The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptized

According to the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox traditions
http://beta1.catholicculture.org/library/view.cfm?recnum=7529 as of 5/20/07 (bold added)

by International Theological Commission
"Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God," Vatican City, 2005 (Roman Catholic Church)

Introduction
1. St. Peter encourages Christians to be always ready to give an account of the hope that is in them (cf. 1 Pt 3:15-16). (1) This document deals with the hope that Christians can have for the salvation of unbaptized infants who die. It indicates how such a hope has developed in recent decades and what its grounds are so as to enable an account of that hope to be given.
. . .

1.2. The Greek Fathers

11. Very few Greek fathers dealt with the destiny of infants who die without baptism because there was no controversy about this issue in the East. Furthermore, they had a different view of the present condition of humanity.
For the Greek fathers, as the consequence of Adam’s sin, human beings inherited corruption, passibility and mortality, from which they could be restored by a process of deification made possible through the redemptive work of Christ. The idea of an inheritance of sin or guilt — common in Western tradition — was foreign to this perspective since in their view sin could only be a free, personal act.(11) Hence, not many Greek fathers explicitly deal with the problem of the salvation of unbaptized children.

passibility definition inserted by blogger:
American Heritage Dictionary
pas·si·ble adj. Capable of feeling or suffering; sensitive: a passible type of personality. [Middle English, from Old French, from Latin passibilis, from Latin passus, past participle of patī, to suffer; see pē(i)- in Indo-European roots.]

They do, however, discuss the status or situation — but not the place — of these infants after their death. In this regard the main problem they face is the tension between God's universal salvific will and the teaching of the Gospel about the necessity of baptism. Pseudo-Athanasius says clearly that an unbaptized person cannot enter the kingdom of God. He also asserts that unbaptized children will not enter the kingdom but neither will they be lost, for they have not sinned. (12)

Anastasius of Sinai expresses this even more clearly: For him, unbaptized children do not go to Gehenna. But he is not able to say more; he does not express an opinion about where they do go, but leaves their destiny to God's judgment.(13)

12. Alone among the Greek fathers, Gregory of Nyssa wrote a work specifically on the destiny of infants who die, De infantibus praemature abreptis libellum. (14) The anguish of the church appears in the questions he puts to himself: The destiny of these infants is a mystery, "something much greater than the human mind can grasp."(15) He expresses his opinion in relation to virtue and its reward; in his view there is no reason for God to grant what is hoped for as a reward. Virtue is not worth anything if those who depart this life prematurely without having practiced virtue are immediately welcomed into blessedness.
Continuing along this line, Gregory asks, "What will happen to the one who finishes his life at a tender age, who has done nothing, bad or good? Is he worthy of a reward?"(16) He answers, "The hoped for blessedness belongs to human beings by nature, and it is called a reward only in a certain sense."(17)

Enjoyment of true life (zoe and not bios) corresponds to human nature and is possessed in the degree that virtue is practiced. Since the innocent infant does not need purification from personal sins, he shares in this life corresponding to his nature in a sort of regular progress, according to his capacity. Gregory of Nyssa distinguishes between the destiny of infants and that of adults who lived a virtuous life. "The premature death of newborn infants does not provide a basis for the presupposition that they will suffer torments or that they will be in the same state as those who have been purified in this life by all the virtues."(18)
Finally, he offers this perspective for the reflection of the church: "Apostolic contemplation fortifies our inquiry, for the One who has done everything well, with wisdom (Ps 104:24), is able to bring good out of evil."(19)

13. Gregory of Nazianzus does not write about the place and status after death of infants who die without sacramental baptism, but he enlarges the subject with another consideration. He writes, namely, that these children receive neither praise nor punishment from the just judge because they have suffered injury rather than provoked it. "The one who does not deserve punishment is not thereby worthy of praise, and the one who does not deserve praise is not thereby deserving of punishment."(20)

The profound teaching of the Greek fathers can be summarized in the opinion of Anastasius of Sinai: "It would not be fitting to probe God's judgments with one's hands."(21)

14. On the one hand, these Greek fathers teach that children who die without baptism do not suffer eternal damnation, though they do not attain the same state as those who have been baptized. On the other hand, they do not explain what their state is like or where they go. In this matter the Greek fathers display their characteristic apophatic sensitivity.

apophatic definition inserted by blogger:
Webster's New Millennium™ Dictionary of English
Main Entry: apophatic
Part of Speech: adj
Definition: pertaining to a knowledge of God obtained through negation
Etymology: Gk. apophatikos
Usage: theology
WordNet
Apophatic adjective - of or relating to the belief that God can be known to humans
only in terms of what He is not (such as 'God is unknowable')
WordNet® 3.0, © 2006 by Princeton University.

ENDNOTES
1 All scriptural references in this document are to the Revised Standard Version of the Bible (Catholic edition).
2 Cf. International Theological Commission, "Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God," Vatican City, 2005.
11 Cf. D. Weaver, "The Exegesis of Romans 5:12 Among the Greek Fathers and Its Implication for the Doctrine of Original Sin: The 5th-12th Centuries," St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 29 (1985), 133-159, 231-257.
12 (Pseudo-)Athanasius, Quaestiones ad Antiochum Ducem, qn. 101 (Patrologia Cursus Completa, Series Graeca PGI, LP Migne (ed.), 28, 660C). Likewise qn. 115 (PG 28, 672A).
13 Anastasius of Sinai, Quaestiones et Responsiones, qn. 81 (PG 89, 709C).
14 De Infantibus Praemature Abreptis Libellum, ab H. Polack ad editionem praeparatum in Colloquio Leidensi testimonies instructum renovatis curis recensitum edendum curavit Hadwiga Horner, in I.K. Downing, I.A. McDonough, H. Homer (ed. cur.), Gregorii Nysseni Opera Dogmatica Minora, Part II, W. Jaeger, H. Langerbeck, H. Homer (eds.), Gregorii Nysseni Opera, Volume III, Part II, Leiden, New York, Copenhagen, Cologne 1987, 65-97.
15 Ibid., 70.
16 Ibid., 81-82.
17 Ibid., 83.
18 Ibid., 96.
19 Ibid., 97.
20 Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio XL — In Sanctum Baptisma, 23 (PG 36,389B-C).
21 Anastasius of Sinai, Quaestiones et Responsiones, qn. 81 (PG 89, 709C).