetus not only is a human being, but she is a human being differentiated from her mother. Identical twins aside, the DNA of each human is unique (and in the case of identical twins we can see that two human beings with the same DNA are still two separate individuals). Further, excluding the rare case of chimeras, no single individual has two different types of DNA. This gives us the presumption by DNA evidence alone that, since the DNA of a human fetus is different from both her mother and her father, she is a distinct being. Therefore, the argument that the fetus is a “part of the woman’s body” is likewise proven wrong.

Since a fetus is human, than the fetus is just as much a human being as an infant. She is just as human as an elderly man. In terms of being, all are equally human.

The fetus is also most definitely alive. If she were not alive, then it would be impossible to kill her, as abortion does.

A fetus displays all the characteristics of any other living organism: she responds to stimuli, she grows, she has cellular reproduction, she has a metabolism. A fetus fits the scientific definition of a living being, and is therefore factually alive.

So we find that the factual statement is true: Abortion takes the life of an unborn human being.

Now we need to look at the moral statement: Abortion is unjustified.

A pro-choice advocate certainly might agree with the factual argument presented above and acknowledge that an unborn human fetus is a human being. However, he may still claim that a fetus is not a “person” and that it is justifiable to kill human beings who are non-persons. Of course if you ask, “What’s the difference between a being and a person?” very few can give a logical answer. Most of us do not have the slightest idea what the philosophical distinction between personhood and being is…yet that distinction is the basis for why a “non-person” human being is okay to kill. If the justification you use to support your behavior cannot even be properly defined by you, you should start to worry about your ethics.

Now, typically when someone refers to a fetus as being a “non-person” they mean this: “A fetus is not conscious. It is not sentient. It is not rational. Therefore, we can justifiably kill a fetus for any reason and abortion is not the unjustified taking of human life.”

As before, there are several problems with this argument. First, if we are to base our definition of personhood on these qualities (consciousness, sentience, rationality), then to be consistent we would become less of a person when we are sleeping (unconscious) or when we think irrationally. Does poor thought take away from our fundamental rights as human beings? Does being asleep make it okay to kill us since we are not conscious? Since the answer to both of these questions is “no”, the conclusion is that our rights do not depend upon our conformity to personhood as defined by “consciousness.”

Of course that doesn’t really answer the question. Why is it wrong to kill me while I am asleep? Because I am still a human being, even if I am asleep. Consciousness-based personhood does not really enter into the equation. Ontology is the only constant from which we can base our morality.

This brings an immediate problem to the abortionist because of the fact that we have already determined that an unborn human fetus is both alive and a human being. If our rights are based on our being, then a fetus has the same human rights as an adult human, including the right to life.

In a last effort to salvage his position, a pro-choice advocate might bring up the death penalty since most people who disagree with abortions are conservatives, and conservatives tend to support the death penalty. Their argument now becomes, “If it is wrong to kill a human being, then how can you support the death penalty?”

Let us first point out the obvious. That has nothing to do with abortion! Suppose for the sake of argument that it is wrong for capital punishment to occur. Does the fact that I am wrong in one area make my view in a completely different area also wrong? Not at all. Suppose I said, “The earth is round and the moon is square.” Does the fact that I err about the nature of the moon mean I err about the nature of the earth? Of course not.

So if I say, “It is okay to practice the death penalty, but abortion is wrong,” does my statement about abortion have anything to do with the death penalty? The only way that it would be valid to bring up the death penalty is if my argument for abortion used the death penalty for support. If you read above, you see that clearly this is not the case. This tactic, used by the pro-choice advocate, is nothing more than a red herring.

Secondly, the pro-life person who would argue for the death penalty would point out that the death penalty is the justified taking of human life. Unlike in abortion, where a human is killed for being in the wrong place (her mother’s womb), the wrong size, or the wrong stage of human development, those who are killed via the death penalty have had a trial, have gone through all their appeals, and are facing the consequences of their behavior. The unborn have engaged in no behavior that justifies their death. They have had no trial. They have not been able to defend themselves. They have broken no laws. As such, the death penalty and abortion are apples and oranges.

There are no arguments that the pro-choice advocate can use to refute the definition given above: Abortion is the unjustified taking of the life of an unborn human being.

A common, yet unfounded, charge against Calvinism is that if Calvinism is true then infants who die in infancy are damned. As one Arminian put it,

If a baby is depraved and evil, then there is really no hope for them under [Calvinism]. Of course some Calvinists get around this by saying that a baby is regenerated at death, even though he has no chance to “accept Christ as Savior” or to be called by God as one of his Elect (Editor’s Note: The quote was originally located at http://www.tecinfo.com/~bragwell/calvin.html but that page no longer exists).

Calvinism does not teach that infants have no chance at everlasting life. Far from it, Calvinism is really the only method that consistently explains why an infant who dies in infancy can be saved.

The reason why is because none of us are saved because of how righteous we are. Whoever is saved is saved by the application of the blood of Christ, and never by our own innocence. Each of us born depraved; the effects of Original Sin are real. Let’s look at a few passages that demonstrate this.

“There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.” (Romans 3:10-11). No one, not even one would naturally include even infants. Paul’s intention is to prove to the Romans that there is not a single person who is not evil. It is likely to assume that if infants and children were innocent, he would have given a long dissertation on why children were exempt.

But did he? No. Not in any of the many places he could have mentioned it. For example, he continues: “For just as through the disobedience of the one man [Adam] the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man [Jesus] the many will be made righteous.” (Romans 5:19). From one man, the many were made sinners—children are not exempted from this. Indeed, we see a link to children as well: “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned” (Romans 5:12). Death is linked to sin.

Do infants die? Obvious examples abound—simply picking up a newspaper should demonstrate that they do, indeed, die. But Paul says that “death came to all men, because all sinned.” And in case it was unclear, Paul continues in the next chapter: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23). The wages of sin result in death. Death comes because all sin. If babies are innocent, then what basis is left for why they die?

Some Arminians have said that it is because others have sinned that infants die. That is, infants die because adults are evil and kill them. Yet this seems to be in contradiction to their own stated ethics (specifically those Arminians who deny Original Sin). After all, these Arminians accuse Calvinists of worshipping an immoral God by saying “It’s not fair that children are depraved because of Adam’s sin”…yet somehow it’s fair for children to die for the sins of others? The same God who is “unjust” for Original Sin can “justly” allow children who have not sinned to take the penalty for that sin?

It is important to note that if infants are innocent and they die, then this also means that Christ’s death is not unique. That is, Christ’s death was efficacious at least in part because He was innocent when He took our sins upon Himself. If children truly are innocent, then He is not the only genuinely innocent person to ever die, and that takes away part of the uniqueness of Christ in history.

There are even more passages regarding the nature of infants. Psalm 58:3: “Even from birth the wicked go astray; from the womb they are wayward and speak lies.” Psalm 51:5: “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” Note, from the moment of conception we are sinners. Genesis 8:21: “The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: ‘Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood.’” Note that every inclination is evil from childhood. Ecclesiastes 7:20: “There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins.” And the very words of Christ: “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again’” (John 3:6-7).

Flesh gives birth to flesh. That is, we give birth to those with our nature. Babies are born of the flesh, not the spirit, or else they would not need to be born again. Indeed, as Job says, “Who can bring what is pure from the impure? No one!” (Job 14:4).

And even if we set aside Scripture, we can just observe that there are no innocent children. The matter is seen simply by examining how infants act. They are selfish, screaming when they do not get attention. They steal, taking the toys they want from those who already have them. If they get angered, they react with violence, hitting people, or throwing a tantrum. When any of these behaviors are done by adults, the behavior is condemned as evil. However, since it is a child who behaves this way (indeed, do we not call it “childish behavior” if an adult acts in a similar fashion?) we excuse the behavior. The question is: what moral reason is there to differentiate between the adult and the child in this case? The behavior is the same. The only difference is in who does it, not in what is done.

Given the fact that we are all sinners and evil, is there any reason at all why God should be required to save children? Not at all. For there is no reason at all why God would have to save children, any more than there is reason for Him to be required to save us. If God did not save infants, than He would not be committing an injustice by not saving them, for they deserve hell just as much as the ninety-year-old man who has sinned every day of his life.

But does that mean that God actually does send children to hell? That is the charge of the Arminian against Calvinism. They say that if children are evil, then they will die without a chance to accept Christ, and will go to hell. But such an argument takes a Calvinistic premise (that children are evil) and applies it to the Arminian method of salvation (that faith is self-generated). You see, Calvinism says that if God elects you to be saved, He will complete that work so that you are saved. Therefore, if God elects children to be saved, they will be saved. They do not lack the ability to “accept” the Spirit, as the Arminian claims here. If God elects that all children be saved, then all will be saved. If “acceptance” is a prerequisite, then God will ensure the infant is able to “accept”—whatever that may entail.

The Bible does seem to indicate that God may very well save children. Ezekiel 16:21 calls heathen children God’s: “You slaughtered my children and sacrificed them to the idols.” It is no great leap to conclude that God’s children would go to heaven, not to hell. Furthermore, Jonah 4:11 shows that God had pity on those who “could not tell their right hand from their left” indicating that He cared for children (again, an indication, not a proof). Finally, 2 Samuel 12:23 may indicate that David expected to see his child in heaven: “I will go to him, but he will not return to me” (although this probably just means that David knew he would die, but the baby would not live again).

As you can see, none of these show that God will save children. Yet think about this: if they are evil just as we are evil, and God saved us, then why would we think that God wouldn’t save infants and children?

But my thesis statement at the opening to this entry said that Calvinism is the only method that consistently explains why an infant who dies in infancy can be saved. It is not enough to demonstrate that infants can be saved in Calvinism. Let me also show why infants cannot logically be saved under non-Reformed views.

Let us therefore compare the Reformed view with the typical Arminian position that a person must accept the grace of God by his or her own cognition. An infant lacks the ability to consciously exercise faith. If the exercising of that faith by accepting the grace of God is required for salvation, it is impossible for any infant to believe. Since the Bible clearly shows that infants are born depraved, and if we further suppose that faith is self-generated, there is no method by which a child can be saved.

Let us take a different non-Reformed view of salvation and suppose that Original Sin and total depravity are somehow not true. This means that the infant is saved by his or her own righteousness, not by the blood of Christ. Indeed, “infant salvation” is a misnomer under such a view, for there is nothing to save the infant from. It also means that every time an infant dies, the infant unjustly experiences the wages of sin, for the infant did not sin to deserve that death.

If we take the Roman Catholic view that baptism gets rid of Original Sin, then we are still left with infant salvation arising apart from faith in Christ, for again the infant is saved by the basis of its own innocence (aquired, in this theory, by baptism) and not faith. No matter how you look at it, if an infant is saved by anything other than faith, then infants are saved by a different salvation than you or me.

Since the Reformed view states that faith is a gift from God rather than being self-generated, there is no reason why God could not grant that gift to infants just as he grants it to adults. Ultimately, only a view that has a divinely-granted gift of faith that does not rely upon the one receiving the gift (i.e., it’s unconditional) can consistently argue for infant salvation. Any other view must, at some point, break consistency and claim that infants are saved for reasons other than the death and resurrection of Christ.

Mother Theresa probably had as much “good” in her as Hitler had “evil” in him. Which is to say, suppose that Mother Theresa had 100 good units. Hitler has a comparable 100 evil units. And I do think this is probably comparable, for Hitler was not the most evil that he could have been, and Mother Theresa was not as good as she could have been either. Generally speaking, the most evil person you could think of probably is about as evil as the most good person you can think of is good (baring Jesus, of course).

Yet there was a lot more evil done by Hitler than good done by Mother Theresa. The resulting conclusion my co-worker has come to is this: you get far more done with one evil unit than you can with one good unit. That is, it is easier to be evil than to be good.

I found that to be an interesting idea. I don’t know if there’s any way to actually quantify any of it to get real values instead of just arbitrarily saying “good” and “evil” units, etc. But as a mental exercise I think it’s intriguing. I also think it proves that I work with awesome people! Who else gets to go to a job where you’d have this conversation?