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Author Topic: St. Augustine's view on the "punishment" of infants who die without baptism  (Read 32218 times)

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Offline DecemRationis

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St. Augustine's view on the "punishment" of infants who die without baptism
« on: September 10, 2023, 08:11:08 AM »

I'd like to know exactly what St. Augustine thought in this regard. Is the claim he thought infants would be tormented with the fires of hell, albeit "mildly," some form of Catholic urban myth?

I read one work that claimed that Augustine thought infants would be so punished, and it cited the following from St. Augustine's works:

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Chapter 93. Both the First and the Second Deaths are the Consequence of Sin. Punishment is Proportioned to Guilt.

And neither the first death, which takes place when the soul is compelled to leave the body, nor the second death, which takes place when the soul is not permitted to leave the suffering body, would have been inflicted on man had no one sinned. And, of course, the mildest punishment of all will fall upon those who have added no actual sin, to the original sin they brought with them; and as for the rest who have added such actual sins, the punishment of each will be the more tolerable in the next world, according as his iniquity has been less in this world.

CHURCH FATHERS: Handbook on Faith, Hope and Love (St. Augustine) (newadvent.org)


Where exactly are the "punishments" of the flames and torments of hell there?

Innocent III stated that deprivation of the beatific vision is a "punishment," the mildest, obviously: "the punishment of original sin is deprivation of the vision of God, but the punishment of actual sin is the torments of everlasting hell. " DZ 410.

Elsewhere, in his work, Against Julian, St. Augustine states:


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But I do not say that children who die without the baptism of Christ will undergo such grievous punishment that it were better for them never to have been born, since our Lord did not say these words of any sinner you please, but only of the most base and ungodly. If we consider what He said about the Sodomites, which certainly He did not mean of them only that it will be more tolerable for one than for another in the day of judgment, 2 who can doubt that nonbaptized infants, having only original sin and no burden of personal sins, will suffer the lightest condemnation of all? I cannot define the amount and kind of their punishment, but I dare not say it were better for them never to have existed than to exist there. But you, also, who contend they are, as it were, free of any condemnation, do not wish to think about the condemnation by which you punish them by estranging from the life of God and from the kingdom of God so many images of God, and by separating them from the pious parents you so eloquently urge to procreate them. They suffer these separations unjustly, if they have no sin at all; or if justly, then they have original sin.

The Fathers Of The Church A New Translation Volume 35 Saint Augustine Against Julian : Roy Joseph Deferrari : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive


St. Augustine's opinion on the "punishment" of nonbaptized infants who die in infancy appears to accord with the view of Innocent III, and merely mean estrangement from the kingdom of heaven.

Until we're shown proof - an actual quote from St. Augustine - I'm calling FOUL on this claim that he thought infants would be punished by torments or flames in hell.




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I originally posted this in another thread. Because it is an important topic for various reasons, I wanted to start a separate thread on it. PLEASE REPLY HERE. 



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Offline Quo vadis Domine

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Re: St. Augustine's view on the "punishment" of infants who die without baptism
« Reply #1 on: September 10, 2023, 08:18:14 AM »


:laugh1: Be careful, you are treading on the sandy ground Ladislaus used to build his “theological tower”. If his Saint Augustine/Limbo argument falls, his whole tower crumbles to the ground.
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Offline Marulus Fidelis

Re: St. Augustine's view on the "punishment" of infants who die without baptism
« Reply #2 on: September 10, 2023, 03:31:02 PM »
Quote from: DecemRationis on September 10, 2023, 08:11:08 AM
who can doubt that nonbaptized infants, having only original sin and no burden of personal sins, will suffer the lightest condemnation of all? I cannot define the amount and kind of their punishment, but I dare not say it were better for them never to have existed than to exist there. But you, also, who contend they are, as it were, free of any condemnation, do not wish to think about the condemnation by which you punish them by estranging from the life of God and from the kingdom of God
He distinguishes his position from those who say the infants are "free of any condemnation" and proceeds to elaborate that they admit a single condemnation, the deprivation of the Beatific Vision that is.

Clearly, Augustine believed infants suffered some kind of punishment besides the "punishment" (improperly so called because not receiving an inheritance is not a punishment) of deprivation of Heaven his opponents held.
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Offline Marulus Fidelis

Re: St. Augustine's view on the "punishment" of infants who die without baptism
« Reply #3 on: September 10, 2023, 03:33:59 PM »
Here's the Catholic Encyclopaedia on Limbo.


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In his earlier writings St. Augustine himself agrees with the common tradition. Thus in De libero arbitrio III, written several years before the Pelagian controversy, discussing the fate of unbaptized infants after death, he writes: "It is superfluous to inquire about the merits of one who has not any merits. For one need not hesitate to hold that life may be neutral as between good conduct and sin, and that as between reward and punishment there may be a neutral sentence of the judge." But even before the outbreak of the Pelagian controversy St. Augustine had already abandoned the lenient traditional view, and in the course of the controversy he himself condemned, and persuaded the Council of Carthage (418) to condemn, the substantially identical Pelagian teaching affirming the existence of "an intermediate place, or of any place anywhere at all (ullus alicubi locus), in which children who pass out of this life unbaptized live in happiness" (Denzinger 102). This means that St. Augustine and the African Fathers believed that unbaptized infants share in the common positive misery of the damned, and the very most that St. Augustine concedes is that their punishment is the mildest of all, so mild indeed that one may not say that for them non-existence would be preferable to existence in such a state (Of Sin and Merit I.21; Contra Jul. V, 44; etc.). But this Augustinian teaching was an innovation in its day, and the history of subsequent Catholic speculation on this subject is taken up chiefly with the reaction which has ended in a return to the pre-Augustinian tradition.

(...)

St. Anselm was at one with St. Augustine in holding that unbaptized children share in the positive sufferings of the damned; and Abelard was the first to rebel against the severity of the Augustinian tradition on this point.


Exactly as Ladislaus said.

Maybe you should have been less confident and not "calling foul" before investigating a bit.
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Offline EWPJ

Re: St. Augustine's view on the "punishment" of infants who die without baptism
« Reply #4 on: September 10, 2023, 04:47:12 PM »
Abelard was also a heretic on several issues.  It's my understanding that Original Sin is an actual sin, not just a condition or status.  I think that idea is where the severity of the St. Augustine view springs forth.
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