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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 954 Views
To my knowledge, baptism does not stem from the Resurrection. - 10/06/2011 11:01:17 AM 698 Views
What I meant - 10/06/2011 11:03:08 AM 539 Views
I don't follow. - 10/06/2011 11:08:07 AM 517 Views
Re: I don't follow. - 10/06/2011 11:10:40 AM 610 Views
I don't keep up with RC theology much. - 10/06/2011 11:15:52 AM 543 Views
Re: I don't keep up with RC theology much. - 10/06/2011 11:17:53 AM 503 Views
They should, IMHO, but the difficulty of definitively saying is why Limbo was created. - 11/06/2011 10:39:26 AM 604 Views
Re: They should, IMHO, but the difficulty of definitively saying is why Limbo was created. - 11/06/2011 11:53:53 AM 531 Views
It's complicated? - 11/06/2011 08:14:06 PM 550 Views
You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression. - 10/06/2011 11:50:53 AM 537 Views
Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression. - 10/06/2011 11:52:27 AM 481 Views
Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression. - 10/06/2011 11:55:01 AM 542 Views
Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression. - 10/06/2011 11:58:36 AM 512 Views
Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression. - 10/06/2011 12:16:46 PM 655 Views
Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression. - 10/06/2011 12:19:16 PM 512 Views
Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression. - 10/06/2011 12:25:08 PM 714 Views
Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression. - 10/06/2011 12:26:30 PM 717 Views
Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression. - 10/06/2011 12:28:45 PM 520 Views
Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression. - 10/06/2011 12:29:43 PM 545 Views
Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression. - 10/06/2011 12:33:01 PM 411 Views
Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression. - 10/06/2011 12:34:36 PM 477 Views
I took a holy dip into the Ganges - 10/06/2011 11:48:26 AM 604 Views
Re: I took a holy dip into the Ganges - 10/06/2011 11:54:17 AM 666 Views
He dances and dips in The Ganges- Very Nice. *NM* - 11/06/2011 02:15:41 AM 228 Views
Three dips - that's the ceremony. - 11/06/2011 02:35:43 AM 471 Views
Early Christians and Jews were obsessed with purity - 10/06/2011 12:56:58 PM 644 Views
Oh, I know about the historical/academic/anthropological reason - 10/06/2011 01:04:43 PM 581 Views
I misunderstood, lets try again - 10/06/2011 01:44:43 PM 667 Views
Huh. *NM* - 10/06/2011 02:06:58 PM 269 Views
A first responce - 10/06/2011 02:09:32 PM 709 Views
Re: A first responce - 10/06/2011 02:15:07 PM 696 Views
Re: A first responce - 10/06/2011 02:19:25 PM 608 Views
Do you want a theological answer or a historical one? - 10/06/2011 03:16:44 PM 682 Views
The theological. I already had a fairly good idea of the historical - 10/06/2011 03:18:51 PM 549 Views
My favorite fact about baptism is that is REQUIRES water... but it can be ANY water - 10/06/2011 04:31:12 PM 640 Views
That is absurd. - 10/06/2011 08:37:13 PM 731 Views
It is absurd - 10/06/2011 08:56:19 PM 548 Views
When your post is eviscerated, resorting to "HURR RELIGION IS DUMB" isn't a winning move. - 10/06/2011 10:00:39 PM 663 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 496 Views
The point is that it's a symbol. - 11/06/2011 04:45:19 AM 519 Views
I have no problem with water as a symbol - 11/06/2011 04:59:52 AM 593 Views
You are totally missing the point. - 11/06/2011 02:46:08 PM 672 Views
Which again, is something that sounds nice and spiritual, but doesn't actually make any sense - 11/06/2011 03:46:51 PM 634 Views
your problem is you're trying to apply objective logic to religion - 11/06/2011 04:13:01 PM 897 Views
I'm not, exactly. Religion has internal logic. For example, certain things are "unclean" - 11/06/2011 04:40:33 PM 534 Views
Beliefs about holy water are internally logical. - 11/06/2011 07:36:08 PM 586 Views
Shrug. It was on topic. - 11/06/2011 08:06:16 PM 860 Views
Baptism is almost, if not entirely, symbolic. - 11/06/2011 10:23:02 AM 714 Views
Re: Baptism is almost, if not entirely, symbolic. - 11/06/2011 11:51:22 AM 711 Views
I never thought of it in that way, that is why I like this site *NM* - 12/06/2011 04:26:40 PM 251 Views
Because we are all nuts in our own special ways? *NM* - 12/06/2011 04:36:03 PM 218 Views

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