Do Babies Go to Heaven

Welcome back to another episode of Be a Berean, where we are refuting the friendly atheist. This is maybe a special edition because we are going to go into possibly more depth than normal, because this is a doctrine that I think requires a particular amount of logic to be applied and thoughtfulness. But let's first read the Friendly Atheist Disputation with Christianity from Friendly Atheist 40 Problems with Christianity.

Number 8, Infant Death. The atheist writes, Most Christians believe that people who die at a young age are given a free pass to heaven. This is a comforting thought, but it makes for some peculiar considerations. It would seem to suggest that dying at a young age before encountering the age of accountability would be the best and safest way to leave earth.

This would guarantee a place in heaven without having to take a risk of living a potentially failed life in the sight of God. Some demented parents have exploited this idea as an excuse to murder their children. so this isn't one of those times that the friendly atheist makes a few good points some of which are based on bad information he's received and some are just good points at the end he says demented parents have exploited the idea as an excuse to murder their children that is in fact true there are people who believe that infants will go to heaven and whether that doctrine that infants will go to heaven or not is true let's just say if it is true it would still be evil for parents to murder their children there is absolutely no exoneration for people who murder children if their motivation is that they think they're putting their baby in heaven so we don't do good or we don't do evil so that good may come. The atheist also says it makes for some peculiar considerations.

That's not entirely untrue. There's some things we should think about. And he says it seems to suggest that dying at a young age before entering some age of accountability would be the best and safest way to leave earth. that statement makes sense if you don't believe in election if you believe that god chooses who are his people and he will safely and perfectly secure them in his arms at the right time and take them to heaven with himself regardless of these made up things like age of accountability, then there's really no reason to worry about when you'd leave earth.

Whether I died as an infant or whether I die when I'm 80 years old, my status as one of God's elect was established before the foundations of the world. So there's no safest concept. So this guy was a former Catholic. So he's going to come from a really Arminian background of how to of how salvation works. So I want to talk about infant salvation because it is its own special little doctrine it has been argued and and there are some ideas that we can discuss.

What I want to present to you are the six reasonable positions that a person could even try to take and then we could discuss whether those positions are biblical or what are the implications of those. So these are the six positions someone could take regarding what we'll call infant salvation or infant election. Let me start by reading from the LBCF, the London Baptist Confession of Faith, 10.3, the chapter about effectual calling.

Turn the page here. Elect infants dying in infancy are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who worketh when and where and how he pleases. So also are all elect persons who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the word. So the argument against infant salvation, when you are a Protestant, is that hearing the word of Christ is the only way that people are granted faith.

It says in Romans 10, 17, how will they call on him whom they have not believed, and how will they believe without a preacher? And so thus faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. And so the argument becomes that anyone who does not hear of Jesus Christ and understand it to the extent that they can believe cannot be saved. and that is why we send missionaries so that's why we send missionaries places because when when people don't believe the gospel we think that they're going to die and go to hell and so we send missionaries to tell people the gospel because we don't believe there's some second way of salvation and so when we talk about even the possibility that an infant could go to heaven or those who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the word.

So people who are mentally deficient in such a way that they at least from an outsider perspective they can communicate that they would believe to us So a person who was handicapped in such a way that maybe they never got past a toddler level, so they don't understand how to use words, and they couldn't really understand a discussion of sin and righteousness, the question becomes does God consign every one of those people to hell or not? Is there some other way in a sense outside of hearing the word of God and believing it that they could be granted faith? And so the six positions that I think are the only reasonable ones are that we know, number one, we know that all infants go to hell when they die.

The second position is we know that some infants go to hell when they die, but some possibly go to heaven, but we're not sure. The corollary to that one is that we know that some infants go to heaven when they die, but there may be some that end up in hell. So in the first case, we're saying, well, we're sure some end up in hell. There's some infants in hell.

There's some way to know this. And there's some in heaven as the other one. But whether they all go there or not, we don't know. The third reasonable position is we don't know where infants go when they die and we can't even speculate the bible doesn't say anything about it and so we should be absolutely silent about it so you know we shouldn't even we shouldn't even discuss this because it's outside of what scripture mentions the flip side of that coin is is that we don't know whether all infants go to heaven or hell but we accept that there's possibilities and that we think it's worthy of discussion but we really don't know the answer.

And then the sixth position, we know that all infants go to heaven when they die. So I want to discuss these positions with you and I want to do it briefly and then I'll at some point here I think I'll reveal reveal mine to you so first of all the position that says we know that all infants go to hell when they die this position takes what I call the hard stance on the gospel call so the argument is that if you don't hear the gospel you go to hell we are all condemned because of our original sin in Adam were guilty before God. Nobody would be unjustly punished by God if he sent them to hell because we're all guilty in the eyes of God.

So the arguments against that might be things like Romans 1.20 that says the wrath of God or 1.18 to 1.20 the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth because what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them for his invisible attributes, namely his divine power, his eternal nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. So the question would be, is a person, let's start real simple, is a person who has never left their mother's womb, have they seen enough of God's creation that they would be without excuse?

I think it's a reasonable thing for a Christian to say, you know, I'm starting to wonder if if that scripture would not apply to little babies. It wouldn't apply to people in the womb. It may not even apply to somebody who's so mentally retarded that they've had some kind of handicap where they cannot understand things. And so all infants going to hell when they die is a valid way for some people to interpret the scripture, but it seems to deny some of church history, where so many theologians have argued that they think infants are elect and go to heaven.

And if you look at 2 Samuel 12, 23, where David's son dies, and David says, I will go to him, but he cannot come back to me. You have this implication in the Old Testament of David's understanding of his child's salvation at a young age. I think the problem that people who have to take this stance have is that often people who think infants go to heaven believe they go to heaven because they're innocent. people have really taken a Pelagian Arminian Catholic mindset and they have said things like well babies go to heaven because they've never done anything wrong or babies don't have any sin and so if people were making that argument I'd have to come against them and say well no they still deserve hell every human being that's conceived deserves hell other than Jesus Christ because we are conceived in sin Psalm 51 5 David says I was conceived in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me.

I was brought forth in iniquity and ASV. And so the argument is not that babies deserve heaven. The argument is that God in his foreordination of all things, knowing the wickedness of man and how many people would not only murder their children, but how many children would die as the result of this curse, chose in his grace to elect at least some of them. that is the argument against the all infants go to hell when they die not that that children are innocent or that because we've baptized them they should go to heaven or anything of that sort it would still be a complete work of grace it still required the shed blood of jesus christ on the cross to cleanse anybody of their sin their original sin from adam the very least and so the problem becomes when people make the emotional argument that they just know their baby's in heaven because God wouldn't do that God will do whatever he pleases and he is not subject to our moral standards and our moral judgments if God were to send every infant to hell that would be just if that was God's choice the argument I make is that I don't think the Bible is silent about the issue.

I think that the Bible gives us reason to have hope that it is not true that all infants go to hell. So reason number one is that, or reason, idea number one of what happens to infants, they all go to hell when they die. I don't buy it. I respect people who decide to take this stance and I'm happy to discuss it with people. and I try not to become overly emotional about it, because I think that's one of the problems people who believe infants go to heaven make is they get too emotional about it.

So another argument people make about whether infants go to heaven is that we know that some go to heaven or hell, but we don't know about the other. So these are people that aren't sure that everyone goes to one or the other, but they know that some go to some place and I don't I don't really get that position real well I know some people could think about it like if you believe the children of believers are somehow in some covenant that is that that makes them part of something you might start to think well if a believing family's child dies, then that child goes to heaven because, you know, even Corinthians, Paul talks about how your children are sanctified by the believing spouse. And then you could also then draw the conclusion that a Gentile, or it wouldn't be Gentile now, but a non-believing family's child who died does not go to heaven because that child deserved hell and because the other child was somehow elect by God out of sanctification by his parents.

And I don't buy that argument. I don't buy it primarily because of what John says, that it's not by the will of man, not by blood, nor the will of the flesh, that those who believed in his name and he gave the right to become children of God that so I'm not convinced that if there's children that go to heaven and if there's children that go to hell that it would be because of who their parents are so I don't think the bible gives us any clarity about some or or none some going to heaven or some going to hell so my my take would be that if you think any child at all could be saved by God and go to heaven, you have no reason not to have that same hope for every child that dies. And we'll get into that position in a little bit.

So my problem with some go to hell is I don't see that in the Bible. my problem was some go to heaven but we don't know if any go to hell is is i just have no basis for that and and it doesn't offer any extra hope i might as well hope for for more going to heaven if i'm going to hope that any go so one of the arguments that i have listed next because i actually wrote about this once is is this argument that we don't know where infants go when they die And we can't even guess or speculate. The Bible doesn't even speak on it. And, you know, I think that's a cute little answer.

Sorry, I was pouring some coffee there. I think it's a cute little answer. And I think it attempts to be really true to the Bible. And the problem is when we say things like, well, the Bible wasn't written for infants. It was written for adults. And we should focus on things that are clear. and you know what the Bible was written for adults who have real anxieties about things and God says to cast our anxieties on him and it's a very real circumstance that there are people who have who have had children who died before they could profess Christ and people wondered to themselves is the God that I worship going to give me these little children for such a short time that these children could never understand the gospel and then they die?

And then he just sends them to hell. And it's almost like some kind of test of someone's faith. and so I think that we have to be careful saying the Bible's silent about it and one of the reasons is that the Bible gives us things to think about I just mentioned a few scriptures where David says he's going to go to his child and and there's scriptures in the Old Testament we'll talk about where Jeremiah calls the children who are being sacrificed to Molech innocents and and we start to wonder, is God giving us some clues here? And so to say the Bible's silent on it is to actually suppose what you're trying to prove, which is that the Bible's silent.

So there's some arguments in the Bible for infant baptism that people make, and so to pretend those don't exist is a little bit unfair. So we've discussed some positions. Let's review real quick. We've discuss that we know that all infants go to hell when they die. And that's certainly a possibility. I don't buy it.

I think there's good arguments against it that are reasonable and logical, not just emotional. We talked about whether some infants go to hell, but we don't know if any go to heaven. And we talked about that some infants go to heaven, but we don't know if any go to hell. Those are really both opposite sides of the same coin. And I'm not convinced of either of those.

I understand that some people could try to wrestle themselves into one of them, or maybe their theology leads to one more than the other. As a Reformed Baptist, Calvinistic in my soteriology, I have no reason to believe that one. I do want to add that if somebody has an Arminian theology, there's actually no hope for infants who die. An infant who dies will never exercise their free will. that's what it's one of the problems with with infant death is that you never actually see them make that make that outward decision they never respond to the call and for an arminian there's absolutely no hope you either have to declare people innocent at a young age which now makes you pelagian which is what arminianism leads to ultimately or you need to acknowledge that well Anyone that doesn't grow up and exercise their free will to choose Christ is in hell.

And so it's really, you can't have God intervening in their life and saving them as a child in the womb or as a small child and still be Arminian. So there's a big problem there. and I would hope that that would actually motivate some well-meaning Arminian type people to move toward better soteriology. So the other thing we talked about was whether the Bible speaks about it not at all and I don't think that's the case.

I guess I respect people that don't want to talk about it and so they want to say that but I think the Bible gives us some things to talk about so the next logical thing people could have is that they could say we don't know whether all infants go to hell or heaven but we accept that both are possible so again that that one's I don't want to call it a cop-out but it it's one of these ones where people are just saying yeah we don't think it's clear and okay okay I'll respect you you're trying to be true to scripture you don't think it's clear but what I would say is if you fall into that belief that we don't know for sure but it's possible that infants are elect you have a choice when someone you know faces a miscarriage or a child's death your options are to offer them a hope that their child was saved by the blood of the Lamb and mercy of God. So you can try to at least say, hey, we have hope in this great God. Or you can try to convince them their loved one is not in hell because they didn't believe in Jesus Christ.

Or you can just say, we don't know, I guess. But why? If you really don't think you know, why not offer hope? Why not offer comfort? Why not glorify God about his goodness and his mercy toward human beings in that moment? Which one follows the pattern of God taking evil and using it for good?

If you fall into a category that says any infant has some chance at heaven, not that you're sure of it, but that they have a chance of heaven, then every infant has that hope. And why would you live any other way? We can trust that the Lord will do right, but that's where the hope lies. When someone dies who you were unsure of their salvation, we don't focus on the unsurety.

We focus on the hope that we have that Jesus Christ is merciful to sinners. We may have to honestly discuss it at times for one reason or another. We may have to try to discuss these hard topics. but ultimately we're supposed to be a people of hope. And so we don't need to be sure that all infants go to heaven to offer people hope that their infant goes to heaven, is what I'm trying to say.

So as long as you don't believe all infants go to hell, my point is that you can logically tell people, well, we trust the Lord to take care of your child. We trust the Lord with your child's eternity, just like we trusted the Lord with your child's death. and if you want to label that just some kind of emotionalism or something, I think you're mistaken. I think this is a reasoned way of discussing what's going on in Scripture and in real life.

We try to give people hope that the Lord is doing something wonderful. now the position that that I tend to take is that we know that all infants go to heaven when they die and here's the category of believers that's often under the most attacked people in this group are accused of simply being emotional about it but let me ask you this why is it so illogical to think that our God has a special love for children in Jonah 4 God expressed a special love and that there was a hundred thousand or 120,000 people that didn't know their right hand from the left. God hates the shedding of innocent blood, he says, which is a meaningful phrase if it's only referring to Jesus Christ. But I don't think that anybody interprets God hates the hands that shed innocent blood or the shedding of innocent blood.

I don't think, I don't know anyone who interprets that as referring only to Jesus Christ. People think that that refers to a type of innocence that exists in our world apart from our stain of original sin guilt before God. The innocence that all little children have. When an adult suffers the consequences of their bad choices, we don't think of them as an innocent victim of a lot of things that can happen to people.

But when a kid is abused or victimized in some way, we don't ever think, oh, well, he deserved it because of his original sin. We think that poor child. And so the idea that God has a special love and compassion towards children is not illogical at all. In fact, it's biblical. Children were a special part of Christ's ministry prior to his death, burial, and resurrection.

We can remember the passages where he spoke of children in a way that people at that time found revolutionary. The fact that people use the doctrine that infants go to heaven as their excuse to murder their own children doesn't do anything to disprove it. there is no logical connection between people using what they know for sinful purposes and any impact on them doing that on the truth of the doctrine. So if infants are elect and go to heaven when they die, because of God's election, his foreknowledge, his love toward them in Christ, because of God applying the shed blood of Jesus to forgive them of their original sin and cleanse them of all unrighteousness, the veracity of that is not modified or affected whatsoever by an evil person killing a child because they heard that doctrine.

No more than telling people, you are forgiven of all your sins for the rest of your life because of Jesus that is not invalidated because somebody uses that as an excuse to sin. The truth, the objectivity of a statement is not affected by how people use that statement. Now, we can see if something's a logical conclusion, and we can judge an assumption based on that.

But it is not a logical conclusion that we can kill children because they'll go to heaven. Because killing children is still a violation of the commandment, thou shall not murder. so we don't judge the doctrine based on the fact that people have abused it if we did that we wouldn't believe anything that's left in the bible because men have abused all of it i've heard people say if all babies go to heaven abortion is a good thing let let let it not be so that anyone says that from a regenerate mind. That's crudiosity there.

That's Christian idiocy. Abortion is a wicked and evil thing, even if God, who is amazing, uses it for good. The fact that God does something wonderful with a wicked act doesn't validate that act, nor does it make the agents of that act morally good. so babies can be elect because god has given us clues in scripture because god has given believers hope that in this cursed world where even babies suffer the punishment of original sin while not living to the time of being able to hear and believe the gospel because of god's grace and mercy we can have hope that there are babies who are elect and go to heaven and we can be very hopeful that when you have miscarried that your child is already in the arms of Jesus.

And I don't know how the whole child and age thing works in heaven, but he or she's probably not even a child in that sense anymore. That your little two-day-old baby that was still only a few cells in your womb is eternally secure with God because of his election and because he chose to do something great with what evil men meant for evil. And that is really God's theme.

One of the themes of the whole Bible is men will do evil and God will actually take the evil and make something good come from it. not make the evil good, not justify the wicked in any way apart from faith in Christ, but that he will make something good happen out of the evil. And so that is my hope, and that is the hope I share with you. that people who cannot be outwardly called by the word may still be numbered in God's elect and his application of Jesus' blood to their life and his granting of faith and regeneration to them can happen in a way where we don't get to see it outwardly, but we get to have hope in it. And so now you start to think about some things that happened in the Old Testament differently.

You look at when God struck the firstborn of Egypt dead, and you see Egyptians being punished for their wickedness, and you see a whole nation being judged and plagues upon that nation because of what they did to the Jewish people of God and Pharaoh not letting them worship. And everyone suffered because of Pharaoh. There may have been Egyptians that said, hey, let the people go.

I don't know. And God's judgment comes down on that nation. And then you start to think about the firstborns. And you start to think, how many of those firstborns may have been little infants? And if in God's election, he was saving those children. In God's election, when the Jews would destroy entire nations.

To think that the children were elect of God and part of his election was that they would die at a young age in such a way that he would give us clues that they were saved. not because they outwardly heard a call and believed it but because by his grace he granted them faith and so you start to see these children of these pagan nations as as some of them people who instead of growing up in a pagan nation never hearing about god never hearing about the messiah who would come or never hearing about jesus and you start to see how how it was actually God's grace in their life. You think of all these children that for millennia have been sacrificed by wicked people at altars of false gods. And you start to think about God twisting all that so that he will punish the wicked and he will actually save some of these children.

And you start to see the glory of believing something like that. It starts to give you hope, not that we should go kill children, but that God will still do good things even when men do evil. And to me, that's a hopeful thing. And I'll say this is also very personal to me, in that I have three children who have died. All three before they had any opportunity to leave my wife's womb.

And it's not an emotional plea I make. I believe that that's just part of God's plan. And I believe scripture gives us more indication that I've been able to give in this talk that's already gone longer than I hoped. Maybe longer than you've hoped. So, the friendly atheist thinks we have a problem. Because people might use evil for good.

He thinks we have a problem because some children get what he calls a free pass to heaven. It was the first line of it. He says, most Christians believe that people who die at a young age are given a free pass to heaven. Well, guess what? Anyone who goes to heaven goes on a free pass. Every single person that goes to heaven is going for free.

It's by free grace. And the only way you go to heaven is if you are riding that free pass. The question is how is it applied to people? And for people who God does not elect they will live to a point when they see enough of creation that they easily without excuse that they are willingly sinning against God that they committing sins of the body that exhibit their sinful nature, and God will righteously and rightly punish them for all eternity.

And for those who are elect of God, God will come to them at some point in time with an outward call and he will regenerate their heart they will believe the gospel and they will bear fruit in keeping with repentance showing through their sanctification that they have been elect and that they have been justified in time and then they will die and be glorified and for some of the elect those whom wicked men and wicked women will do things to or hurt or they will just suffer even if it's not by murder they will just suffer death at what we'll call an early age God has chosen that he will come to them without the outward call but that he will come to them with regeneration, the gift of faith and glorification by his grace alone and that is our hope and it's not a problem for Christianity that infants die and go to heaven it's a problem for the atheist that he cares that infants die. The atheist has no reason to care why infants die. They have no reason to care why anyone.

Why would you build a hospital if you were an atheist? It's survival of the fittest. There would be no reason to keep the weakest of our culture alive. If you really believed in evolutionary thought and things like survival of the fittest. There would be no reason to not terminate all Down Syndrome children. It is only Christianity that values each and every human life in such a way that we actually believe we're to take care of our weakest.

We believe we should protect our weakest. that that's actually the obligation of the ones God has granted strength to. So infant death is a result of the fall. Romans 5 reminds us of that. But we can have hope. We can have hope that God is doing something good through that. Refuting the friendly atheist.

40 Problems with Christianity. Very quickly, number nine. Let me just move on. He says, many Christians believe that life begins at conception, and an entire anti-abortion industry has been built around this concept. He says it presents a problem. Does a fertilized egg that fails to implant in the uterus go to heaven?

This seems absurd, but it's important to consider it in the context of Christian dogma. He says if one assumes this is not the case, then it becomes very difficult to identify when a developing fetus becomes eternal in the eyes of God. Is it at the moment of birth, such that a baby that dies just before delivery is denied heaven? There's no non-arbitrary way to solve this problem.

It goes along with the previous one. No, it's not arbitrary at all. People at the moment of conception are conceived in iniquity. And we're all dead in our trespasses and sin and deserve hell. And as I just said from number eight, that there are instances that are mysterious to us, though, where people will go to heaven even though they have died without hearing the gospel or believing the gospel outwardly.

And the specific ones I was talking about were babies and people who are handicapped in some way. He says an entire anti-abortion industry has been built around this concept. That's false. there's hardly any anti-abortion industry in our world if we have an anti-abortion industry, show me because what I know is there's like 500 people that actually oppose it from conception, maybe there's 2,000 people that are actually outspoken about it, most people just accept it but I just want to address one thing the idea that young children go to heaven can have pitfalls in our practice if we are not thoughtful about it.

I believe if a child dies in the womb, we can say they go to heaven. I believe little tiny babies, newborns, can go to heaven. I think there's a point at a very young age that children start to show their sinfulness. I believe that there's young ages where they are saying no to parents and they are doing things they that we know are wrong and but we're still convinced they don't understand yet and then there's a point in every person's life that you can start to say wow I think they know they doing something wrong they seem to be intentionally rebelling against my authority as a parent or they know they shouldn take something and they did and they even show that.

I think that we can fall into a trap of believing that children go to heaven, and so we don't give them the gospel at that young age. Like, oh, well, they're safe until they're five. Or we make up an age of accountability. Or we start saying 13, 14-year-old people are in heaven because we think of them as children. I think we have to be very careful because that is where the atheist guy makes a good point.

He says there's no non-arbitrary way to resolve some of these things. Well, I don't know if eight-year-olds go to heaven when they die, even if they've never heard of Christ. Because I know that at age eight, a lot of children are pretty openly rebelling against God, it seems like. And they're living out their sin nature in a way that shows that they understand there's a creator and they understand that they're accountable.

And so, although I think we can have hope for young children, so I'm thinking like under five, you can kind of have hope. And again, it's arbitrary. Different cultures are going to be different. Different kids are going to learn differently and communicate differently. So I hate that I threw out under five. It could be under three.

But I have a three-year-old right now who seems to really clearly know when he's doing the wrong thing and he just still does it. He also doesn't seem to understand talking about God. I don't think that necessarily exonerates him. So if something happened to my three-year-old, I would say I hope in the Lord that God saved him by his grace, even though he wasn't outwardly called and he didn't respond. but I wouldn't be able to say for sure I know for a fact that that happened that's a hope but my point is this you give kids the gospel and you do not withhold from them even at a very young age the call to repent and believe and you teach them the truth of why Jesus came why Jesus had to die and why Jesus rose again and ascended into heaven and so I have seen people who withhold that from children because they think well the kid's going to go to heaven anyway and then they do have an arbitrary way of deciding like oh my junior high will tell them and I am not hopeful for kids over age five or six that they're part of this elect infant group.

I think we need to give them the gospel. And I think it's one of the reasons we need to reach people and reach families because there will be... We've had school shootings where young children died. And I've heard pastors say those children went to heaven. and I'm sitting there looking at pictures of young children doing first communion at a Catholic church and I remember doing that and I knew I was a sinner I knew I needed forgiveness but I wasn't saved at seven and so I'm hesitant to declare children in heaven at too old of an age as well and so we do need to be careful about how we address these things i think we start by telling people you need to give the gospel to everyone and then we can follow up specific instances of of tragedy in people's lives with hey we have some hope we have some hope that your child even though they did not understand the gospel yet god may have saved them it's a hard topic especially when you start talking about kids that are a little older than babies most people will accept the baby argument you start getting into five six seven eight year olds and then you start getting disagreements and but we have great hope in our lord jesus christ he is the judge of all the earth and he will do right he is the one that holds the keys to death and Hades and he is going to come again and he is going to judge evil so today is the day for all of us to not only be saved to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ but also to go to the highways and byways and to tell everyone and to invite people to the banquet that the Master is giving and even to find children, to be creative about finding children, whether it's through their parents or whether there's other ways we can get children in the hearing of God's Word.

Thank you for listening to Be a Berean with your host, Michael Coughlin. I am a writer at thingsabove.us and I also have a personal website, michaelcoughlin.net. You can contact me by emailing me, michael at thingsabove.us. I hope that you have been encouraged to search the scriptures.