Infant Baptism

This conversation might help, Ann is from the Jaobite Syrian Orthodox Church, the priest is protestant: www.stignatious.com/annseries/baptism.htm

A couple of quotes:

Scholar Origen: "The Church received from the apostles the tradition of giving baptism even to infants."

St Gregory the Theologian: "Do you have an infant child? Allow sin no opportunity; rather, let the infant be sanctified from childhood. From his most tender age let him be consecrated by the Spirit. Do you fear the seal [of baptism] because of the weakness of nature? Oh, what a pusillanimous mother and of how little faith!"

I think that the key thing to remember here is that Infact baptism was the norm in Apostolic times and the opposition to it is entirely modern, so those who support it are not the ones required to justify our view as we hold what was the norm in the Christian world.

if anything, it would be someone who is opposed to this practice who would expected to justify their opposition, as someone who had denied the use of a national language would be expected to prove that this language was inadequate and that their view was stronger. The same would go for Infant communion, which was only abolished in Rome at Trent in the 15th Century and was the norm until that point.

Grimlok, what are the traditional Baptist arguments against infant Baptism? I was thinking that perhaps we could break them down and analyse them since I have never (even pre-Baptism) seen anything as wrong with it so am interested in finding out why some do.

That is interesting. Three issues I see are:

1. In Luke 18:16, where Christ says "Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God" the word used in the Greek is "brepha" for the Children, literally meaning infants; so these were very young.

2. I also do not see any biblical premise for young Children not being allowed partake in Salvation when it was open for all before the Covenant unless it is suggesting God has not decided to deny Children this.

3. I do not see how the argument fares when the Apostles baptised entire families (including their Children). It never mentions that, so do they think that their practice is superior to that of those taught by Christ?

I would love to hear other views on this since, as someone who is not from a protestant background, I am analysing it from a personal perspective. Does anyone else have a view here?



It is taken the same as any other,though the traditional eastern Practice is to mix the Body and Blood, allowing it to be digestible to a baby.

Infant communion existed in the west also until the 1600's at the Council of Trent when it was banned by the Roman Church. This was originally due to the technical issue where they claimed Children kept dropping the host,therefore only receiving the blood and stopped the practice for practical reasons. In the later Catechism the 'age of reason' argument emerged, though this was a later development.

It went on in the west to be made Anathema to commune a Child, though this was lifted recently so the Eastern Rite Unia Churches have since gone back to communing Children, as this was the earlier practice.

The history of Rome's Anathematising of Infant Communion is a fascinating topic. I havehad to cover it in an article before, here is a good link on the subject. The section by the Eastern catholic professor is especially enlightening on the matter. orthocath.wordpress.com/2010/01/09/infants-sharing-in-the-lords-table/

It must also be noted that a lot protestant churches separate salvation from baptism, I know this to be true with baptists. One gets "saved" and then gets baptised if they want after salvation.