A Christian Argument for Antinatalism

Antinatalism is the philosophical view that the birth of new human beings is, in some sense, a disvalue and should be avoided. However, antinatalists disagree widely on their reasons for assigning a disvalue to the creation of new human life. One person might be an antinatalist because of the anticipated quality of life of the newborn — “I couldn’t bring a new life into a world with all this suffering” — while another person might be an antinatalist because of the impact on  planet earth — “Human beings are a plague species!”

One thing is clear, however: antinatalism would seem to be very far from the Christian perspective. After all, children are consistently viewed as a blessing in scripture (e.g. Genesis 1:28; Psalm 127:3).

While this is true, in this article I’m going to present a brief argument for antinatalism from a Christian perspective. That Christian perspective assumes that it is likely or plausible that posthumous judgment for those outside Christ will consist of a resurrection to judgment that leads to the eternal conscious torment of the individual resurrected. With that in mind, the argument proceeds in straightforward fashion.

(1) The belief that there is a reasonable chance (e.g. more than 20%) that your future child would be born with a horrifying and untreatable disease like Stevens-Johnson syndrome would provide a good reason to avoid having children.

(2) Eternal conscious torment is unimaginably worse than Stevens-Johnson syndrome.

(3) Therefore, if the belief that there is a reasonable chance that your future child would be born with Stevens-Johnson syndrome would provide a good reason to avoid having children, then the belief that there is a reasonable chance that your future child would ultimately experience eternal conscious torment provides a good reason to avoid having children.

(4) There is a reasonable chance that your future child would ultimately experience eternal conscious torment.

(5) Therefore, you have a good reason to avoid having children.

I am not an antinatalist, but I do think this is an argument for Christians to consider. And if they reject it, as I do, they should be clear on their basis for doing so.

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