Friday, October 9, 2020

Charles Krauth on the Damnation of Infants in Calvinism

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.:

 

 An Examination and Critique of the Theological Presuppositions Underlying Reformed Theology



 

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)