Augustinian theology implies that any child potential parents might produce could be one of the reprobate whom God has hated from the beginning and has destined from the beginning for eternal torment in hell.
Reprobate(describing certain people in the theological framework)
In religious terms, a person whom God has rejected and condemned; someone believed to be destined for damnation or hell.
predestination(Augustine's theology of grace and election)
God's decision 'before the constitution of the world,' in a non-temporal manner matching his eternal being, regarding who will be exempted from the damnation awaiting fallen humankind and who will not
For similar reasons, Kenneth Einar Himma has argued that some widespread moral intuitions, “together with Christian exclusivism and the traditional doctrine of hell, entail that it is morally wrong for anyone to have children” (Himma 2011, 198). That argument seems especially forceful in the context of Augustinian theology, which implies that, for all any set of potential parents know, any child they might produce could be one of the reprobate whom God has hated from the beginning and has destined from the beginning for eternal torment in hell. The title of Himma’s article, “Birth as a Grave M...