Fundamentalists say the Catholic Church is wrong to baptize infants. Baptism, they say, is for adults and older children only because it is to be administered only after one has undergone a "born again" experience--that is, after one has "accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior." At the instant of acceptance, when he is "born again," the adult becomes a Christian, one of the elect, and his salvation is assured forever. Baptism follows, though it actually does nothing itself to secure or help with salvation; one who dies before being baptized, but after "being saved," goes to heaven anyway.
As Fundamentalists see it, baptism is not a sacrament (in the true sense of the word), but an ordinance. It does not in any way convey the grace it symbolizes; rather, it is merely a symbol, a public manifestation of the person's conversion. Since only an adult or older child can be converted, baptism is not appropriate for infants or for children below the age of reason. Most Fundamentalists say that during the years before they reach the age of reason (most say 7) infants and young children are automatically saved, no matter what. Only once a person reaches the age of reason does he need to "accept Jesus" in order to reach heaven.
Since the New Testament era, the Catholic Church has always understood baptism differently, of course, seeing it as a sacrament which accomplishes several things, the first of which is the remission of sin, both original sin and actual sin (only original sin in the case of infants and young children, since they are incapable of actual sin; and both original and actual sin in the case of older persons).
Peter explained what happens at baptism when he said, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38 ). But he didn't restrict this teaching only to adults. He added, "For the promise is to you and to your children and to all that are far off, every one whom the Lord our God calls to him" (2:39). We also read: "Rise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on his name" (Acts 22:16). These commands are universal, not restricted to adults. The connection between baptism and salvation is clear, not only because of these passages, but because of other explicit passages such as 1 Peter 3:21: "Baptism . . . now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ."
Along with this forgiveness of sins comes an infusion of grace. It is this grace that makes the soul spiritually alive and capable of enjoying heaven. There are other benefits, too, such as the elimination of punishment due for sins and the right to special graces necessary to enable the baptized to fulfill his baptismal promises. But a consideration of these aspects of the sacrament would take us away from the narrow topic this tract is about:, infant baptism.
In the Middle Ages, some groups, such as the Waldenses and Catharists, rejected infant baptism. Later, the Anabaptists ("re-baptizers") echoed them in saying infants are incapable of being baptized validly. But the Catholic Church has always held that Christ's law applies to infants as well as adults. Jesus said that no one can enter heaven unless he has been born again of water and the Holy Spirit (John 3:5). His words can be taken to apply to anyone capable of having a right to his kingdom. He asserted such a right even for children: "Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 19:14).
More detail is given in Luke's account of this event, which reads: "Now they were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them; and when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called them to him, saying, "Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God" (Luke 18:15-16).
Now Fundamentalists say this verse doesn't really apply to young children or infants since it implies the persons being referred to are able to approach Christ on their own. (Older translations have "Suffer the little children to come unto me," which seems to suggest they can do so under their own power.) Fundamentalists conclude the passage refers only to children old enough to walk, and, presumably capable of sinning. But the parallel text in Luke 18:15 says, "Now they were bringing even infants to him" (Proseferon de auto kai ta brephe), and following this are the same words as in Matt. 19:14. The Greek word brephe means "infants"--children who are quite unable to approach Christ on their own and who could not possibly make a conscious decision to "accept Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior." And that is precisely the problem. Fundamentalists don't want to permit the baptism of infants and young children because they are not yet capable of making such a conscious act. But notice what Jesus said: "to such as these [referring to the infants and children who had been brought to him by their mothers] belongs the kingdom of heaven." The Lord did not require them to make a conscious decision. He says that they are precisely the kind of people who can come to him and receive the kingdom. So on what basis, Fundamentalists should be asked, can they be excluded from the sacrament of baptism? If Jesus said "let them come unto me," who are we to say "no," and withhold baptism from them?
Furthermore, Paul notes that baptism has replaced circumcision (Col. 2:11-12). In that passage, he refers to baptism as "the circumcision of Christ" and "the circumcision made without hands." Of course, it was mainly infants who were circumcised under the Old Law; circumcision of adults was rare, there being few converts to Judaism. If Paul, in making this parallel, meant to exclude infants from baptism, he would have said so.
Fundamentalists do not often admit that the Bible nowhere says baptism is to be restricted to adults. They just conclude that's what it should be taken as meaning, even if the text doesn't explicitly support such a view. Naturally enough, the people whose baptisms we read about in Scripture (and there aren't many who are individually identified) are adults because they were converted as adults. This makes sense, because Christianity was just starting out and there were no "cradle Christians," no people brought up from childhood in Christian homes.
Even in the books of the New Testament that were written later in the first century, during the time when there were beginning to be children raised in Christian homes, we never--not even once--find an example of a child raised in a Christian home who is baptized only upon making a "decision for Christ." It's always assumed that the children of Christian homes are already Christians, that they have already been "baptized into Christ" (Rom. 6:3). If infant baptism were not the rule, then we should have references to the children of Christian parents joining the Church only after they had come to the age of reason, and there are no such records in the Bible.
But, one might ask, does the Bible ever say that infants or young children can be baptized? The indications are fairly clear. Lydia was converted by Paul's preaching. "She was baptized, with her household" (Acts 16:15). The Philippian jailer whom Paul and Silas had converted to the faith, who had been about to commit suicide when they were miraculously freed from their imprisonment, was baptized that night along with his household. We are told that "the same hour of the night . . . he was baptized, with all his family" (Acts 16:33). And in his greetings to the Corinthians, Paul recalled that, "I did baptize also the household of Stephanas" (1 Cor. 1:16).
In all these cases, whole households or families were baptized. This means more than just the spouse; the children too were included. If the text of Acts referred simply to the Philippian jailor and his wife, then we would read that "he and his wife were baptized," but we don't. Thus his children must have been baptized as well. The same applies to the other cases of household baptism in Scripture.
Granted, we can't tell the age of the children; they may have been past the age of reason, rather than infants. Then again, they could have been babes in arms. More probably, there were both younger and older children. Certainly there were children younger than the age of reason in some of the households that were baptized (this was a world with no reliable form of birth control, remember). Furthermore, if given the New Testament pattern of household baptism, if there were to be exceptions to this rule (such as infants), they would be spelled out.
The present Catholic attitude accords perfectly with early Christian practices. Origen, for instance, wrote in the third century that "The Church received from the apostles the tradition of giving baptism also to infants." Augustine said of infant baptism: "This the Church always had, always held; this she received from the faith of our ancestors; this she perseveringly guards even to the end." Cyprian wrote that "From baptism and from grace . . . must not be kept the infant." The Council of Carthage, in 253, condemned the opinion that infants should be withheld from baptism until the eighth day after birth.
No one, apparently, was claiming that the practice was contrary to Scripture or tradition. It was as though they were saying, "We all agree infants can be baptized and that infant baptism was practiced from the first, but exactly when should they be baptized?" Another telling point: If infant baptism was opposed to the religious practices of the first believers, why do we have no record of early Christian writers condemning it?
Fundamentalists don't pay much attention to the historical situation. They deflect appeals to history by saying baptism requires faith and children are incapable of having faith. Thus, no baptism for them. It's true that Christ prescribed instruction and actual faith for adult converts (Matt. 28:19-20), but his general law on the necessity of baptism (John 3:5) puts no restriction on the subjects of baptism. Although infants are included in the law he establishes, they can't be expected to meet requirements that can't be met because of their age. They can't be expected to be instructed and have faith when they are incapable of receiving instruction or manifesting faith. The same was true of circumcision; faith in the Lord was necessary for an adult convert to receive it, but it was not necessary for the children of believers.
Furthermore, the Bible never says, "Faith in Christ is necessary for salvation except for infants;" it simply says, "Faith in Christ is necessary for salvation." Yet Fundamentalists must admit there is an exception for infants (unless they wish to instantaneously condemn all infants to hell). Therefore, the Fundamentalist himself makes an exception for infants to the necessity of faith for salvation. He can thus scarcely criticize the Catholic for making the exact same exception for baptism (especially if, as Catholics believe, baptism is an instrument of salvation).
The Fundamentalist position on infant baptism is not really a consequence of the Bible's strictures, but of the demands of Fundamentalism's idea of salvation. Although the Bible does not explicitly state that infants are to be baptized (unless Acts 2:38 says so), it certainly implies it, which was the position of the earliest Christian practice and writings we have.