Children Who Die Before the
Age of Accountability
A brief sidenote should be
mentioned here to demonstrate some of the complexities of determining when a
moment of perfect decision is reached. For The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints, the age at which children are baptized is at eight years old (D&C
68:25-27), and this is sometimes called “the age of accountability” (a term
slightly modified from D&C 20:71). Children who die before the age of eight
do not have their temple work performed for them. It is assumed it is
unnecessary for them based on a passage in the Book of Mormon, where Mormon
states:
But little children are alive
in Christ, even from the foundation of the world; if not so, God is a partial
God, and also a changeable God, and a respecter to persons; for how many little
children have died without baptism! Wherefore, if little children could not be
saved without baptism, these must have gone to an endless hell. (Moroni
8:12-13)
Latter-day Saints have a clear
sense that we will be punished only for our own sins, not Adam’s (Articles of
Faith 1:2), which is even labelled a less-condemnatory “transgression” as opposed
to a “sin,” a clear repudiation of at least some notions of original sin. It is
thought that children are not capable of making decisions they are fully
culpable for before the age of eight. But they are culpable in the next life.
What of their fate in the spirit world before resurrection? It is unclear. Will
they be in the resurrection? There are hints they will be resurrected as
children and allowed to be raised in the millennial reign of Christ
(D&C 101:30-31). Are they not culpable in mortality (not even temptable,
according to D&C 29:47), die before the age of eight, become culpable in
the spirit world, then not culpable after resurrection? There is much here that
is unclear and unrevealed.
Again it seems that the broad
strokes of LDS theology come into play more than the finer details. Everybody
will have a full chance and opportunity to understand and accept the gospel. Salvation
is never forced. The fact of the matter is, there is no firm Latter-day Saint
revelation on how and when children who die before the age of eight will have
their full understanding of the gospel and are thus able to make a decision to
accept or reject Christ. It is clear that they are not punished for their
failure to make this a decision in mortal life before they are capable of fully
doing so. The rest is very murky, and when their moment of perfect decision
could be reached is unclear. Paul’s statement that, “for now we see in a
mirror, dimly,” (1 Corinthians 13:12) seems apropos. (Carl J. Cranney,
"The Final Answer to God: The Fate of the Unevangelized in Catholic and
Mormon Thought" [Ph.D. diss., The Catholic University of America, 2020],
177-78)
