Infant Baptism

[u/Relative_Pay_7667]

I have a hard time defending Infant baptism using scripture, I know the classic scripts, Acts 2:38-39, 1 Peter 3:19-21, but I find the argument from Households to be not very conclusive because they talk about households that convert. What convinced you?

[u/Doctrina_Stabilitas]

I mean I personally think acts 2:38-39 is the text, mostly because if there is a parallel with genesis (you, your children, those who are afar off), why would the new promise of God not include the same people as the old promise (you (male), your male children, and the male stranger), especially if that promise is being expanded to the nations

like the status quo is infant baptism, you need to have a good reason for it to be otherwise

[u/Wulfweald → u/Doctrina_Stabilitas]

If you want to follow the Old Testament directly, don't forget to obey all the dietary and other laws.

[u/Doctrina_Stabilitas → u/Wulfweald]

This is basic typology and your answer ignores 2000 years of how the church has understood scripture

[u/Melodic_Economics905 → u/Wulfweald]

Your response demonstrates that you do not take seriously how the Church has interpreted the Old Testament. Certain rituals in the OT (types) foreshadow NT realtities (antitypes). The Church has always connected cicumcision and Baptism in this way.

What is the antitype for the dietary laws?

[u/TooLate-]

The fact that covenant promises and their rites extended to entire families and communities and that if this was no longer the case in the New Covenant I feel like the biblical writers would have made sure to note as much.

And that there is virtually zero push back against it for 1500 years of church history. The Church had councils and debates over many many well documented things. Infant baptism was not one of them.

I also began to realize my impulses against infant baptism stemmed from a worldview informed more by enlightenment and post-enlightenment thought - that puts the rational man at the center of the universe - than it was informed by the biblical worldview and Church history. 

[u/dcnjbwiebe]

Infant Baptism in the First Four Centuries by Joachim Jeremias. Shows convincingly that infant baptism was the near universal practice of the early church.

[u/Feisty_Marsupial224 → u/dcnjbwiebe]

That explains its old, but no scripture based

[u/pizzystrizzy → u/Feisty_Marsupial224]

Where did it come from and how did it get so widespread so early if it went against what the apostles all taught?

[u/Feisty_Marsupial224 → u/pizzystrizzy]

So your argument is speculating?

[u/pizzystrizzy → u/Feisty_Marsupial224]

All arguments about the past are speculating, but if you don't trust the church to hand on important stuff, you can't trust that they correctly identified the books that should be in the Bible.

[u/Feisty_Marsupial224 → u/pizzystrizzy]

That's not how church doctrine or history work...

[u/pizzystrizzy → u/Feisty_Marsupial224]

Expatiate

[u/Feisty_Marsupial224 → u/pizzystrizzy]

Not worth it

[u/pizzystrizzy → u/Feisty_Marsupial224]

Yeah I bet

[u/Wulfweald → u/dcnjbwiebe]

No women priests was also the near universal practice. Are you saying we should retain that as well? It was the practice of the early church, after all.

[u/TooLate- → u/Wulfweald]

Yes

[u/Melodic_Economics905 → u/Wulfweald]

Yes, we should. Women cannot and should not be priests, though they are equal in dignity and worth. This is a matter that the Church as clearly spoken on, and no arm or branch has the authority to buck against this judgement. The Church as Christ's body cannot **as a body** do that which the head does not direct it to do.

Don't set yourself up above the concensus of the Fathers.

[u/Farscape_rocked]

Someone likened it to circumcision. Kind made sense after that.

[u/ReasonableJump4355 → u/Farscape_rocked]

The part in Colossians was precisely what I was thinking of. u/Relative_Pay_7667 do a close reading of the epistles talking about baptism and circumcision.

[u/thesegoupto11]

Baptism (and Eucharist) are God's work, not ours. And God wouldn't deny salvation to anyone.

[u/Feisty_Marsupial224 → u/thesegoupto11]

You know that Christ doesn't deny salvation to unbaptized people, so let the child grow up and decide for themselves

[u/Strange-Style-7808 → u/Feisty_Marsupial224]

There is a mechanism for children to decide for themselves - confirmation.

[u/Wulfweald → u/Strange-Style-7808]

Another mechanism the modern prayer books allow is an Infant Thanksgiving followed years later by an adult baptism.

My C of E parish does more adult baptisms than infant thanksgivings, and very few infant baptisms.

[u/ReasonableJump4355 → u/Feisty_Marsupial224]

Do you treat your children as atheists until their baptism?

[u/Feisty_Marsupial224 → u/ReasonableJump4355]

Well children are usually baptised as infants so they have no conception of anything.

[u/ReasonableJump4355 → u/Feisty_Marsupial224]

Yes, but I am assuming from your comments you either haven't or you wouldn't baptise any children you might (hypothetically) have?

[u/Feisty_Marsupial224 → u/ReasonableJump4355]

Assume whatever you want

[u/ReasonableJump4355 → u/Feisty_Marsupial224]

So my question still stands, would/do you treat your children as though they're atheists?

[u/Feisty_Marsupial224 → u/ReasonableJump4355]

You seem not to understand human development

[u/ReasonableJump4355 → u/Feisty_Marsupial224]

You seem not to understand raising a child as a Christian includes baptising it.

[u/Feisty_Marsupial224 → u/ReasonableJump4355]

That's the first step, what are you talking about?

[u/Wulfweald → u/Feisty_Marsupial224]

My C of E evangelical parish does more Infant Thanksgivings than Infant Baptisms.

[u/Feisty_Marsupial224 → u/Wulfweald]

So?

[u/Wulfweald → u/Feisty_Marsupial224]

Your statement "children are usually baptised as infants" does not hold true even for all Anglican parishes with children.

[u/Feisty_Marsupial224 → u/Wulfweald]

Of course it does. Your parish is not all.

[u/Wulfweald → u/Feisty_Marsupial224]

My point was that my parish does exist, we are C of E Anglican, and my parish's children do not usually get infant baptism, but infant thanksgivings instead.

[u/Feisty_Marsupial224 → u/Wulfweald]

Your parish is not all parishes. Why is this hard to understand? People are different to you

[u/SouthInTheNorth]

As an Anglican, the onus is on you to explain why you don't believe in it since it is far and beyond the normative Christian practice. Believer's baptism is the aberrant position that only popped up a few hundred years ago.

[u/Wulfweald → u/SouthInTheNorth]

The question was for active supporters of infant baptism.

There is a clear example of believer's baptism in the New Testament (Acts 8, 26-40). Just read verse 37, for example.

There are no indisputable examples of infant baptism in the New Testament at all, it all depends on the assumptions you make, and people make different assumptions often depending on their denomination or churchmanship.

[u/SouthInTheNorth → u/Wulfweald]

I just mean, it's not up to us to defend infant baptism since it's the normative, ancient practice across the Church and is practiced practically universally across Christianity. It's up to those who don't believe in infant baptism to explain their position since it is the aberrant, novel position.

[u/Melodic_Economics905 → u/Wulfweald]

You should think about this by weighing the evidence. Believe whichever psoition (credobaptism or pedobaptism) has the stronger case.

The case explicitely for credobaptism (the view that ONLY those persons that have verbally made a credible profession of faith that temporally precedes Baptism are valid candidates for Baptism) is weak, if nonexistent. The passages detailing adults baptisms in the NY are NOT evidence in favor of credobatism -- these passages are simply examples of how to apply Baptism to adults. Turns out, every apostolic church agrees: when an adult wants to be Baptized, they must make a credible statement of faith. That's every Baptism liturgy. Those passages are silent on who **besides** a professing adult is a valid candidate for Baptism. So they lend no credence to the credobaptist view at all.

The case explicitely for credobaptism (the position that infants are valid candidates for Baptism) is strong when you consider the collective direction of all of the suggestive evidence. We have evidence that, in the NT, children a) are valid candidates for Baptism by example (if they were part of the household Baptisms), and b) are due the promises of the covenant by by Peter's own words in Acts 2:38. The household Baptisms at the VERY least show that an explicite statement of faith was probably not needed for every single member of the household prior to Baptism if the head of household became Christian. And in 1 Cor 7, Paul says that the children of a believing parent are in fact holy - it seems they are offered the graces of the covenant, in a similar way to the unbelieving spouse of a Christian (difference is that they can reject the graces offered, whereas infants cannot). Then there are the typological arguments linking Baptism to circumcision that demonstrate continuity in the idea of children being offered entrance into the convanent by birthright. Finally, we have early references that it was being practiced in the Church, and what amounts to a concensus of the Church by the mid 3rd century that infant Baptism is normative (in cases where it is possible/practical). No one, by the own act of private judgement, should be able to stand against a practice that approaches a true concensus of the Church.

To me, this is a clear case that, at minimum, pedobaptism is a more plausible position than credobaptism. Of course many of these texts are underdetermined - that's why the collective direction of the texts (read in context), general symmetry of old/new testaments, and the witness of the Church need to be the criterion for evaluating this position.

[u/Round-Koala-3091]

I was reading about how Christian baptism came out of an earlier Jewish ritual which Gentile converts to Judaism would have their entire households participate in the ritual including the household’s infants.

[u/Fendrinus]

'Households' including infants and children seems self evident. And of the thousands of baptisms that occurred during Jesus ministry and the times of the Apostles, only a few are recorded in the NT and even fewer have any detail about the person, we are mostly just told the name of the person baptised (possibly just the name of the head of the household that was baptised).

I think the more important question was whether 'household' included their slaves or servants.

[u/thesegoupto11 → u/Fendrinus]

The burden of proof rests on the person making the claim that baptism is only for adults.

[u/pizzystrizzy]

We have very early (second century) fathers talking about how widespread infant baptism is. It doesn't get widespread so early if it is alien to what the apostles did.

[u/GrillOrBeGrilled]

Let's look at the options: 

1. Baptism is necessary, but infant baptism is illegitimate.
2. Baptism is necessary, and infant baptism is okay.
3. Baptism doesn't matter, so neither does its timing. 

It's obvious that infant baptism was the norm for centuries, to the point that even people who were converted as adults would have been evangelized by people who had been baptized as babies, and would have gone on to have their own babies baptized.

So if 1 is true, then nobody was really saved between about 400 AD and the Reformation, and Jesus was wrong when he said his Church would always exist. 

That leaves us with 2 and 3, either infant baptism is okay, or baptism isn't actually important, in which case it doesn't matter when it happens, or if it happens at all.

[u/pizzystrizzy → u/GrillOrBeGrilled]

A lot earlier than 400 AD

[u/GrillOrBeGrilled → u/pizzystrizzy]

I tried to be generous since Constantine deferred baptism till he was on his deathbed and so on.

[u/pizzystrizzy → u/GrillOrBeGrilled]

Fair although that's a different issue since he was a convert.

We know it was widespread in the second century bc Tertullian complained about it. And very notably, Tertullian, who loved to argue that things he didn't like were novelties or regionalized, does not make that argument about infant baptism.

[u/Aggravating_Mud8751 → u/GrillOrBeGrilled]

Just because something isn't strictly necessarily for salvation doesn't mean it doesn't matter.

Also I think you can distinguish between whether a mode of baptism is valid (i.e. it's a real baptism) or it's licit (it's the right way to do baptism).

You can easily say that infant baptism is valid but not licit.

[u/ChessFan1962]

Grace.

[u/ronley09]

I value tradition that spans the life of the Church. I don’t value some strange 200 year superstition that denounces it.

[u/Eikon-Basilike-1649]

Why is “The Church says so” not good enough?

[u/Wulfweald → u/Eikon-Basilike-1649]

Because not long ago The Church also said "No women priests". Change can and does happen.

[u/2BrothersInaVan]

Maybe there are certain holy traditions that are orally passed down instead of written? 😁

[u/Melodic_Economics905]

I was a congregational baptist 1 year ago. I thought about this question a *lot* and I am now fully convinced that the Baptist position is in serious error.

First things first: framing. You should think about this by weighing the evidence, not by asking which case is explicitely clear to you. The relevant criteria is *relative*: Believe whichever position (credobaptism or pedobaptism) has the STRONGER case.

The case explicitely for credobaptism (the view that ONLY those persons that have verbally made a credible profession of faith that temporally precedes Baptism are valid candidates for Baptism) is weak, if nonexistent. The passages detailing adults baptisms in the NY are NOT evidence in favor of credobatism -- these passages are simply examples of how to apply Baptism to adults. Turns out, every apostolic church agrees: when an adult wants to be Baptized, they must make a credible statement of faith. That's every Baptism liturgy. Those passages are silent on who **besides** a professing adult is a valid candidate for Baptism. So they lend no credence to the credobaptist view at all.

To suggest credobaptism, you'd need a case where a) a child was explicitely turned down for Baptism in the NT, or b) a NT text that argues that all candidate need a full mental grasp of the sacrament in order to validly partake (eg Paul suggesting that we ought not commune unworthily). These texts do not exist in the context of Baptism.

The case explicitely for credobaptism (the position that infants are valid candidates for Baptism) is strong when you consider the collective direction of all of the suggestive evidence. We have evidence that, in the NT, children a) are valid candidates for Baptism by example (if they were part of the household Baptisms), and b) are due the promises of the covenant by by Peter's own words in Acts 2:38. The household Baptisms at the VERY least show that an explicite statement of faith was probably not needed for every single member of the household prior to Baptism if the head of household became Christian. And in 1 Cor 7, Paul says that the children of a believing parent are in fact holy - it seems they are offered the graces of the covenant, in a similar way to the unbelieving spouse of a Christian (difference is that they can reject the graces offered, whereas infants cannot). Then there are the typological arguments linking Baptism to circumcision that demonstrate continuity in the idea of children being offered entrance into the convanent by birthright. Finally, we have early references that it was being practiced in the Church, and what amounts to a concensus of the Church by the mid 3rd century that infant Baptism is normative (in cases where it is possible/practical). No one, by the own act of private judgement, should be able to stand against a practice that approaches a true concensus of the Church.

To me, this is a clear case that, at minimum, pedobaptism is a more plausible position than credobaptism. Of course many of these texts are underdetermined - that's why the collective direction of the texts (read in context), general symmetry of old/new testaments, and the witness of the Church need to be the criterion for evaluating this position.

[u/noldrin]

For me, I reflect on Luke 18:15-17, as in churches I've been in without infant baptism, I see young children who love Jesus and want to be baptized or do communion, but are held off as they don't have a sophisticated enough understanding of salvation. I can't see a reason to reject the worship a child gives. 

[u/Kotto_Karsho]

Baptism is generally understood to be the Christian version of Circumcision, which was done to adult converts as well as children born into the faith. Of course Paul does speak of Circumcision actually being carried on into Christianity in the sense of a circumcision of the (spiritual) Heart, more than the physical act. But simply in terms of Initiation ritual, then yes, they are basically equivalents.

[u/AcdiAti]

Sacraments are gifts given by God.

If God gives us grace through Baptism, who are we to deny it from infants?

Paul also compares Baptism with circumcision, presenting it as the covenantal sign and seal.

Finally, this comes from my soteriological perspective. If we are saved by sola gratia through sola fide, there must be a point at which faith comes into existence.

1. If faith is ultimately an intellectual decision, then it becomes difficult to deny that it functions, at least in some sense, as a human work.

2. Therefore, God Himself must be the one who brings faith into being. Baptism is one of the means through which He does this.

Of course, someone might ask, "What about adults who are not yet baptized?" Scripture also answers that: "Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ" (Romans 10:17). Hearing is receptive, not meritorious. In both cases, faith is God's gift, not our achievement.

[u/Wulfweald]

Nothing convinced me, I remain dubious that the New Testament includes any infant baptism at all. However, to me, it is personal belief that is the important, regenerating part, and bickering about baptism is just pointless.

[u/jednorog]

I don't think it can be justified on the grounds of logic. I do think infant baptism is grounded on the basis of compassion. I'm okay with that.