So I've recently been struggling with the issue of baptism. For a long time I never worried about the baptism debate because I was baptized as a child. Recently I've done some research on it and many people are saying that baptizing babies is just tradition and does not count as baptism. I keep doing research but I keep getting different answers, some say baby baptism counts, some say it doesn't, and some say you don't need baptism at all.
This is causing me a lot of anxiety and I'm wondering if anyone could give me some more information so I can be sure about this issue. Do I need to get baptized as a believing adult? Or is my baby baptism enough?
Thanks.
One objection that fundamentalists have in regards to infant Baptism is related to the nature of Baptism in general. To the fundamentalist Christian, Baptism does not confer saving graces or justify and sanctify a person; rather, Baptism is a mere outward symbolic sign of a person who has already accepted Christ and has died with him through faith. The fundamentalists are flawed in their view of the nature of Baptism. While Baptism is an outward sign it is also true that Baptism is an efficacious sign that actually does what it signifies. Baptism confers saving graces and enables one to enter into initial justification and sanctification(1 Cor 6:11). St. Peter our first Pope proclaims that Christ saves through the waters of Holy Baptism just as he saved Noah’s family through water( 1 Peter 3:19-21). St. Paul instructs the Ephesians and Romans that it is God’s free gift of grace that initially saves them(Eph 2:5-9, Rom 5:15). St. Paul’s letter to Titus demonstrates that this free gift of grace and salvation is regenerative and comes about initially by the pouring upon the faithful in Baptism(Titus 3:5-7).
The book of Romans communicates the reality of original sin that all humanity inherited due to Adams transgressions.(Rom 5:12) God uses the sacrament of Baptism to cleanse and wash away ones sins, original and personal(Acts 22:16, Acts 2:38-39, Ezekiel 36:25-27). This is one reason why infants are baptized, especially in the danger of early death. The infant has no personal sin but the infant does have the stain of original sin, which needs to be washed away. For Jesus said that unless one is born of water and the Holy Spirit one cannot enter the kingdom of God(Jn 3:3-5). Origen, an early third century Scripture scholar, spoke of the saving grace of Baptism that remits sins and of infant Baptism in which he declared as a tradition given by the apostles. In the late second century St. Irenaeus spoke of salvation through Baptism and suggested that this salvation is also for infants. Even St. Polycarp, a first century of disciple of the apostle John, was baptized as an infant.
God’s covenant with Infants
Usually fundamentalists quote the Book of Acts 2:38-39) where St. Peter calls adults to repent and be baptized to demonstrate believer’s Baptism only . At first this verses may seem to be a stumbling block to those who teach infant Baptism, but when the Scriptures are viewed on a deeper level in its fuller context infant Baptism shines forth.
The passage doesn't disqualify infant Baptism. As a matter of fact the same passage implicitly teaches the possibility of infant Baptism. Notice what Peter declares right after his instructions. He says this “Baptism” is for you and your children. Nowhere does Peter specify age! If one studies the culture of the time the implications for infant Baptism become even clearer. The Hebrew mindset would have automatically understood Baptism to include infants as well as others. This is true especially since God used circumcision, a covenant ritual performed on infants, to enter them into the Jewish faith and communion with God(Gen 17:12). St. Paul describes the Sacrament of Baptism as the new covenant circumcision made without hands(Col 2:11-13). Hence the new covenant of Baptism fulfills the old covenant of circumcision. Baptism now enters you into the true religion and Family of God (the Church) and gives the baptized communion with God (the Trinity) enabling them as partakers of divine nature(2 Pet 1:4). If the old covenant could enter infants into God’s family then the new covenant can on an even greater level. Baptism is a typological fulfillment of circumcision. No covenant fulfillment is ever inferior to its Old Testament type. The fulfillment is always superior. If infants could not be baptized then Baptism would be an inferior covenant to circumcision.
Jesus tells the people that they are not to hinder even the infants to come to him and to receive the kingdom of God(Lk 18:15-17). Catholic Scripture scholar Dr Scott Hahn suggests this is an implicit hint to infant Baptism in Scripture, since Baptism is the doorway to God’s kingdom(Jn 3:3-5) and since the one must receive the kingdom of God like an infant.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church enlists the Baptism of families as evidence for the possibility of infant Baptism. Baptists tend to have difficulties in understanding infant Baptism because they tend to only see the salvation of a person as an absolute individualistic unit. However, Christ works to save individuals through his Church in a corporate nature and reveals this in household Baptisms. Infant Baptism is based upon the faith of the Church as a corporate body and the free gift of God’s grace. Catholic theologian and scholar Dr. Ludwig Ott quotes St. Augustine in regard to infant Baptism saying “The faith which infants lack is replaced by the faith of the Church”.
Although the normative practice of infant Baptism fluxuated in the early church, it is clear that nearly all the fathers of the Church at least allowed for it and many practiced it as the norm. St. Augustine, along with Origen, proclaimed infant Baptism to be an oral tradition of the Apostles that no one should doubt. The only early writer of the Church that had a problem with infant Baptism was Tertullian. Tertullian did not deny it for the same reasons Baptist do; he instead denied original sin. This view, among others, led him to eventually leave Catholicism and embrace the heresy of Montanism.
Conclusion
Reviewing Scripture in its context as a whole as well as its immediate and typological context reveals that infant Baptism is a correct practice in Christianity. Baptist tradition teaches against infant Baptism, but from the very beginning of Christianity the early Church fathers demonstrated their support for this practice. The majority of Christians worldwide, including the majority of Sola Scriptura "Bible only" Protestants such as Lutherans, Methodist, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, also see the same Biblical implications and baptize infants. The Christians who do not are Baptist Protestants and those who have been influenced by Baptist Protestants. These groups are in the minority but they are also growing, and it is important to preach and know the truth about infant Baptism. Unlike the fundamentalist Christians, when put to the test the Catholic truth on infant baptism shines forth biblically, historically, and logically.
