The Spiritual Condition of Infants: a Biblical-Historical Survey and Systematic Proposal by Adam Harwood: A brief Review by Peter Lumpkins

  Adam Harwood's new book, The Spiritual Condition of Infants: A Biblical-Historical Survey and Systematic Proposal (hereafter, Spiritual Condition) was released this past Spring by Wipf & Stock Publishers (March 2011, $23.00). Dr. Adam Harwood, Assistant Professor of Christian Studies at Truett-McConnell College in Cleveland, Georgia, answers a profound question which has baffled the greatest minds of the Christian church--the eternal destiny of children. Paige Patterson wrote the Foreword while endorsers include Charles White, James Leo Garrett Jr., Malcolm Yarnell, and Rustin J. Umstattd  >>>

After the Foreword by Patterson, Harwood divides his subject nicely into three uneven sections--Introductory, Biblical, and Historical—followed by a conclusion, bibliography, and indexes. The introductory material includes a brief but helpful survey of the literature on the subject and shows how his book is different by focusing more on the "spiritual condition of living infants" than strictly with infant salvation (p.5). Chapter two reveals Harwood's assumptions which serve as "boundaries" in studying the proposal. The author reveals four of his working assumptions: 1) a person is a person no matter how small; 2) Infants have a sinful nature because of their descent from the first Adam; 3) God can welcome infants with a sinful nature into heaven; 4) if number 3 occurs, then it is through the person and work of Christ. The remainder of the chapter teases out Harwood's assumptions.

Chapter three may draw blood from die-hard, Wayne Grudem fans since Harwood pounds heavily on the Charismatic Calvinist's view of infant salvation. Harwood says Grudem is "in a minority of scholars who either imply or state some people who die in infancy will or might end up in hell" (p.23). Indeed since Grudem's is perhaps the most popular systematic theology among seminarians today, one wonders how he gets so many free passes from Southern Baptist scholars for his obnoxious views on the eternal destiny of infants. Even so, Harwood delivers some powerful critique in this section—including valuable commentary on Romans 5:12—making much of the distinction between inherited sinful nature and inherited sinful guilt, a distinction which becomes a major plank in Harwood's argument.

The Biblical section comprises chapters four through 10 and includes exegesis on several important passages of Scripture including Romans 5:12-21, Psalm 51:5, Ephesians 2:3, Luke 1:15, Mark 10:13-16, and 1 Corinthians 7:14. Throughout the chapters, Harwood engages various scholarly commentators—both Calvinist and non-Calvinist—and offers sober conclusions of his own based on his own examination of the biblical materials. Harwood focuses on mainstream representatives of the positions with which he contends. Hence he avoids needless criticisms that his work is irrelevant because he engages peripheral advocates of certain positions.

The final section offers an historical survey of the various positions on infant salvation held within the Christian church. Beginning with the Church Fathers (both East and West, chapters 11 and 12 respectively) Harwood traces what Christians broadly held on the question under consideration. Moving on to Augustine and the Magisterial Reformers (Luther, Calvin, Zwingli), Harwood also deals with the views of Radical Reformers (Harwood calls them "Anabaptist Reformers"), Hubmaier and Marpeck (chapter 15).

Perhaps more appealing to Southern Baptists, Harwood looks at Nineteenth-Century Baptist views including James P. Boyce, A. H. Strong, and E. Y. Mullins* (chapter 16). Just as Grudem fans will surely not like their hero so effectively criticized as Harwood managed to do in the Introductory section, Calvinists who make James Boyce the theological standard among historic Southern Baptists will undoubtedly chill toward Harwood for his critique of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary founder. Harwood clearly exposes Boyce's glaring internal inconsistency in his view of inherited sinful guilt as applied to infants (pp.136-144). In fact, another surprise may be Harwood's essential agreement with E.Y. Mullins since, unlike Boyce and A.H. Strong, Mullins "better maintained" the twin truths of Scripture: infants inherit a sinful nature (but not sinful guilt) and God judges sinful actions (but not sinful nature, p.144). In the final chapter, Harwood examines twentieth-century Baptist views represented by two imminent theologians, William Hendricks and Millard Erickson.

Spiritual Condition is a must-have to better understand this vexing question. Harwood makes a convincing case that not only is the Bible not silent about the spiritual condition of infants, the Bible has much to say. And, what the Bible affirms is, at least in some important ways, inconsistent with a robust Reformed anthropology. Or, at minimum, the biblical view seems to negate the Reformed understanding of original sin. Whereas Reformed believers normally affirm that all infants inherit both Adam's sinful nature and sinful guilt, Harwood's book persuasively argues while all infants inherit Adamic nature, no infant inherits Adamic guilt. It is only when a person knowingly commits sinful action (including thoughts and attitudes), that the person becomes sinfully guilty and liable to God's divine, eternal judgment.

From my perspective, the only glaring weakness is the thin survey in the post-Reformation historical section of the book. Roughly 40 pages long, Harwood traces the idea from the Reformation to modern times. Of course, 40 pages could have been written on each of the Magisterial Reformers alone. And, so far as the section on Baptists goes, Harwood again is well under weight (even though half the post-Reformation section was allotted to Baptists!). Obviously, editorial restrictions prohibited longer sections. Yet an introductory statement on pre-Reformation Christianity would have sufficed, consequently, freeing much more space to deal with the Protestant understanding of infant salvation. The result would have been a stronger book for Harwood's probable readership.

Even so, this is only a minor quibble of the reviewer. I highly recommend Adam Harwood's Spiritual Condition and judge it to be a formidable treatise on a vexing subject.

Get the book!

With that, I am…

Peter

*since most of Mullins' theological influence was in the twentieth century, one wonders why Harwood placed him among the nineteenth-century writing theologians. It seems to me, placing Mullins in the 20th century would have been much better. Then, we could have had a section on J.L. Dagg whom Harwood strangely overlooked

Comments

[volfan007]

I believe infants, and any child yet to reach the age of accountability, goes to Heaven. I dont believe God holds them responsible for their sinfulness, until they are old enough to understand... whatever that age is for each, individual child. It will be different for each child in their development, of course.

I think the passage that strongly suggests this thinking is the passage where King David's baby dies, and he says that the baby cannot come to him, but one day, he would go to be with the baby. This was said by David, and included in the Bible, for a reason...I believe. David was sure he would see his baby in Heaven, one day.

David

[Ron Phillips, Sr.]

David,

Excellent point. What I think a lot of people miss about the passage you refer is that if any child was truly born into/from sin, it was this one. Conceived in adultery and his mother's husband murdered to cover up the adultery and conception. David despised the Lord in his sinful actions and gave cause for the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme. Which God judged David for and as a result of his sin the son born out of adultery was going to die (as well as other judgments). Notice that it was David's sin that resulted in the child's death.

Yet through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, we are told after the child died that David would go to his son when he died.

Can anyone seriously argue that it was because David knew his son was one of the elect? Obviously not. But if not, then how did David know?

Blessings,

Ron P.

[Linda]

"I dont believe God holds them responsible for their sinfulness, until they are old enough to understand..." - That's also my perception and they are kids. They still don't know what they are doing so they must not to be blamed.

[Aaron O'Kelley]

Why do infants die at all if they are not guilty of sin? How does the denial of inherited guilt cohere with the understanding of death as a punishment for sin in Genesis 2:17 and Romans 5:12?

If Harwood believes that infants are not guilty, then in what sense are they redeemed in Christ? Are they redeemed in the same way that creation itself is redeemed in Christ? Creation is redeemed in the sense that it is delivered from the effects of the fall, though creation itself bears no personal guilt for sin (because creation is not a person). But if infants are redeemed in this same sense, have we compromised their personhood by reducing their level of redemption to the same kind of redemption that the trees and the soil and the mountains will experience?

(By the way, I'm not denigrating cosmic redemption; I rejoice in that glorious truth. But I wonder if we can sweep human beings into that category and still regard them as persons if their redemption does not consist in the removal of guilt).

[peter lumpkins]

Aaron,

Thanks for your penetrating questions.

Dr. Harwood deals at length with your initial query--"Why do infants die at all if they are not guilty of sin?"--since it lies at the heart of Reformed understanding of imputation. The short answer is, while infants experience the consequences of Adam's sin (i.e. death), it does not follow they experience the consequence because they personally committed sin. Harwood writes,

It is true that some people will die in their infancy, but it is an inappropriate leap to state the reason that some infants die is because of their guilt. An infant has no ability to distinguish between good and evil, but this does not remove either the presence of an inherited sinful nature or the fallen condition of the world... . It is sin rather than guilt that is passed from Adam to all of humanity...The presence of sin in a person who is unable to make moral judgments (for example, an infant) makes that person subject to the effects of the presence of sin (in this case, death) but not guilty of sin..." (p.60)

As for Genesis 2, Harwood appears to reject standard Reformed interpretations which find universal guilt implied from universal death. Harwood again,

Although sin results in death, it is not necessary to believe that the sin of Adam resulted in the guilt of all humanity. Rather, the early chapters of Genesis indicate only that the sin of Adam of Eve [sic] resulted in their eventual death" (p.59, italics original)

Harwood goes on to state how Paul's point in Romans 5 only points to the "origin of sin with Adam" not universal guilt in Adam. Indeed Paul makes it clear in Romans 1 God's wrath comes as a result of "our behavior" rather than "our nature."

So far as your question about infants being "redeemed in the same way that creation itself is redeemed in Christ" I cannot say with any confidence if Dr. Harwood addressed it. I can say from my perspective, for what it's worth, I initially fail to see a fatal problem with affirming infants' redemption as a part of "general" redemption, so to speak, if such redemption is based solely upon the work of Christ. Nor would I understand it, if true, as demeaning infants' significance as human beings.

With that, I am...
Peter

[Aaron O'Kelley]

I see the distinction Harwood is making, but I don't see any exegetical arguments for it. The pathway from sin to death runs through guilt, because death is specifically the penalty for sin (Romans 6:23).

Harwood's argument seems to be that death is more a natural consequence of sin than a divinely imposed penalty for sin.

[peter lumpkins]

Aaron,

Well, I suppose that's because I didn't give you any. But I did indicate in the review Harwood engages mainstream Reformed thinkers over both theological assertions they make (e.g. Grudem) and key biblical texts such as Rom 5, Psalm 51, Gen 2-3, Luke 1:15, etc. In fact, from chapter 4 through 11, the entire section is given to exegesis.

Hence, I suggest if this subject interests you, grab a copy. In my view, it's worth one's time to wrestle through the texts with Harwood. If your level of interest is insufficient to motivate a purchase (or at least a browse-through at the bookstore or google, if available) that's fine too. But know Harwood's book does not suffer from thin exegesis.

With that, I am...
Peter