Rules for Dads…
Author: pilgrim
Friday Frivolity: Burn You
Baptism Matters: Part 4 (History)
For the past few days (Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3) we’ve been looking at the case for infant baptism. Today I would like to conclude the series.
So far in our study, we’ve looked at the implicit inclusion of infants in household baptism. We’ve examined how baptism actually affects the soul of the one being baptized. Yesterday, we also briefly looked at how baptism parallels, and is the fulfillment of, the circumcision of the Old Covenant.
Up until this point, I have tried to address the question of infant Baptism as though I were a Protestant, restricting myself to the testimony of Scripture. However, as a Catholic, I do not hold to the Bible alone, but also to Sacred Tradition, the oral teaching of the Church passed down through the generations.
Even for a Protestant, who doesn’t hold to belief in Sacred Tradition, the witness of the Early Church in the centuries following the Apostles is a significant, albeit less important, consideration. So, today I would like to ask a simple question: Did the Early Church baptize babies?
Baptism Matters: Part 3 (Circumcision)
Over the last two days I have been looking at infant baptism. On Day 1 I looked at the evidence of infant Baptism in the New Testament. On Day 2 I demonstrated how the earliest Christians believed that Baptism actually does something to the soul of the one being baptized, thereby making it something that parents would naturally desire for their children.
Today’s entry will be a short post. All I would like to do is very briefly show the relationship between the circumcision of the Old Covenant and the Baptism of the New Covenant…
Wise Words on Wednesday: Good Argument
The aim of argument, or of discussion, should not be victory, but progress
– Joseph Joubert
Immersion Only?
As you may have noticed, I’m doing a bunch of posts at the moment about infant baptism. One issue I’m not going to address in this series is the question of the mode of baptism: immersion, pouring etc.
Fortunately, Doug Beaumont over at Soul Device has just released a post on that very subject:
Baptism Matters: Part 2 (Forgiveness of sin)
Yesterday I began to look at the question of infant baptism. We saw how, although we don’t have explicit references to infant baptism in the New Testament, that there are passages which strongly suggest that infants and children were baptized. Today I would like to continue looking at this issue, but from a slightly different angle…
