Infant Baptism - Prolegomena

The subject of infant baptism has suddenly become hot on several blogs.

Dead Man Blogging did a post on assurance of salvation that bled into a discussion on infant baptism in the comments.

Jared is wrestling with the issue at Mysterium Tremendum.

Discoshaman posts about the subject here.

The residents of Half-Pint House are frustrated with the whole subject.

And Adrian Warnock has thrown down a gauntlet to us baby-sprinklers.

Well, far be it from me to allow a thrown gauntlet to go un-seized.  Looks like this will be a good chance for me and my buddy Adrian to get into another one of our debates.

Before tackling the subject head-on I want to look at the process by which the doctrine of infant baptism has been derived.  And, I want to emphasize that I am stating the Presbyterian position on infant baptism.  I can't speak for others who practice infant baptism, because there are others who practice it for different reasons than we presies do and who got to their beliefes via a different road.

An apology for our methodology

At the outset I will admit that our practice of infant baptism is a theologically derived doctrine that is justified as a deduction that is a "good and necessary consequence" from Scripture.  The Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 1, paragraph 6 says:

The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man's salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture:

This admission, in and of itself, will be enough for many to damn the doctrine.  Since I admit that there is no explicit passage of Scripture that enjoins our practice  of infant baptism, that will settle the case for many.  Adrian quoted a guy who practices infant baptism yet admits that it can not be proven from the New Testament.  This gentleman quotes some famous people who have practiced infant baptism and Adrian responds:

As much as I love the men of God cited, if its not in the bible its not for me.

If that's the case I'm wasting my breath and we presbyterians have, for hundreds of years, engaged in a practice which is unnecessary at best and harmful at worst. 

Yet I submit for your consideration that the same arguments can be raised for basically any doctrine we believe.  Those who practice believers baptism only will argue that the New Testament is so explicit in arguing for believers baptism that no amount of "good and necessary consequence," can overcome that which is "expressly set down in Scripture."

But these folks are not consistent.  Using the same rationale, the Muslims conclude that Christians are polytheists because the New Testament explicitly states that the Father is God, Jesus is God and the Holy Spirit is God.  We demur on this because Deuteronomy 6:4 explicitly says that God is one.  So, through a proces of deduction we collate all of the Scriptures on this matter and arrive at a good and necessary consequence we call the Trinity. 

By the way, in the whole infant baptism debate we paedobaptists are often faulted for relying so heavily on the Old Testament, but we rely pretty heavily on the Old Testament in our formulation of the Trinity also.  It is true that the New Testament affirms that God is one, but usually when this phrase is used in the New Testament, it is simply a quotation of the Old.   Thus, I think we ought to be careful about faulting those who rely heavily on the Old Testament in formulating their theology.

Similarly, the New Testament is quite explicit in stating that salvation is "not by faith alone" (James 2:24).  Yet,  I am quite sure that neither Adrian, nor any Baptist is going to allow that one verse of Scripture, no matter how explicit and clear it is, to stand alone when they begin to talk about the doctrine of justification. 

As my old prof Richard Pratt once said, if you go before the presbytery and they ask you what you believe about the doctrine of justification of faith, you can say "I believe that we are saved by works, and not by faith alone."  If you do so, you will be quoting a Scripture verse, but you will not be accurately summarizing the biblical teaching on justification.  And if you quote such a thing at presbytery, a trap door will open and you will descend into Hades amidst great weeping and gnashing of teeth.

We protestants, who place doctrines like the Trinity and justification by grace at the center of our faith, derive those central doctrines through a process of good and necessary consequence.  And often, our doctrinal statements sound contrary to particular statements of Scripture.  Yet, I am arguing that this is a good thing - it is the process by which we use the whole of Scripture to derive any particular element of doctrine.

So, my point in all of this is that the doctrine of infant baptism is often ruled out of order because of the methodology by which it is derived.  Because it is not expressly set down in the New Testament, it is ruled out of order.  Yet, if infant baptism is to be denied solely on those grounds, then there are many other doctrines which ought to be denied.  Further, the fact that the doctrine of infant baptism depends largely on the Old Testament for its justification does not weaken it.

Of course it may be the case that the doctrine of infant baptism is an imaginary consequence which is neither a good nor a necessary deduction from the Scriptures.  And it is to to this matter that I will turn in my next post.