A person who is lost becomes mentally incapacitated by disease or accident and is unable to respond to the gospel. How will this person be judged? Overall, the answer to this question may ultimately be out of our hands, yet I do wish to hear if there are any principles you can share from your study of the scriptures.
Generally, the mentally incapacitated are no more candidates for conversion with the Gospel of Christ than are small children who are unable to hear (Matthew 13:9), believe (John 8:24) or obey the Gospel (Romans 10:16). Children are unable to hear with understanding the Gospel, lack the mental maturity to believe and have no capacity to obey the Gospel. In addition, Scripture portrays young children as innocent (Matthew 18:1-2), that is, not sinners. As such they are not saved but safe – until they arrive at a time in their lives when they have sufficient mental resources to be accountable for their actions, that is, both sins (1 John 3:4) and obedience (Hebrews 5:9).
However, there is a difference of circumstances regarding persons who have grown out of childhood to sufficient maturity to be accountable to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and then afterward, perhaps through disease, injury or dementia, revert to a mental state in which they are no longer accountable for their actions. The difference is that such an individual did have an opportunity to obey the Gospel of Christ (as far as mental capacity is concerned) and consequently was disobedient to the Gospel (2 Thessalonians 1:7-9). Essentially, this scenario does not differ from the spiritual situation of any accountable soul who does not obey the Gospel of Christ before dying or who has not obeyed the Gospel of Christ and who is alive when our Lord returns.
Yet, we need to remember our place as humans, especially that (1) we do not possess omniscience and (2) it is not the responsibility of humans to assign anyone to his or her eternal disposition of heaven or hell (James 4:11-12). We are limited to what is revealed in Scripture (Deuteronomy 29:29), and on that basis, we teach the Scriptures faithfully respecting salvation, among other things, but the assignments of eternal habitations in heaven or hell are not ours to make. We may be correct from the Scriptures respecting someone’s eternal destination, but it is not our job as humans to put him or her there.
