God's Nature and character

[John V]

The children in the passages under discussion were not killed by parents thinking they were doing the children a favor. If you modify the situation, I may need to modify my position as well. How about, all children go to heaven unless killed by someone believing it will send them to heaven, in which case god decides as he sees fit.

I was being flippant when I asked whether the reason it's not spelt out clearer is to stop Christians doing their children a favour but I think the point about parents is a bit of a red herring because, even if I give you that, we're still left in the awful position that children being killed is something to rejoice about. So, if you dont mind, I shall modify my original question to suit your backpedal.

So killing children is actually doing them a favour, as long as the person murdering them doesn't believe it will send them to heaven, because they'll go to heaven and avoid any chance of going to hell?

Also, what does your god do with the children he's decided not to send to heaven because their parents killed them believing they'd go to heaven? This seems awfully close to punishing the child for the crimes of their parents and I do hope I dont need to point out how abhorrent this is.

Another alternative is that, being omniscient, God could know what that child would have grown up to be if his parents hadn't killed him, and treat him accordingly. Note that that alternative is not specific to this situation. I could have used this defense against the initial charge. But, I do think an age of accountability doctrine can be derived from the Bible and does generally apply.