Did the early church baptize infants — or did the Reformers who kept infant baptism just refuse to finish what they started?

• R

  Riley1w ago

  I just want to point out that this debate has more seriously engaged theological argument in it than the last three sermons I heard at my church. Which is either encouraging or depressing depending on how you look at it.

  199Reply
• MT

  Marco T.2w ago

  Credobaptism is the only biblical baptism. Full stop. Show me one — ONE — infant baptism in the New Testament. I'll wait.

  187Reply
• TB

  Taylor B.2w ago

  My parents had me baptized as a baby in a Catholic church. I became a genuine born-again believer at 19 and got baptized by immersion in a Baptist church. My Catholic grandmother cried and said I had denied my baptism. My Baptist pastor said I had finally received it. Same water. Same Word. Two completely different worlds. Christianity is so fragmented it's heartbreaking sometimes.

  177Reply
• CL

  Casey L.2w ago

  Can we talk about how weird it is that Christians killed other Christians over this? Reformed guys drowned Anabaptists specifically as a mockery of their baptism. Let that sink in. We should be on our knees about this history before we debate it like a theology game.

  164Reply
• F

  Feli2w ago

  I was baptized as a baby in the Church of England, confirmed at 14, drifted through my 20s and 30s, and then God grabbed me at 41. I never felt like my infant baptism was meaningless — I felt like God had claimed me before I could claim Him, and that my return was Him honoring something He had already started. Theologically I can't fully defend that. But it was real.

  161Reply
• T

  Theo2w ago

  I grew up Presbyterian, got baptized as a baby, had absolutely no memory of it, walked away from God in my 20s, came back at 32, and got baptized again as a believer. That second baptism meant everything to me. The first one? I'm sorry but it meant nothing. Not arguing theology, just telling you what it felt like from the inside.

  156Reply
• Z

  Zara1w ago

  The real scandal is that we've let this divide churches, friendships, and denominations for 500 years when Jesus's last prayer was that we would be one. I believe credobaptism is correct. I also believe my Presbyterian friends love Jesus and I will worship with them in eternity. We should argue about this. We should not make it a fellowship wall.

  153Reply
• R

  Riley2w ago

  I am a Reformed Presbyterian minister and I want to say plainly: I believe credobaptists are wrong about baptism. I also believe they are my brothers and sisters in Christ, that their baptism is genuinely invalid by my own convictions, and that this doesn't unchurch them. Hold that tension. Baptism matters. But it is not the whole gospel.

  148Reply
• E

  Elena2w ago

  Tertullian wrote against infant baptism. Tertullian. In the late second century. Which means the practice was already being argued about then, which means it wasn't universally accepted from the beginning like paedobaptists want to pretend. Don't let anyone tell you this debate is settled by history.

  143Reply
• DT

  Drew T.1w ago

  Here's my challenge to the credobaptist crowd: if baptism is only valid when preceded by conscious faith, what's the minimum age? What's the minimum cognitive ability? What about adults with severe intellectual disabilities who can never articulate a faith statement? Your position needs an answer to this that doesn't either exclude them from baptism or quietly admit that faith-before-baptism is not as absolute a rule as you claim.

  141Reply
• Y9

  Yuki 922w ago

  Here's what I actually want to know: if a baby is baptized as an infant and then dies before ever making a conscious profession of faith, is that child saved? Because how you answer that question reveals what you actually believe baptism DOES. And most paedobaptists I've pressed on this get very quiet very quickly.

  138Reply
• TB

  Theo B.2w ago

  This is actually one of the most important questions in ecclesiology and people treat it like it's about sprinkling vs. dunking. It's not. It's about the nature of the covenant, the relationship between Israel and the church, and what initiation into the people of God even means. The household baptism texts (Acts 16:15, Acts 16:33, 1 Cor 1:16) are not slam dunks for either side — but the covenantal logic behind paedobaptism is genuinely compelling and deserves more than a quick dismissal.

  134Reply
• R

  Riley2w ago

  The answer to the question in the title is: yes, Luther and Calvin refused to finish the Reformation on this point because they were culturally unable to imagine a church that didn't include the whole civic population. The Anabaptists saw this clearly and paid for it with their lives — drowned by both Protestants and Catholics. The people who died for believers' baptism deserve to be taken seriously.

  132Reply
• Q

  Quinn1w ago

  By that logic we should still have an episcopate with binding authority, clerical celibacy mandates, and purgatory, because those were also 'fifteen centuries of practice.' The age of a tradition does not automatically make it correct. The Reformers knew this. That's literally what the Reformation was.

  126Reply
• KL

  Kofi L.2w ago

  I'm genuinely curious — do baptists who say baptism is purely symbolic believe it does ANYTHING spiritually? Or is it just a public announcement? Because if it's just theater, why does the NT treat it with such urgency? Why does Peter say 'repent and be baptized'? Why does Paul say he's thankful he didn't baptize many in Corinth as if it matters who did the baptizing? The 'just a symbol' position has its own problems.

  121Reply
• A2

  Alex 212w ago

  What kills me about this debate is that both sides are arguing from silence in different directions. The NT never explicitly commands infant baptism. It also never explicitly excludes it. You're both doing theology, not just reading a plain text. Own that.

  119Reply
• K

  Kofi2w ago

  Infant baptism made more sense in a Christendom model where church and state overlapped and everyone was nominally Christian. Once you abandon Christendom — which we have — credobaptism is the only model that makes ecclesiological sense. A church of professing believers, not a church of everyone born in the parish.

  117Reply
• SM

  Sam M.2w ago

  I've read those. Still credobaptist. Still think the covenantal parallel breaks because the new covenant is explicitly described in Jeremiah 31 as a covenant written on hearts — meaning it's a regenerate community, not a mixed community like Israel was. Paedobaptism re-introduces the mixed community problem that the new covenant was supposed to solve.

  114Reply
• R_

  Reese _x2w ago

  I'm a pastor who has done both — I was raised Baptist, served a Baptist church for 12 years, did a lot of reading in church history and reformed theology, and I'm now convinced paedobaptism is correct. I want to be honest: it cost me relationships. Half my former congregation thinks I've gone liberal or nearly Catholic. But I couldn't keep dismissing the covenantal argument just because it was uncomfortable.

  112Reply
• J

  Jamie2w ago

  I think the household baptism texts are the strongest argument for infant baptism and they never get discussed seriously enough. Cornelius's household (Acts 10), Lydia's household (Acts 16), the jailer's household (Acts 16), Stephanas's household (1 Cor 1:16). Are we really certain there were zero children under the age of accountability in any of these households? The silence is deafening.

  108Reply
• C_

  Casey _x2w ago

  People acting like the credobaptist position is obviously correct need to explain why Justin Martyr, Origen, Cyprian, and Augustine all accepted infant baptism. These aren't dunces. These are the people who gave you your Trinitarian theology and your biblical canon. You can't accept their conclusions on everything else and then act like they went completely off the rails on baptism.

  105Reply
• N9

  Nina 922w ago

  The response above ignores that paedobaptists don't claim infants have faith at the moment of baptism, they claim the covenant promise is extended to them on the basis of their parent's faith, just as circumcision was given to 8-day-old boys. You're arguing against a position they don't hold.

  97Reply
• TM

  Theo M.2w ago

  I'm going to say what nobody wants to say: most people in baptist churches who insist on credobaptism have never actually read a serious paedobaptist defense of the position. They've read their own pastor's rebuttal of it. That's not the same thing. Read Pierre Marcel or Geerhardus Vos or even just the Westminster Confession before you act like this is a settled question.

  96Reply
• Q9

  Quinn 922w ago

  The fact that you just said their baptism is invalid but they're still saved is EXACTLY the problem with the paedobaptist position. At that point what exactly is baptism doing? What is it for? You've made it simultaneously important enough to debate and unimportant enough that getting it 'wrong' doesn't ultimately matter. Pick one.

  93Reply
• N

  Noah1w ago

  Doesn't undermine it? You just admitted there are cases where you'd baptize without a verbal profession of faith. That IS the paedobaptist position, just applied more narrowly. The principle isn't as absolute as you claimed.

  92Reply
• I

  Iris2w ago

  the argument that the church was wrong for 1500 years cuts both ways lol. baptists didnt exist until like the 1600s. so either every christian before the anabaptists was doing it wrong, or maybe y'all should consider some humility here

  91Reply
• T

  Theo2w ago

  Augustine didn't just accept infant baptism, he used it to prop up his doctrine of original sin — specifically that unbaptized infants went to hell (or at minimum limbo). That's where following this logic leads. Hard pass.

  89Reply
• T

  Taylor2w ago

  ok real talk — I've been in evangelical circles my whole life and nobody ever explained to me that there are serious, brilliant, historically-rooted theologians on the paedobaptist side. I thought it was just a Catholic thing. Reading R.C. Sproul on this actually shook me and I'm not sure what I believe anymore. That's uncomfortable to admit.

  88Reply
• D

  Diego2w ago

  This is actually the strongest modern argument for credobaptism IMO and more baptists should lean into it instead of just yelling SHOW ME ONE INFANT IN THE BIBLE. The Christendom argument is culturally and historically serious.

  88Reply
• P

  Priya2w ago

  Acts 2:39 doesn't say 'baptize your children.' It says the promise is for your children. Do you extend every promise in Acts 2 automatically to infants? Is a newborn filled with the Holy Spirit at birth because of verse 38? The paedobaptist reading of this verse requires a hermeneutical leap.

  84Reply
• K

  Kofi2w ago

  I was a Presbyterian for 20 years. Infant baptism, the whole thing. Left for a Baptist church two years ago after reading through the New Testament again slowly and asking myself: does this practice look anything like what I'm reading? It doesn't. I'm at peace with that decision. I understand why smart people disagree.

  83Reply
• JT

  Jamie T.2w ago

  The Jeremiah 31 argument is interesting but it proves too much — if the new covenant community is entirely regenerate, what do you do with all the NT teaching about unregenerate people IN the church? The parable of the wheat and tares? The letters to the seven churches that include clear unbelievers? The new covenant community is not perfectly pure this side of glory either.

  79Reply
• D

  Diego2w ago

  Circumcision was given to males only, on the eighth day, as a national-ethnic marker of the Israelite people. Baptism is given to all believers regardless of ethnicity, on confession of faith. The parallel breaks down the moment you actually look at it carefully. The covenant of grace is administered differently under the new administration. This is not complicated.

  78Reply
• I9

  Iris 922w ago

  Acts 2:39 — 'The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off.' Peter said it. Children included. That's covenant language. That's not me reading something in, that's the text.

  76Reply
• J

  Jordan2w ago

  My daughter was baptized at 6 weeks old in a Lutheran church. She is now 24, loves Jesus, serves her community, and has a richer sacramental theology than most adult baptists I know. The fruit isn't the argument but it's also not nothing.

  74Reply
• R

  Reese2w ago

  Actually in Acts 16 it specifically says the jailer and all his household 'believed and were baptized.' The text attributes belief to the household. That's not silence, that's evidence against your point.

  72Reply
• M

  Maya2w ago

  No one said it determines orthodoxy. They said it deserves to be taken seriously. Those are different claims. Dying for a conviction about baptism when you could simply conform is evidence of deep sincerity, not proof of correctness.

  71Reply
• YS

  Yuki S.1w ago

  Bottom line: if you are confident the church was completely wrong about something this central for fifteen centuries, you need extremely strong positive scriptural evidence — not just an absence of proof. The burden of proof is on the innovators. It always is.

  69Reply
• R

  Ravi2w ago

  Honestly if your theology requires you to dismiss 1,500 years of church practice as a mass apostasy, the burden of proof is on YOU. That's not how tradition works. That's not how the Spirit leading the church works.

  67Reply
• M

  Maya2w ago

  Both of you are doing exactly what I said earlier — reading into a silence. You can't prove infants were there and believed. You also can't prove they weren't there but were baptized anyway. The text doesn't resolve this. That's the point.

  66Reply
• MR

  Maya R.2w ago

  lol so baptists think everyone before 1609 or whenever was basically un-baptized. that is WILD when you think about it. the whole medieval church. all the martyrs. all the desert fathers. un-baptized. okay.

  62Reply
• Q

  Quinn2w ago

  Glorifying the Anabaptists because they died for their convictions is emotionally powerful but logically irrelevant. People die for wrong beliefs all the time. Martyrdom doesn't determine orthodoxy.

  59Reply
• TB

  Taylor B.2w ago

  No one is saying they were un-baptized. They were baptized as infants. Credobaptists dispute whether that's *valid* Christian baptism, not whether the water touched them. Please engage with the actual argument.

  57Reply
• L

  Leo2w ago

  Nope. Baptism is an act of faith. Infants cannot have faith. Therefore infants cannot be baptized. This is not complicated. Any tradition that tells you otherwise is adding something to Scripture.

  53Reply
• M

  Morgan1w ago

  Easy to say 'don't make it a fellowship wall' when you're not the one whose baptism is being called invalid. Ask an Anabaptist martyr how easy it was to treat this as a secondary issue.

  47Reply
• Y

  Yuki2w ago

  that's a misrepresentation of augustine and also conflates a particular application with the core doctrine. not all paedobaptists agree with augustine on the fate of unbaptized infants. strawman.

  44Reply
• R

  Riley1w ago

  that's a great pastoral question and most baptists i know handle it with grace and common sense. it doesn't actually undermine the general principle.

  38Reply

More debates people can't stop arguing about