Board index ‹ Baptism

[Newbie]

I was talking to my sister about my baptism and she said "Hmmmm must be mom did not baptise you as a baby.I was baptised as a baby and again when I converted over to become catholic.So I do not need to do it again." This does not sound right.Being baptised as a baby is not the same thing. At least I do not think so. Can you coment on this and her thinking? (I know we don't really know what she is thinking.) Thanks.

[jimwalton]

As you might have figured out, there's a simple answer and a MUCH longer and more complex answer. I'll give you the simple answer, and if you want me to plunge deeper, I will.

For Catholics (and some Protestants), baptism is a sacrament (there are other sacraments as well, such as the Eucharist, or communion). That means, simply put, that it actually DOES something. In Catholic theology, they baptize babies so that if the child should die before he or she reaches the age of accountability, they will go to heaven because beings baptized makes them, well, "saved", until they're old enough to decide for themselves.

For a bunch of Protestants, baptism is an ordinance, meaning, very simplistically, that we are asked to do it, but it's just a symbol of something else, and doesn't really DO anything. It's just a symbol.

It's hard to explain it briefly, because I'm bound to leave out some important stuff, but our belief is that Judaism (Old Testament) is notorious unsacramental. No holy "things" possessed any supernatural power. It wasn't, "Here, touch this holy pot and you'll be healed!" or "If you touch this thing while you pray, you'll get what you pray for." Things are just "things," and God is the one who is holy. It has always been based on the relationship, not on some ritual anybody does. Even when Judaism lost its temple and land, it just kept rolling along without skipping a beat. And Christianity is even less sacramental, if that's even possible. In early Christianity there were no priests, no temples, no sacrifices—nothin'. Sacraments constitute "about as "religious" a technique as can ever be devised; and original Christianity was "religionless," and therefore without sacraments, if you understand what I mean. It was all about Jesus, not about religious rituals (Gal. 4.9-11). And sacraments are distinctly religious rituals.

Whenever someone says that a person can do something that obligates God to perform a desired action in response, there is "religion". But Christianity is all about the sovereignty of God and living by the Spirit, and it's not "religion" in that sense.

Catholics (and some Protestants) believe that as long as a baby is baptized, it will go to heaven if it dies, and if it's not baptized, then it won't. For a bunch of Protestants, we believe that salvation comes through grace by faith alone. So we only baptize people who can make a decision on their own.

That's really brief, but I hope it helps. If it doesn't, write back, ask questions, and I'll answer more.

[Suicidal]

Why wasn’t there any controversy once infant baptism did start taking place? We have explicit affirmations of infant baptism around 200-250 by Origen, Cyprian, and Hippolytus — why was there no controversy once the “false teaching” started?

[jimwalton]

The Didache insists baptism is only for believers (and thus not for babies). Justin Martyr describes baptism as "being born again"—saved by grace (and thus not for babies). Around that time baptism became a tool against heresy, and lengthy instructional periods were required for baptism—up to a three-year course from Hippolytus (and therefore not for babies), and the candidate was asked to affirm agreement to the Rule of Faith. The Apostles' Creed probably came into existence as a baptismal affirmation formula. In Invitation to Church History by John Hannah, "the structure of the catechetical format leading to baptism is a strong argument that those incapable of instruction were excluded." In the era of Hippolytus (170-235), baptism was not required for salvation, but was the expression of true faith.

Hippolytus has a statement that children who could not express their faith, for whatever unknown reason, could have their parents do so for them (Apostolic Tradition, 21.4).

Tertullian says that people should not be baptized too quickly or too young (On Baptism, 18).

It was in the 3rd c., as you mentioned, that some moved toward infant baptism. It was neither a biblical nor an apostolic teaching. It was Cyprian who argued for infant baptism as a NT expression like circumcision. He argued that newborns could receive divine grace (Epistle, 58)

After Constantine established what some would call a Christian society, infant baptism became the dominant practice in what was becoming the Roman Catholic Church. In the middle of the 3rd c., the baptism of infants is commanded in the Apostolic Constitution (6.15)—the first record of such a teaching, and after which it became common practice.

> why was there no controversy once the “false teaching” started?

I would say that it took the "church" 1000 years to undo the mess that the Roman Catholic Church was creating. The Reformation brought the right time and enough theological heavyweights to break away from the apostasy of the RCC and set the Church on a more biblical path.