Question Six
That all children dying without baptism will rise on the day of judgment
It is asked whether unbaptized children will rise on the day of judgment together with the others who are to rise.
To this it first appears that a negative answer should be given. For a person is brought to judgment so that his merits may there be examined. But the children in limbo, who died with original sin, or who died before perfect age, had no merits.
Therefore it is not necessary that they appear at the judgment.
Likewise, all who rise at the judgment will be either the elect and good on the right or the damned and evil on the left. But children who died with original sin are not simply evil or good and, consequently, are to be placed neither on the right nor on the left at the judgment. Therefore they will not rise at the judgment.
But to the contrary is the fact that what is universal comprehends all things. But that judgment is called universal. Therefore all will appear and will judge there.
I answer that it must be said that, since judicial power was conferred upon Christ as man as a reward for the humility which he displayed in the Passion, and since in his Passion he poured out his blood for all with respect to sufficiency—although it did not have its effect in all because of an impediment found in some—it will therefore be fitting that all human beings be gathered at the judgment to see his exaltation and the universal judicial power over all which he received from the Father, according to John 5: “The Father has given all judgment to the Son.” Hence it is said in Acts 10: “He is the one who has been appointed judge of the living and the dead.”
For this reason Thomas says in Book IV that all children dying without baptism in original sin, even without actual sin—whether they are the children of Christians, Jews, or gentiles, and whether they died in the womb or outside the womb—will rise like the other dead with whole bodies and at the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ, thirty years or thereabouts, according to Ephesians 4.
To the first, therefore, it must be said that at the judgment infants without baptism and children who died before perfect age will appear, not so that they may be judged to glory or to sensible punishment, but so that they may see the glory of the Judge and seek vengeance upon those who gave them occasion for the loss of glory and the divine vision.
To the second, it must be said that at the judgment such children will be neither on the right nor on the left, but lower down in the middle.
These things are from Thomas in Book IV, distinction 47, article 3, and Blessed Vincent in his sermons.