We also believe that by our prayer and confession of intentions that God also bestows grace to the child and to the parents as well.
If you believe that in response to your infant blessing that God does actually convey sanctifying grace, than this is simply nothing more an untraditional form of baptism, excepting that you are not adhering to the correct matter and form. What infant baptism intends is that God sanctify the child. It is that sanctification that restores original justice, regenerates, thereby remitting original sin. When protestants rail against our traditional, sacramental prayer, but at the same time substitute their own untraditional version, it seems rather absurd to us.
We also believe that anyone who baptizes a baby who has no knowledge of Christ (yet) follows a tradition of man.
We disagree, because in Scripture, whole households were baptized. There are examples of God healing and forgiving some for the faith of others (e.g. paralytic healed/forgiven due to the faith of his friends). Comparatively, in Catholicism, whole households are still baptized, as they were in apostolic times. Yet, ironically, the first baptist parish began by John Smyth (ca. 1609) baptizing himself (where’s that in scripture?), then baptizing the others. And get this … he did this by pouring!! (eeeek!). Thus is the start of the so-called Scriptural practice of the Baptists.
Baptists have no basis for rejecting the validity of infant baptism as Scriptural. Nowhere is there an example in Scripture of an entire household being baptized, but withholding baptism of their child until they can “choose Christ” for themselves. This is lacking in Scripture as well as Christian history. You’ve simply created your own unscriptural practice based upon a flawed understanding of Scripture and history.
The oldest express evidence in history suggest that infants were baptized from the very start of Christianity, just as Jews baptized whole convert households, including the infant converts. This was the Jewish practice prior to the advent of Christianity, as it remains Jewish practice today.
Whole households were baptized, and there was no provision for excluding infants until they made a “choice for Christ” at some later “age of reason.” Likewise, there was no practice of excluding infants from Jewish baptism (and circumcision for males) until they made their own choice at a later age. Nothing in history suggest this was EVER the orthodox practice of Judaism or Christianity in the early centuries. Without express evidene to the contrary, it’s reasonable to presume baptism of Christianity continued the infant baptism of Judaism. So, if I’m to reasonably judge which of the two traditions is the novel tradition and which is apostolic, it is the anabaptist tradition which seems the one invented much later in history based upon a re-interpretation of what Christianity had always taught.
As I stated earlier, your prayers regarding your infant may very well be answered in your infant blessings. Yet, we believe they are answered ex opere operantis (by virture of the piety of the person praying). Whereas, in baptism, we believe the piety of the minister or recipient is irrelevant to receipt of santification for the child. The grace is by virture of the act of baptism (ex opere operato). There’s no doubt as to its effectiveness, even if this sacrament is administered by heretics, schismatics, or infidels. In this way, we are more secure in our “born again-ness” than the uncertainty I’ve seen in Baptists, who often feel compelled to re-baptize again and again, as if the first did not stick.
