How can an infant be saved by baptism without faith in Jesus?

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justcatholic:
Many Catholics were baptized when they were infants and yet as adults they are not leading Christian lives. Yet the church teaches infants baptized in a Catholic church are born again and are saved? How can someone be saved by water baptism and yet not profess faith in Jesus throughout their lives? :confused:
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I know people who have accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior as adults and were baptized, who are not “leading Christian lives.”

The Catholic Church teaches that baptized infants are born again but it does not teach that they are definitively “saved” in the particular way Protestants mean “saved.” We believe salvation is a process: I have been saved; I am being saved; I will be saved on the Last Day. This view of salvation incorporates the witness of the entire New Testament, not an isolated verse.

Others on this thread have provided Scriptural warrants for infant baptism, by noting the baptism of entire households, which likely included infants. The practice of infant baptism was very early in the Church (Origen [185-254 a.d.] refers to it as a custom “received from the Apostles”). To my mind the strongest warrant for it (aside from the ancient acceptance of it), is the parallel between Baptism and circumcision as signs of participation in the Covenant (Colossians).

John the Baptist “leaps for joy” in his mother’s womb when Mary, pregnant with the Savior, enters the house. Joy in the presence of the Lord is a faith response. How cognitive does faith have to be to qualify as saving faith? Faith is a grace: a pure, unmerited gift from God. The extent of our faith-knowledge and the breadth of our affirmation are characteristics of our faith but they are not the essence of it.

As for, “believe and be baptized,” – there is no incontestable this-then-that about it. Speaking to adults, faith would come first. Speaking to entire families, belief and baptism might well come in the reverse order for small children and infants. The point would be that both faith and baptism are required.
 
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justcatholic:
waxwaned

And just where in scripture does it say that faith is infused in an infant at baptism? And better yet, name one scripture where an infant was baptized by an apostle?
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There is no way to assert without a doubt that infants were not baptized in those passages which describe the baptism of Paul’s jailer’s household or Lydia’s household. The probability is that there were at least small children below the “age of reason.”
 
Br. Rich SFO:
An infant is saved by Baptism only up to the time that they are able to discern right from wrong. If at that point they choose wrong they can loose their salvation.
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👍 Yes Yes, Yes, and 6 years old is usually the age that children can discern right from wrong and that’s where the sacraments of penance and the Holy Eucharist enter into the child’s life. The Catholic Church is awesome.

Shannin
 
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justcatholic:
Shannin
You state you baptize infants to remove “original sin”. Where is that teaching found in the New Testament. The New Testament teaches that only the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin and not water baptism.I John 1:7.
Your position is exactly what the Church of Christ teaches. That one cannot receive forgiveness from sin unless he or she is baptized in water.So according to your thinking, no matter how much faith a person would have in Christ and how sorrowful they might be, they couldn’t receive forgiveness from God of their sins, because they have not been water baptized? This is not what the New Testament teaches. See John 3:16 and Acts 3:19 for examples.
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** :confused: Excuse me? That is not what I said. It’s not up to me to determine who receives forgiveness or to ever judge others. **

Again, I had my children baptized when they were infants because I’m Catholic and that’s just what we do but I never said that others wouldn’t receive forgiveness from God if they were not baptized. That’s not up to me to determine.

Shannin
 
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justcatholic:
Bro Rich

When Jesus gave the great commission to his disciples, he didn’t just instruct them to go out and baptize everyone. No, if you read carefully his words, our Lord said to go out and preach the gospel and then teach them what he taught the apostles. Then after they were taught the word of the gospel, they were to be baptized.

This command by our Lord to his apostles could not possibly be applied to infants, because they are and were incapable of understanding the gospel message and could not be taught to be disciples.
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My point was that the instruction to Baptize was not restricted to adults only. That conversion according to Jewish custom involved the whole family.

Again I ask: Show me where the Scriptures Jesus says Go and Baptize ONLY adults or Baptize ONLY those capable of professing their faith in Me!
 
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justcatholic:
Lost & Found

Your reference to John 3:3-5 does not mention water baptism at all. You are implying that or reading something in the text that is not there.
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Water baptism is not mentioned at all in the text.
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Huh? You take the phrase “unless a man is born through water and the Spirit” and then try to say I’m “seeing something in the text that’s not there”, while you are the one saying it has nothing to do with water??
I don’t burden myself opening the Bible and spinning at whim. I interpret by Sacred Tradition of the 2000 year-old variety. The following list contains Church Fathers, Early Saints and even Heretics who speak on infant baptism.
catholic.com/thisrock/1991/9109frs.asp
 
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