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It's complicated? Joel Send a noteboard - 11/06/2011 08:14:06 PM
It's pretty widely held, though, that in order to qualify for salvation one must first be baptized. It kind of gets you in the door, so to speak.

And baptism does involve a confession and repentance of sin.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure they gave up on Limbo a while ago.

Babies automatically qualify for salvation?

Accountability is generally accepted to be conditional on awareness and consent, and infants are capable of neither. I also like pointing to the Israelites forty years in the wilderness: The biblical basis is that, because the Israelites refused to enter Canaan when spies reported the natives apparent military supremacy, God decreed that none of them would EVER be allowed to enter, but would instead wander the wilderness until everyone above age twenty had died. What's interesting about that is that it means the Bible states God held the entire Israelite nation responsible for doubting Him and forbade them to ever enter Canaan BUT explicitly excused everyone under the age of consent. In essence, minors got a free pass. It could be argued that was because they had no say in whether to invade (notwithstanding the fact many of them would have been expected to participate), but I trust you see why I consider the incident a kind of precedent, or at least illustration of a principle.

How does that work together with original sin?

I can only give you my take (i.e. personal dogma that I'm not aware of any denomination affirming as official doctrine), but basically it comes down to the inherently negative effects of sin itself vs. the actual penalty contingent on knowingly indulging sin. My understanding of original sin is that Adam and Eves original sin introduced sin into a previously ideal world, not only earning them divine punishment for their acts, but inflicting sins inherently harmful effects, wholly apart from divine judgement, on the world (and, by extension, infected human flesh in particular with susceptibility to it). Original sin does NOT mean, as it's often understood to mean, that all of Adam and Eves descendants are guilty in Gods eyes of their initial sin. It DOES mean that their initial sin forever marred earths initial perfection and made it a place where truly awful things are now routine. The biggest, though not only, cause of that "banality of misery" is that because Adam and Eve infected their own bodies with sin, and because all their descendants are born into bodies directly produced from that flesh, every human being by definition inhabits a tainted vessel inevitably and continually separating man and God. That creates two phenomena:

1) Total depravity, of which you may have heard, and which makes isolation from God a certainty, along with eventual sin by anyone possessed of the awareness to be capable of it.

2) Suffering, decay and eventual death as a result of that isolation from the Creator and Sustainer of life.

Put more simply, I take original sin to mean sins presence in "carnal flesh" ensures isolation from God will bring everyone suffering and eventual PHYSICAL death, but SPIRITUAL deaths permanent total "separation from God" (the definition of Hell to which I subscribe) is due the fleshs susceptibility to temptation ensuring anyone capable of comitting their own sins ultimately will. Infants (among others) lack that capability and are thus not condemned by it (another function of Grace, I believe), but still inhabit the same corrupted flesh equally subject to physical suffering and death.

Hope that was reasonably coherent; again, just my take, I can't claim to represent anything more than my limited understanding of a matter on which there's little explicit doctrine and thus much debate. Interesting post to write while watching The Life of Brian, but since it's almost over and I've been up about 27 hours I think I should probably leave it there. ;)
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This message last edited by Joel on 11/06/2011 at 08:16:48 PM
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A question on baptism - 10/06/2011 09:21:44 AM 900 Views
To my knowledge, baptism does not stem from the Resurrection. - 10/06/2011 11:01:17 AM 655 Views
What I meant - 10/06/2011 11:03:08 AM 497 Views
I don't follow. - 10/06/2011 11:08:07 AM 469 Views
Re: I don't follow. - 10/06/2011 11:10:40 AM 559 Views
I don't keep up with RC theology much. - 10/06/2011 11:15:52 AM 453 Views
Re: I don't keep up with RC theology much. - 10/06/2011 11:17:53 AM 456 Views
They should, IMHO, but the difficulty of definitively saying is why Limbo was created. - 11/06/2011 10:39:26 AM 539 Views
Re: They should, IMHO, but the difficulty of definitively saying is why Limbo was created. - 11/06/2011 11:53:53 AM 484 Views
It's complicated? - 11/06/2011 08:14:06 PM 489 Views
You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression. - 10/06/2011 11:50:53 AM 488 Views
Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression. - 10/06/2011 11:52:27 AM 438 Views
Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression. - 10/06/2011 11:55:01 AM 490 Views
Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression. - 10/06/2011 11:58:36 AM 465 Views
Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression. - 10/06/2011 12:16:46 PM 606 Views
Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression. - 10/06/2011 12:19:16 PM 464 Views
Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression. - 10/06/2011 12:25:08 PM 667 Views
Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression. - 10/06/2011 12:26:30 PM 665 Views
Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression. - 10/06/2011 12:28:45 PM 472 Views
Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression. - 10/06/2011 12:29:43 PM 499 Views
Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression. - 10/06/2011 12:33:01 PM 366 Views
Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression. - 10/06/2011 12:34:36 PM 432 Views
I took a holy dip into the Ganges - 10/06/2011 11:48:26 AM 560 Views
Re: I took a holy dip into the Ganges - 10/06/2011 11:54:17 AM 620 Views
He dances and dips in The Ganges- Very Nice. *NM* - 11/06/2011 02:15:41 AM 208 Views
Three dips - that's the ceremony. - 11/06/2011 02:35:43 AM 426 Views
Early Christians and Jews were obsessed with purity - 10/06/2011 12:56:58 PM 595 Views
Oh, I know about the historical/academic/anthropological reason - 10/06/2011 01:04:43 PM 534 Views
I misunderstood, lets try again - 10/06/2011 01:44:43 PM 610 Views
Huh. *NM* - 10/06/2011 02:06:58 PM 252 Views
A first responce - 10/06/2011 02:09:32 PM 657 Views
Re: A first responce - 10/06/2011 02:15:07 PM 630 Views
Re: A first responce - 10/06/2011 02:19:25 PM 561 Views
Do you want a theological answer or a historical one? - 10/06/2011 03:16:44 PM 628 Views
The theological. I already had a fairly good idea of the historical - 10/06/2011 03:18:51 PM 500 Views
My favorite fact about baptism is that is REQUIRES water... but it can be ANY water - 10/06/2011 04:31:12 PM 592 Views
That is absurd. - 10/06/2011 08:37:13 PM 687 Views
It is absurd - 10/06/2011 08:56:19 PM 499 Views
When your post is eviscerated, resorting to "HURR RELIGION IS DUMB" isn't a winning move. - 10/06/2011 10:00:39 PM 616 Views
Psh.You can dress it up with spiritualism and semantics, but the concept boils down to "magic water" - 11/06/2011 03:56:03 AM 441 Views
The point is that it's a symbol. - 11/06/2011 04:45:19 AM 470 Views
I have no problem with water as a symbol - 11/06/2011 04:59:52 AM 541 Views
You are totally missing the point. - 11/06/2011 02:46:08 PM 622 Views
Which again, is something that sounds nice and spiritual, but doesn't actually make any sense - 11/06/2011 03:46:51 PM 587 Views
your problem is you're trying to apply objective logic to religion - 11/06/2011 04:13:01 PM 842 Views
I'm not, exactly. Religion has internal logic. For example, certain things are "unclean" - 11/06/2011 04:40:33 PM 487 Views
Beliefs about holy water are internally logical. - 11/06/2011 07:36:08 PM 529 Views
Shrug. It was on topic. - 11/06/2011 08:06:16 PM 810 Views
Baptism is almost, if not entirely, symbolic. - 11/06/2011 10:23:02 AM 649 Views
Re: Baptism is almost, if not entirely, symbolic. - 11/06/2011 11:51:22 AM 658 Views
I never thought of it in that way, that is why I like this site *NM* - 12/06/2011 04:26:40 PM 229 Views
Because we are all nuts in our own special ways? *NM* - 12/06/2011 04:36:03 PM 199 Views

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