Age of accountability?
Thursday, 27 February, 2003
Still reading The Case for Faith and have stumbled across some interesting bits to do with the age of accountability. Lee Strobel interviews Normal Geisler on the subject of “God Isn't Worthy of Worship If He Kills Innocent Children” who says,
According to the Bible, every child who dies before the age of accountability goes to heaven to spend eternity in the presence of God ... Now, if they had continued to live in that horrible society [the society of the Amalekites], past the age of accountability, they undoubtedly would have become corrupted and thereby lost forever ... Isaiah 7:16 talks about an age before a child is morally accountable, before the child “knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right.” King David spoke of going to be with his son who died at birth. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these,” which indicates they will go to heaven. There's a considerable amount of other scriptural support for this position as well.
Later on, when Strobel is interviewing J.P. Moreland on the subject of “A Loving God Would Never Torture People in Hell”, Moreland says similar things:
... in the Bible children are universally viewed as figures of speech for salvation. In all of the texts where children are used in regard to the afterlife, they're used as pictures of being saved. There's no case where children are ever used as figures of damnation ... Here's a good example. The child that King David conceived in an adulterous relationship with Bathsheba died, and David says in Second Samuel 12:23: “I will go to him but he will not return to me.” David was expressing the truth that his child will be in heaven and that he would join him someday. So that is another piece of evidence that children will not be in hell.
This doctrine does not sit neatly with me. I simply don't think it's true but then I was wrong about angels and I might be wrong about this. It's not that I want to believe in a sadistic God who tortures kids. It's just I think the whole premise is flawed. The age of accountability thing is based on the assumption that children have not sinned. Now, I know I've only been doing Sunday School for about five weeks now and I don't have that much experience with kids, but I do know that they sin just as much as you or me and their age doesn't seem to make a difference (ie. younger children do not sin less than older children). Someone told me once that you never have to teach a child how to misbehave; he or she seems to instinctively know how. A guy in my old Bible Study group illustrated this perfectly by saying to his daughter, “Don't touch the bookcase!” After he said this, she tried to get as close as possible to the bookcase without touching it. To me, that perfectly illustrates the concept of sin and its pervasiveness throughout all mankind.
So what about this “age of accountability” thing? Why do such smart and intelligent people like Norman Geisler and J.P. Moreland believe it? Does the Bible actually talk about some sort of grace period where children, even though they are sinners, still get to go to heaven if they die before a certain age? Does this issue have anything to do with the words of Paul who said,
If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. (1 Corinthians 7:13-14)
Does having holy children mean that they get to go to heaven? What about babies who die in the womb before they are born? And yet, as someone pointed out to me, the Holy Spirit can be present in a child before it is born (see Luke 1:39-45 but perhaps the presence of the Holy Spirit was in Elizabeth, not in John).
At the end of the day, I realise I am totally unqualified to determine who gets into heaven and who does not. All I know is that God will judge us according to what we have done and how we have responded to Jesus:
He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality. (Romans 2: 6-11)
I just don't see how children can be excluded from that.
Current:
Bible: Isaiah (ESV) 28/09/2010
seen: Tropic Thunder 26/09/2010
seen: The Life of Mammals 24/09/2010
seen: What a Girl Wants 19/09/2010
seen: Jerry Maguire 19/09/2010
seen: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 06/09/2010
seen: Tomorrow Never Dies 05/09/2010
seen: Nanny McPhee 28/08/2010
read: Mercury (Hope Larson) 27/08/2010
read: Spellcheckers Vol 1 (Jamie S Rich, Nicolas Hitori de, Joelle Jones) 16/08/2010
read: Solipsistic Pop Vol 2 (Solipsistic Pop) 16/08/2010
read: Chiggers (Hope Larson) 15/08/2010
seen: Josie and the Pussycats 14/08/2010
seen: Mr & Mrs Smith 14/08/2010
seen: Step Up 2 13/08/2010
Blinks:
How to recalibrate the home button on your iPhone.
Unsolicited manuscripts accepted by Pan Macmillan with certain conditions.
Thought Balloon is a group blog in which the writers tackle a new theme every week? month? with one-page scripts. This URL is for their Phonogram ones.
How to sew a zipper on a knitted garment.
Issues organised by tale.
Online magazine that publishes fairy tales that are not reworkings of old tales.
Journal that publishes fairy tale writing.
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Other comments
Thanks for that post - very stimulating stuff.
That was a well thought-out discussion, Karen, though a bit compact for the issue at hand
I’ve struggled with the same issue. I haven’t read Isaiah in its entirety, and thus haven’t heard of Isaiah 7:16. I agree that the doctrine of sinless children doesn’t sit well with what we know of human sinfulness: if there is a ‘grace period’ in which children are seen as sinless, how long does it last, and do we know when it cuts out? We both came to the same conclusion, which makes me feel a bit better, but is still somewhat unsatisfying…
Ah, well. Guess we’ll find out some day, eh?
Karen, I used to be in a church which stressed the ‘age of accountability.” However, they did not really speak much of a child not sinning. Obviously they do. Rather they spoke of a child being in a position to understand what Jesus did for them. While they loosely held to an age of 12, they also recognised that every child was different. They also used this to cover those with other problems who may not be able to make decisions for themselves. I still don’t find this altogether satisfactory, but it’s better than saying children don’t sin. I do know that my three boys all became christians at a fairly early age, and I believe they knew what they were doing then.
Shalom,
Jan
Thanks for your comments, everyone! Jan, you do raise an interesting point: when can a child decide for himself/herself to follow Jesus? It’s lovely to hear that your sons became Christians when very young. How young could a child be? Could a child decide to follow Jesus as a baby? As a toddler? At what age do they start understanding?
Interesting…Does the ‘age of accountability’ idea relate to the age at which it is possible for a child to both accept Jesus or reject Jesus? Or…is it possible to accept Jesus at any age, depending on the child’s own capabilities for understanding…but children are not responsible for their sin until a pre-determined age (eg. 12)? But then that would make it redundant or irrelevant at what age a child becomes a Christian if it’s before the age of 12 as they will go to heaven anyway…It’s all very problematic.
I’d always thought “For all have sinned” as far as children were concerned: anything else seemed to be a bit of a cop-out.
Obviously, this is pastorally insensitive, though. Not much comfort for the parents who have lost a child; not fitting with “let the children come to me”.
I’d really put this into the “look into it once you have children” basket; Good to see other people wrestling through an issue, though.
We had a girl at church give her testimony last night, and she understood that she was sinful (and became a Christian) at age 4!
Karen, and others,
Thanks for the interesting thoughts, but I’m not so sure I agree (although, I’m not fully convicted on either side..).
The ‘age of accountability’, I think, isn’t necessarily a numbered age (ie, 12) simply because we are all different people and God can and does reveal himself to people at different times in their lives.
Wouldn’t, rather, the ‘age’ be more in line with scripture (since scripture doesn’t mention a particular number, yet does refer consistently to where our heart is) if it were talking about a time when God was convicting us about our lives in relation to His goals for us?
Wouldn’t it better serve God, since he doesn’t wish that any should perish, to be sure that we understood the Law and our depravity within it, our need for Him, before he declared us unfit for the Kingdom? Everywhere in the New Testament, it is mentioned that the Law is designed for us to see the difference between the light and the darkness. It points us to Christ. But, without knowledge of the Law, how are we to be judged? Both Gentiles and Jews were saved prior to Christ’s (“it was reckoned to him[/her] as righteousness”) birth. How? Because they served a God they knew of. They knew of God’s Law, even in the smallest sense, and knew that following His ways was the only Way. Otherwise, why does Christ say that we will be held accountable for what we know? If we do not know his Law, how would we be pointed to Christ himself and recognize our desperation?
Just a thought to extend the controversy.. heh..
Nate: But what about Romans 2:12-16?
Wouldn’t God judge children the same way as Gentiles who have not heard the gospel?