It is no secret that I am not a fan of Calvinism, Personally, I find Reformed theology to be abhorrent, but beyond this, and more importantly, it is anti-biblical. For a discussion, see, for e.g.:
One of the more abhorrent aspects of
Calvinism is Reformed theology on those who die in infancy. Charles Krauth
(1823-1883), a Lutheran theologian wrote the following on Reformed theologians’
teachings on this:
ACTUAL PERDITION OF
INFANTS ACCORDING TO CALVINISM
Holding that all
infants deserve damnation, that the election of God alone can save them from it,
and that this election does not extend to all infants, Calvinism of necessity
teaches that some infants perish.
CALVIN. (Ezekiel XVIII,.,
Opera iv. 167) – “As to infants they seem to perish not by their own fault but
by the fault of another; but there is a double solution. Though sin does not
yet appear in them, yet it is latent; for they bear corruption shut up in the
soul, so that before God they are damnable.”
“That infants who are
to be saved (as certainly out of that age some are saved) must be before
generated by the Lord is clear.” (Institu. iv.xvi.17)
MARTYR. (Peter Martyr
Vermigli, Common Place, I., 234) – “Augustine adjudgeth young infants to hell
fire, if they die not regenerated. And the Holy Scriptures do seem to
favour his part; for in the last judgment, there shall be but only a double
sentence pronounced. There is no third place appointed between the saved and condemned
*** We will say, therefore, with Augustine, and with the Holy Scripture, that
they must be punished.”
SPANHEIM, the elder,
in arguing against the universality of the Divine will, that men should be
saves, says: “Either God wills to have mercy unto the salvation of the Gentiles
outside of the covenant, whether deprived of life in the cradle, in the earliest
infancy, or attaining to some age, or He does not If He does not, the
universality of His pity goes to the ground. If He does, it follows that to
numberless ones to whom not a word concerning Christ and the Gospel was ever
made known, there exists a way to salvation, outside of Christ and the
covenant of God,” “The universal pity overthrows the decree of election and
reprobation.” (Exercitat. de Grat., universali, 4)
MOLINAEUS. (Thasaurus
Disputit. Theolog. in Sedan. Acad. Genev. 1661.I.212) – “Of the infants of unbelievers.”
“We dare not promise salvation to any (infant) remaining outside of Christ’s
covenant. They are indeed by nature ‘children of wrath’ (Eph. ii.3), and ‘strangers
from the covenant of promise,’ ([[Verse 12 >> Eph. 2.12]]). They are
pronounced (1 Corinth, vii. 14) ‘unclean,’ while that they are contrasted with
the ‘holy.’ From which curse, inasmuch as no one is freed except through
Christ. I do not find that the benefit of Christ pertains to them.”
COCCEIUS. (Cateches.
Palat. Quaes LXXIV). – “Elect Infants” ** “are not conceived and born as are
the children of the Gentiles, concerning whom the presumption is certain,
that they, with their mother’s milk, drink in godlessness unto destruction.”
DR. TWISS, Prolocutor
of the Westminster Assembly. – WILIAM TWISS (1575-1646) was renowned for
his learning, his piety, and his rigid Calvinism. He was a strong
Supralapsarian. He nobly represents the firmness and internal consistency of
the true old Calvinist. He was worthy the honor conferred on him by both Houses
of Parliament, in electing him Prolocutor of the Westminster Assembly of
Divines. “He was universally allowed to be the ablest opponent of Arminianism in
that age.” His greatest work in his Vindicise Gratiae (28), his Vindication of
the Grace, Power and Providence of God. It was written in reply to the
Criticism of Arrninius (1560-1609) on Perkins (1558-1602). Twiss says: “Many
Infants depart from this life in original sin, and consequently are condemned
to eternal death, on account of original sin alone: therefore from the sole
transgression of Adam condemnation to eternal death has followed upon many
infants.” (Vindiciae, I. 48)
(WESTMINSTER
CONFESSION:X., iii.,iv.: “Elect infants ** are saved. ** So too are all
other elect persons. Others not elected ** cannot be saved.”
The doctrine of
genuine Calvinism then is that there are reprobate infants who are left to the
total penalty which original sin brings and merits.
What that is, the
Larger Catechism defines: “The fall brought upon mankind the loss of communion with
God, his displeasure and curse; so that we are by nature children of wrath,
bound slaves to Satan, and justly liable to all punishments in this world and
that which is to come.’ The punishments of sin in the world to come “are
everlasting separation from the comfortable presence of God, and most grievous
torments in soul and body, without intermission, in hell-fire forever.” (Q. 29)
In this state of sin and misery God leaves all men, except his elect.
(Q. 30). “Every sin, both original and actual, *** doth in
its own nature bring guilt upon the sinner, whereby he is bound over to the
wrath of God and curse of the law, and so made subject to death, with ALL the
miseries, spiritual, temporal, and ETERNAL.” (Westminster Confess. VI., 6). It
is from this the “elect infants” are delivered. It is to this the “reprobate
infants” are abandoned. (Charles Krauth, The Doctrine of Baptism: Selected Writings
on the Sacrament [Classics in Dogmatics; Ithaca, N.Y.: Just and Sinner,
2020], 19-21, emphasis in original)
Perhaps realising how abhorrent such a
teaching is, many have tried to argue that, while condemned to eternal hell,
such infants will not be punished as great degree as others:
ATTEMPTS AT
MITIGATION OF THE CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE OF INFANT DAMNATION
Though Calvinists
have regarded the doctrine of infant damnation as involved in the logic of the
case, they have not been able to repress the promptings of our common humanity,
which Christianity does not repress, but intensifies. The evidence of this
human feeling is also the evidence of the fixedness of the doctrine of infant damnation
in the system. The attempts to mitigate its horrors, show that they could not
abandon the doctrine itself. The confession of this feeling of a need of
mitigation shows itself in various ways.
1. In some by a
virtual acknowledgement of the principle of the Limbus Infantum. Fighting the
name, and part of the definition given by the Church of Rome, many of the
Calvinists have granted, in substance, the thing.
MARTYR. (Common
Places, I.234) – “Young infants must be punished (in hell-fire). But it is
credible they shall be the easier punished.”
CHAMIER. (Panstrat.
Cathol. Contract. Spanheim, 795) – “Infants guilty of original sin only, in
very deed suffer the eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.
Although the opinion of Augustine is not improbable, that their
pains are in the mildest.”
MOLINAEUS.
(Thesaurus. Disputat. Theolog. in Sedan. Acad. I.212) – “Here,” (“of the
infants of unbelievers”) “nevertheless language should be sober. We piously
presume that a good God acts clemently, with those little souls, (animulis),
and that their punishment is far lighter than the punishment of those
who polluted by their proper, and personal sins, die without the grace of
Christ.”
STAPFER (Instit.
Theol. Polem. IV.,518) – “They will be damned: but there are various grades
of the sense of that penalty and of damnation so that the penalty of infants,
and the share of it will be at least, and therefore differs much from
that of the devil, and of adults voluntarily preserving in their sins; so that
here also God will be found just in His ways.” (Ibid., 85-86, emphasis in original)
