Do mentally challenged people go to Heaven?

Q: Do mentally challenged people who can't understand the concept of God go to heaven?

You asked if mentally challenged people who can't understand the concept of God can go to heaven. The simple answer is, “yes.”

I think there is a misunderstanding among some regarding faith – that faith is the acceptance of a truth proposition.  Yes, God reveals truth.  But more importantly, God reveals Himself in a personal way and invites us to know Him.  The Gospel story is one of love, centered on the cross, where the God who loves us looked at our helpless state and chose to bear the penalty of our sins so that we would know eternal life with Him.  The love of God is central to faith and it is the biblical message that is proclaimed from the first chapter of Genesis through the promise of a New Earth in Revelation.

You may be familiar with the passage in the Bible about children coming to Jesus.  It is in Matthew 19.  In it, Jesus blesses some little children.  It goes like this:

Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.”  (Matthew 19:13-14 - ESV)

I think you would agree with me that mentally challenged people frequently express a child-like kind of love.  Note that the response of the children was not from their understanding of concepts, but of their love of Jesus.  What is interesting about this little story is that it is surrounded by stories of learned men coming to Jesus to ask about what He was teaching.  The Pharisees wanted to quibble over various understandings of the law.  The rich man wanted to know how to earn his way to Heaven through his behavior.  Even his own disciples didn’t understand the significance of the children’s’ response to Jesus – these children were the kinds of people to whom belong the kingdom of God!  The children simply desired to be in His presence and to enjoy Him.  We still need to share Christ with the mentally challenged and to take seriously their ability to respond to God’s love.  We should never underestimate the ability of the Holy Spirit to speak through the disabled mind and into the fully responsive heart.  There may be situations where the impairment is extreme – and you might wonder if even the love of God can be felt.  This is where we pray and trust God and remember our own faith in the good Creator who protects the innocent and charges us with the same.  

This is a personal question for me since my own son is a mentally challenged adult.  He cannot comprehend things many people take for granted.  But he knows what it means to be loved and what it means to love.  We teach concepts he can understand, but more importantly, we introduced him to Jesus so that he would know Him as we do.  In fact, as his love for Jesus is unfettered and secure, he is frequently the one teaching us.  I say with all humility that I sometimes wonder who has the mental challenge. Who among us can comprehend all there is to know about God?  Perhaps the best answer to your question about whether the mentally challenged go to Heaven is, “yes, we do.”  


Thank you for your question.  Feel free to contact me if you’d like to have more discussion about this.