Terry,
There were some really good comments in this thread but they were dismissed as silly. This was largely based on the rules you made up in the first place which did not get challenged effectively. The thing common to this discussion was "life" not intelligence, your view of justice or even identity but life. It is this life that is at stake and it will be this life that will be redeemed. It goes something like this:
Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. {of the dust…: Heb. dust of the ground}
Genesis 6:17And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die.
John 1:4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
This is how we came to be. Now along with such life we can have, identity, personality, and the rest. This is important to us, but this is not what God valued the most. It was this life itself, given in the beginning, the very same life we all have today, the very life He will restore to those He chooses that mattered. But you said: Children are the result of birth! You are imputing life to non-existent non-entities. And further: Imputing identity to unformed spermatazoa not even united with eggs which were not yet in ovaries yet to come is beyond whimsical and ignorant---it is pathological nonsense.
Nonsense to you perhaps, but not to God. That life, capable of propagation, capable of sustaining living beings is what really mattered. Without it we are just dust. That life is now found in us, in our blood for example and such blood does not think does it? Yet it counts with God beyond any identity or being that may be attached to it.
Genesis 9:4 But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.
Genesis 9:5 And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man.
John 6:54 Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.
So the question is: How do you INHERIT a paid-for debt?
The answer is the debt was not paid for. Adam the sinner could not redeem such life simply because he died. We cannot redeem ourselves simply because we die. That same life still condemned continued along with those that possess it. The possessors of it die, yes, that much is true. But the giver of that very life had to sacrifice that same life faithfully in order to make it possible for that life to be redeemed by the same blood that is common to us all. It did not matter when in time this took place. It only mattered that it did take place to make it possible for us to gain not just life, but eternal life during this last day.
Revelation 5:9 And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation;
Joseph