10 Facts: A Cumulative Case for Infant Baptism

A baby who is far more excited about baptism than most other babies.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been building a case for the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, but in doing so I’ve also alluded to the fact that I believe infants should be baptized. For some of you this is just obvious. Of course infants should be baptized! Isn’t this just what Christians do? But for many of us coming from an evangelical background, it’s anything but obvious. In fact, it’s taken me roughly twenty years of wrestling with this question to finally, painstakingly arrive at the conclusion that, yes, we should baptize our children. I might tell the story, with all its twists and turns, at some point, but for now I want to present a (relatively) brief case for infant baptism.

Unlike the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, which, as we saw in the last post, enjoys explicit biblical support, the doctrine of infant baptism is a bit trickier. How so? Well, there are no explicit commands to baptize infants specifically and there are no explicit cases of infants being baptized in the New Testament. I actually used to joke that the Bible has more to say about unicorns than baptizing babies! (If you don’t get it, check out the KJV’s rendering of Num. 23:22, 24:8; Dt. 33:17; Job 39:9-10; Ps. 22:21, 29:6; and Isa. 34:7.) 

So why would I change my mind?

How to Prove a Doctrine

The first thing to say is that just because a doctrine is not explicitly taught in Scripture doesn’t mean that it’s not true. I’m guessing most of my readers will be Christians who accept the doctrine of the Trinity, and yet there is no one verse that teaches this doctrine – a fact that unitarians have been all too happy to rub our noses in. So unless you’re willing to give up the Trinity for the same reason you shouldn’t conclude infant baptism is false just because it’s not explicitly mentioned.

The second point to make is that in addition to showing a doctrine is explicitly taught in Scripture or ‘by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture’ (Westminster Confession of Faith, I.6), you can also provide enough evidence for it to make the doctrine more probable than not. 

Let’s consider a murder trial to illustrate the point. The evidence that Jones shot Smith might come in the form of one powerful piece of evidence (e.g. an entire crowd saw him do it) or it might come by way of several weaker pieces of evidence that when added up together render the verdict more probable than not. So the fact that Jones was in the vicinity at the time Smith was shot is not enough on its own to show that he did it, but it raises the probability. The fact that Jones stood to gain a small fortune if Smith died is not enough on its own to show that he did it, but it raises the probability. The fact that Jones’s fingerprints were found on the gun is not enough on its own to show that he did it, but it raises the probability. However, when you take these three facts together it raises the probability significantly. This is what is called a cumulative case.

So in this post, I’ll attempt to use the same method to build a cumulative case for infant baptism by looking at 10 facts that are better explained on the hypothesis that infant baptism is true than its denial. The idea here is not that any one of these facts on its own would be enough to render the infant baptism hypothesis more probable than not. The idea is that each of these facts raises the probability of infant baptism and once we’ve added them together we have a powerful case.

Arguments from Silence

One final word about method before we get to the facts: Two of the facts I present are facts about the absence of evidence and I know that some of you are going to object that this constitutes an informal fallacy, namely, an argument from silence. But not all arguments from silence are bad. Some arguments from silence are bad, but some are good. Allow me to illustrate:

If someone were to tell me there’s a mosquito in my garage and I looked and didn’t see one then would I be justified in drawing the inference that there isn’t one in my garage? No. Why? Because mosquitoes are very small, so it wouldn’t be terribly surprising if I couldn’t see one if it was in my garage. So in this case the absence of evidence is NOT evidence of absence.

By contrast, if someone were to tell me there’s a St. Bernard in my garage and I looked and didn’t see one then would I be justified in drawing the inference that there isn’t one in my garage? Yes. Why? Because St. Bernard’s are large dogs, so it would be incredibly surprising if I couldn’t see it if there really was one in my garage. So in this case the absence of evidence IS evidence of absence.

What’s the difference between the mosquito and the St. Bernard cases? The difference is how much we would expect to see the evidence in both scenarios. In the mosquito case, our expectations are low, for the St. Bernards, it’s high. So, yes, I will be arguing from silence in a number of ways, but I believe the absence of evidence I’ll be drawing attention to is more like the St. Bernard case.

Alright, enough about methodology. Let’s get to the facts!

The Facts

1 Church History: Even John MacAcrthur-style dispensationalist baptists who are all too happy to go with (their interpretation) of the Bible over thousands of years of tradition think that if a view is recent, only held by a few people in the history of the church, that it lowers the probability of its being true. For example, you’ll regularly hear such people arguing that no Christian believed in LGBT+ ideology until like 5 minutes ago, so it’s probably false. If you accept this line of reasoning then you should concede the following principle: The more pervasive a doctrine is throughout church history the more likely it is to be true. And if you accept this principle, it renders infant baptism much more probable because, as the view held by all Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and the majority of Protestants (Presbyterians, Methodists, etc.), it is exponentially more pervasive throughout church history than its denial.

2 Sociology of Religion: With few exceptions, it was assumed in the ancient world that the children of a particular religion or sect were born into that sect. Although not impossible, it would be surprising if Christians didn’t assume their children were part of the same religion and initiate them into the faith through baptism. (You can listen to Peter Leithart develop this argument here and here. Also, see Nicoletti’s excellent paper on how ancient assumptions regarding the religious status of infants coupled with silence on the topic of children in the earliest Christian writings should be taken as evidence in favour of infant baptism.)

3 Covenant Continuity: Children were members of God's people under the Old Covenant, so we should expect to see them as members of God’s people under the New Covenant. This is especially true since, as many New Testament scholars have noticed, Jesus seems to be reconstituting Israel around himself. For example, Israel was made up of twelve tribes, so Jesus chose twelve apostles. If Jesus thought of the church as a reconstituted Israel (cf. Gal. 6:16) then, unless we’re told otherwise, we should expect to see children included under the New Covenant just as we did under the Old Covenant. And we’re not told otherwise. Quite the opposite in fact…

4 Household baptisms: Throughout the New Testament, we see references to household baptisms (Acts 10, 16; 1 Cor. 1), which is what we’d expect on the infant baptism hypothesis but, although consistent with believer’s baptism, it’s not predicted by the believer’s baptism. Proponents of believer’s baptism are quick to point out that we don’t know if infants or children were present in the house. Fair enough. This is why the household baptisms don’t prove infant baptism, but the presence of household baptisms is less surprising on the supposition that infant baptism is true, and so it provides moderate support for the practice.

5 Old Testament Types: When Old Testament types of baptism are mentioned in the New Testament the types are associated with households and the Israelites – including their children! You see this in 1 Peter 3:21 where baptism is compared to Noah’s household being saved through water. Likewise, in 1 Corinthians 10:1-2, where Paul says that when Israel passed through the Red Sea in the exodus they were “baptized into Moses”, and we know Israelite children and infants were traveling with them. But if they were included in the types of baptism then we should expect them to be included in the fulfillment.

6 Greater Inclusivity of the New Covenant: Under the Old Covenant, only males were initiated into the covenant through the entrance rite of circumcision and only Jewish males at that, along with those males who would submit themselves to the Mosaic Law, but under the New Covenant the initiatory rite of baptism is given not only to males but also females, Jews but also Gentiles. Given this principle of greater inclusivity in the New Covenant, it would seem strange to then exclude children who would have been included under the Old Covenant.

7 The Kingdom Belongs to Children: Jesus pointed to children and said ‘the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these’ (Mt. 19:14; Lk. 18:13). It would be strange for the kingdom to belong to children and those like children when children are not to be received into the kingdom until they grow and mature in their faith. In fact, the believer's baptism position gets this completely backwards. On their view, the exemplar of faith is not a little child but an adult who has come to a mature faith –- exactly the opposite of Jesus’s teaching! But if children are the true exemplars of faith, if they have a place in the kingdom, then we ought to initiate them into the kingdom through baptism (Mt. 18:3, 19:14 cf. Isa. 40:11).

Now for the two “St. Bernard’s” I mentioned earlier. Let’s see if you think we should be able to spot them or not…

8 The Absence of Controversy Over Excluded Children: If God did exclude the children from his people under the New Covenant we would expect to see this addressed somewhere. We would also expect to see controversy over this issue arise because I don’t know if you know are a parent or know any parents, but parents tend to be protective of their children and sensitive to any slight, whether real or perceived, that is directed towards them, but we see nothing of the sort either in the pages of the New Testament or in the early church. This is very surprising if God shifted from his previous practice of including children.

9 The Absence of a Command to Convert Children: This one really surprised me when I first encountered it while reading Gerberding’s case for infant baptism in The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church. If believer’s baptism is true, or even infant baptism without baptismal regeneration, then we should expect to see the apostles instructing Christian parents to convert their children to faith in Christ, but we do not see this happen. There is no such command in all of the New Testament. However, this makes perfect sense if infant baptism with baptismal regeneration is true because in that case they would assume their children were members of the body of Christ in need of instruction but not conversion, and that’s exactly what we see. In the New Testament, it is assumed that children are “in the Lord” (Eph. 6:1-4). It’s a simple but powerful observation. And I think we can make it even more powerful when we consider that the presumption that the children of Christian parents will be believers is so strong that it’s even presented as a qualification for elders that their children must be believers (Ti. 1:6)! Even if you want to admit exceptions to the rule, as most do, it still shows the expectation is for children of believers to be Christians, and that fits much better with infant baptism.

10 Parental Discipleship Practices: Even Christian parents from traditions that practice believer’s baptism will regularly speak as their children are Christians. If the child asks them “What religion are we?” they’ll respond “we are Christians.” Even the most staunch baptists teach their children to address God as “Father” when they teach them to pray the Lord’s Prayer, thus tacitly assuming their children are Christians (Jn. 1:12; Rom. 8:16). And yet how could the consistent proponent of believer’s baptism instruct his child to address God in this way if he doesn’t think God is his child’s Heavenly Father? But if we regularly treat our children as Christians and teach them to pray as though they are Christians, this is to be expected on the infant baptism hypothesis. After all, if our practice reveals that we think they’re Christians then we ought to baptize them because, as we all know, Christians ought to be baptized.

Taken together, I believe these ten facts render the doctrine more probable than not.

The Practical Benefit

I’d like to wrap up by pointing out that this last fact points to the very practical benefit of infant baptism. This is not just a topic for theologians to argue about. It has real pastoral implications. Often, when Christians consider the prospect of raising children in this present evil age, they’ll be tempted to despair. The world, the flesh, and the devil are too powerful. The corrupting influences are too much. What hope can they have that their child won’t yield? What reason for optimism in light of such evil? But God is faithful and he has given us means of grace and attached precious promises for children to them. Infant baptism, when coupled with a right understanding of the power of baptism in granting salvation, should give Christian parents hope. 

Let me close this entry with a quote from John Henry Newman, who, I think, beautifully captures this truth: 

‘Solomon, even under the Law, assures us that, if “a child be trained up in the way he should go, when he is old he will not depart from it.” Much more (please God) will this be true, where the parents’ prayers and the children’s training are preceded by the grant of so great and present a benefit as regenerating Baptism; much more, when His Son has so graciously made the little children patterns to grown men, declaring that then, and then only, we become true members of His Kingdom when we become like them, and when, in sign of His favour “He took them up in His arms, put His hands upon them, and blessed them.” Let a man consider how much is contained in the declaration, that God “hath not appointed us unto wrath, but to obtain salvation;” and he will feel that he may safely trust his children to their Lord and Saviour—reluctance being no longer a serious prudence, but an unbelieving and unthankful jealousy, and the care of them no burdensome nor sorrowful toil, though an anxious one, but a labour of love, a joyful service done to Christ.’