Fairy Tale Spotlight: Children, Innocence, and Hell (A Speculative Blog)

[This blog may be rough on people who have lost a child. If you are worried you will be hurt or offended by the subject matter, I would rather you skip this one. I have no interest in upsetting people.]

This is a rough topic and not one that is fully vetted by me. That is why is is mainly a speculative one. By speculative, I mean that I have thought much about it and attempted to get to the truth by merely looking at the way things work. I have not really gotten to a solid conclusion, but I do wish to at least announce a premise. That premise being: Some children might go to hell.

Growing up in a Christian church, there was a common assumption that was not altogether without Biblical merit which was this: If a child died within the womb or before the age of accountability, he is considered innocent and will ultimately go to Heaven. I personally have never been completely comfortable with this assumption, even when I was very young and small.

The reason for my being uncomfortable was because it sounded more like people were just saying it so that we'd feel better. It also assumes that sometimes God does things because it's fair. And it would be fair if He acquitted children before they had the chance to sin. But honestly, I never saw God as a particularly fair individual, and furthermore, I tend to see Satan as more obsessed with fairness than the God he objects to (out of fairness.)

So here we shall leap recklessly into the realm of the speculative. Let's take a look at what we actually are. I once heard someone say that we are not bodies with souls, but souls with bodies. That means that who we are is not necessarily bound to the mechanics of the flesh and blood. Even our memories are subject to the internal workings of our physical brain. The soul which puppets us is the real person, and it is that soul that chooses either good or evil. It is the soul which choses to follow in God's way or to reject Him for the materialism of our physical bodies.

When I think of it in this way, I always see a disconnect with the real me and the flesh the real me inhabits. And if I am to believe that this is actually how it works, I have to assume that it functions this way for children as well. Even in the womb, I believe that those children have souls. They can't really do very much because the physical body of the child is barely developed, but I am assuming the soul is what it is regardless of the body.

Likewise, we have fully grown adults that have severe maladies and mental deficiencies that limits there capabilities much like the child in the womb. And with these unfortunate people, I am still assuming that their souls are perfectly intact. I do not think that the negative status of the physical body can actually injure or negatively change the soul which attempts to guide it through the person's life.

So, just to be clear, the assumption is that the soul is perfect regardless of what the condition of the body is. Got it? All right.

My speculation is this: If it is the soul that chooses or rejects God, does this mean children all go to hell because they never get a chance to learn of His existence? Not exactly... but maybe. Of course, nobody wants to think of their child ending up that way, but this blog isn't about how people feel about it, it's about the children and their relationship with God.

At the moment of death, there is only that person (the soul) and God. That's it. It has nothing to do with anything else. There is a possibility that that soul must still stand trial and make that same choice, and the soul may simply reject it outright in the same way as it would have if it had lived a full life.

The speculation does not assume that all children go to hell; it merely speculates that every child still has to make a choice, and it is only the soul that does this. The physical body has very little to do with it.

God never really seems to worry too much about the feelings of others. I don't particularly see Him as sending someone else to Heaven because someone completely different would feel horrible unless He did. It is possible that every single soul that ever existed had to make a choice to either go with God or reject Him. This is something that goes beyond knowledge and intellect. It is our ultimate choice, and if this speculation is correct, no soul is spared in making it.

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