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[Semicolon]

Does murdering an innocent person guarantee their passage into heaven?

Sorry if this has been asked before. It's just been bugging me because I haven't been able to find an answer. If a mother truly cares about her children wouldn't it be pragmatic to kill them and guarantee their spot in heaven before they could sin, sacrificing your own spot in heaven?

[jimwalton]

We do believe that the Bible gives evidence that babies/young children who die go to heaven. But your premise ("If a mother truly cares about her children wouldn't it be pragmatic to kill them and guarantee their spot in heaven before they could sin, sacrificing your own spot in heaven?") is horrific.

You're taking (r inquiring about) the position called Consequentialism (utilitarianism): the consequences provide the ultimate basis for determining what's right and wrong in each situation. The problem with Consequentialism is that sometimes the means can be horrifically wrong in an attempt to reach a possibly uncertain outcome.

Principles of this sort can have some pretty awful results. Suppose the greatest happiness of the greatest number or the highest amount of net preference satisfaction involved disregarding the interests of a minority, even to the point of enslaving them or killing them? This isn't the only objection to utilitarianism, but it’s an important and I believe a fatal one.

That’s not a moral principle, it's the abandonment of morality. The idea that the ends are what make the means right applies to the adoption of means too. So if the end is the greatest happiness for the greatest number, any means you adopt have to be consistent with that. If the ends are maximizing net satisfaction of preferences (and note that this treats racist, sexist, exploitative preferences as on a par with compassionate and loving ones) the means can't be inconsistent with that. They have to pass the test too.

While we believe that babies/young children who die go to heaven because the Bible hints at such, and while we believe that God is just and isn't going to punish people for things they didn't know and didn't do (the Bible is clear about that), your proposition to slaughter babies to guarantee their position in heaven as an act of care (presumably compassion), is a horrific and untenable one. Salvation is not (and never was) meant to be secured by slaughter, so this entire thought is a distortion.

Instead we generally take a deontological viewpoint: The rightness or wrongness of an act derives from the action itself and not from the consequence of the act. If a person considers himself to be ethical, then he should be ethical at all times without exceptions. It is very strange for someone who claims to have high moral standards and strict ethical rules to engage in what can be considered to be dubious behavior in order to achieve a greater good. They are more likely to look for other solutions to the issue that don’t conflict with their value system.

It is very hard to justify an unethical act by stating that the goodness of the outcome outweighs any wrongdoing. No excuse can make a morally wrong decision a right one. Taking an unethical step to solve a problem makes a person just as guilty and immoral as the original wrongdoer.

What we know specifically is that the Bible in this case is not crystal clear about the ends, but it is about the means (while believe it, when it comes right down to it, we are making an inference). Romans 6.1-2: “Should we sin so grace can abound? God forbid.” Secondly, God hates the shedding of innocent blood (Dt. 19.10; Ps. 72.12-14; Prov. 31.8-9). We behave in a godly way and follow the commands of the Bible and the example of Jesus. It's a lifestyle of values and ethics based on principles and a relationship with God, not on rules, pragmatism, or consequentialism.

Aldous Huxley said that good ends can be achieved only by the employment of appropriate means. The end cannot justify the means for the simply and obvious reason that the means employed determine the nature of the end product.

Wilhelm Reich: "You think the end justifies the means, however vile. I tell you: the end is the means by which you achieve it. Today’s step is tomorrow’s life. Great ends cannot be obtained by base means. You’ve proved that in all your social upheavals. The meanness and inhumanity of the means make you mean and inhuman and make the end unattainable."

[Semicolon]

I understand the act of murdering the children is abhorrent. That's not what I was asking about. By murdering someone innocent you are securing their afterlife of eternal bliss. The goal of doing this is not for the murderer to get into heaven but for the victims to be ensured heaven. The ends concern the children but do the means in anyway concern anybody except the murderer? That is the ultimate question. I am not saying for certain what is ethical, I am simply asking how to solve this paradox. Is ultimate sacrifice in a broader sense (beyond a physical sacrifice) more ethical than simple murder (a mere physical concern for the victim)? There is conflicting morality in the situation. On one hand there is morality in sacrificing yourself for others but on the other hand there is sin in murdering someone (obviously). Also, after a child is baptized and circumcised there is no reason for the child to not be free from sin.

[jimwalton]

I'm trying to understand. If you're not talking about children, then you're talking about...adults? According to biblical theology, there are no innocent adults (Romans 3.10-18, 23). People don't go to heaven because they've been good, but rather because they have the nature of Jesus. Goodness doesn't earn one's way to heaven (Eph. 2.8-9). If a good person dies, they don't automatically go to heaven. Only the people who have received the free gift of life Jesus offers so that He changes their nature from sin nature to his own nature get into heaven. Goodness has nothing to do with it.

Am I understanding what you're asking?

[Semicolon]

This does answer my question but then that has me wondering if children can ever make it to heaven if they have never accepted Jesus. If goodness or simply lack of sin cannot determine your spot in heaven then how can children, who are incapable of thought complex enough to understand God, make it into heaven? Maybe I'm wrong in the assumption that children can't accept Jesus, but anything else just seems counterintuitive.

Thanks for answering my questions; I'm not the most well versed in the Christian faith.

[jimwalton]

Thanks for talking with me, then. Glad to help. There are hints in the Bible that children who die go to heaven because they were incapable of rational, moral decisions, and God doesn't hold people accountable for decisions when they are completely incapable of decisions.

Dt. 1.37-40: God's people are being judged for their rebellion, but the young ones who didn't have the mental capacity to make a reasoned and moral decision like that don't get judged.

Number 14.29 speaks of a kind of "age of accountability," just as Dt. 1.37-40 did.

Isa. 7.15. People can be too young mentally to know enough to reject the wrong and choose the right.

So it seems that children who are too young to be capable of thought complex enough to understand God, let alone make a love commitment to him, will not be judged because of their youth.