WCF 10.3 states,
III. Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated, and saved by Christ, through the Spirit, who works when, and where, and how He pleases: so also are all other elect persons who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word.
The scripture that is quoted for this doctrine is “JOH 3:8 The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.”
Yet the Scholastic and the Van Tilian cannot believe this. On their view as was the case with Barlaam of Calabria, “God is only knowable through the mediation of his creatures.” There must be a “sensation” through a created nature for knowledge to be attained by a human person on the Scholastic and the Van Tilian system. Ergo, the Van Tilian and the Scholastic needs to posit the doctrine that all infants dying in infancy go to hell. What creaturely sensation can an elect infant have in the womb of its mother that leads to salvation? Only on the Scripturalist view of immediate knowledge can an elect infant even have a fighting chance.
III. Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated, and saved by Christ, through the Spirit, who works when, and where, and how He pleases: so also are all other elect persons who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word.
The scripture that is quoted for this doctrine is “JOH 3:8 The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.”
Yet the Scholastic and the Van Tilian cannot believe this. On their view as was the case with Barlaam of Calabria, “God is only knowable through the mediation of his creatures.” There must be a “sensation” through a created nature for knowledge to be attained by a human person on the Scholastic and the Van Tilian system. Ergo, the Van Tilian and the Scholastic needs to posit the doctrine that all infants dying in infancy go to hell. What creaturely sensation can an elect infant have in the womb of its mother that leads to salvation? Only on the Scripturalist view of immediate knowledge can an elect infant even have a fighting chance.