Did Rome Add Infant Baptism?
- Thread starter YXU
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Houston E.
Puritan Board Freshman
Dragoon
Puritan Board Freshman
To try to answer simply the main point of this thread, No Rome did not add infant Baptism, the practice was around well before the papacy, but Rome did put into effect that all infants were to be baptized as a rule, and therefore forced all to go along with this practice.
JonathanHunt
Puritan Board Senior
I'm a little rusty on my Python. Is this the Psychiatric Dairy sketch?
No, this is the 'argument' sketch where one pays by the minute for the privilege of having an argument.
Rather appropriate...
*backs quietly away from the thread avoiding trip-wires*
R Harris
Puritan Board Sophomore
The problem of the baptistic position is that no one can come up with a definitive person and/or date that the practice began. Therefore, since the history of the first three centuries is not clear, any such assignment of date and/or person is purely speculative.
Sadly, people such as John MacArthur and John Piper continue to make such ignorant assertions - that it is a "man made tradition", but never point to a conclusive source. It gets quite old and tiring.
Conversely, other than the unbiblical response of Tertullian, one cannot find intense objection to what was a universal practice by the early church. Surely if infant baptism was a gross heresy introduced early in the second century, someone or some substantial group would have loudly objected to it and would have worked to put a stop to it before it became a universal practice. But we read of no such thing.
Infant Baptism
There are only examples of adult baptism in the new testament.
Such as Acts 2 & Acts 8. There are no specific examples of infant
baptism in the New Testament. Macarthur has a good summary of this in
an article/sermon called "A Scriptural Critique of Infant Baptism"
It is easy to find on Google.
There are only examples of adult baptism in the new testament.
Such as Acts 2 & Acts 8. There are no specific examples of infant
baptism in the New Testament. Macarthur has a good summary of this in
an article/sermon called "A Scriptural Critique of Infant Baptism"
It is easy to find on Google.
YXU
Puritan Board Freshman
Thanks for all of your replies. To those baptists brothers who affirm this claim, can any writing be provided so that I may have some resources to look at.
I reason about this for a long time, if infant baptism is a practise added by the tradition of men later, then it had caused a big problem. For it will be an error persistently held by many people and has caused divisions among Christians and the majority of people have left the true Christian teaching of baptism by practising this. Therefore, infant baptism would be the greatest heresy and the greatest schism ever in the church history.
So this statement is of heavy weight, for I will be a heretic if such statement is true. Please provide evidences other than assessment.
-----Added 5/28/2009 at 04:40:01 EST-----
Please provide historical ground for the statement that infant baptism was added by Rome. This is the history forum, I think it is not allowed to discuss the doctrine itself.
Stay on the point, provide historical evidence for your claim.
I reason about this for a long time, if infant baptism is a practise added by the tradition of men later, then it had caused a big problem. For it will be an error persistently held by many people and has caused divisions among Christians and the majority of people have left the true Christian teaching of baptism by practising this. Therefore, infant baptism would be the greatest heresy and the greatest schism ever in the church history.
So this statement is of heavy weight, for I will be a heretic if such statement is true. Please provide evidences other than assessment.
-----Added 5/28/2009 at 04:40:01 EST-----
Please provide historical ground for the statement that infant baptism was added by Rome. This is the history forum, I think it is not allowed to discuss the doctrine itself.
Stay on the point, provide historical evidence for your claim.
Ivan
Pastor
never!
YXU
Puritan Board Freshman
No, I have not seen such claim in the forum before, except you have claimed it in a different thread in one of your reply to Pastor Winzer where you said, we added the Roman infant baptism.
-----Added 5/28/2009 at 04:50:04 EST-----
A error persistently held by some, causing divisions among the holy and catholic church. What is it other than a heresy! it will not be deadly because infant baptism does not destroy your soul, but absolutely a heresy if it is a human tradition.
I posed a hypothetical about the escalation of rhetoric, showing that saying "Baptists reject Christian (infant) baptism" as he did is inappropriate. Even if the statement is factual, the escalation of rhetoric is simply not helpful to conversation. Likewise, I said it is analogous to me saying "You add Roman (infant) baptism" which would also not be helpful.
First, I didn't even necessarily assert that was true, given the conversation's context.
Secondly, even if I did, those words only say that modern paedo's have added Roman baptism - which does not, in any way at all, imply that the Roman 'church' originated baptism.
toddpedlar
Iron Dramatist
It's claimed by them to be an innovation. If it's an innovation, then there is a starting point to find, and if it's an innovation contrary to the practice of "the early church", contrary to the commands of Christ, as many Baptists claim, then there ought to be found writing against the innovation. This too is lacking.
Something that is NOT an innovation, but represents the practice of the church from day 1 you would not necessarily expect to find much writing about, in an advocacy sense - since it's the practice the church already had, there isn't the need.
Do you not see that innovations and regular practices would have two different documentary histories? This is why the objection to the claims of Piper and MacArthur that infant baptism is a later "man-made" addition fall flat. The situation is the reverse of what you'd expect from a documentary-historical standpoint, if infant baptism is a later man-made addition.
YXU
Puritan Board Freshman
Secondly, even if I did, those words only say that modern paedo's have added Roman baptism - which does not, in any way at all, imply that the Roman 'church' originated baptism.[/QUOTE]
You called infant baptism Roman baptism, implying that the Roman Church originated. As you also don't give credit to this statement, this case should be closed, that it was not Rome who added infant baptism but by some early churches.
You called infant baptism Roman baptism, implying that the Roman Church originated. As you also don't give credit to this statement, this case should be closed, that it was not Rome who added infant baptism but by some early churches.
reformedminister
Puritan Board Sophomore
It would be a wrong assumption since the apostles began this practice. The Roman church came after them as you know.
Acts 16:15, 33When I speak of Roman candles, does that mean the Romans invented candles? When I speak of the Roman Army...does that mean Rome invented armies?
The same goes with baptism. One can call infant baptism Roman, and yet that has no meaning whatsoever about who originated it.
toddpedlar
Iron Dramatist
You may not like it, but when referring to infant baptism as Roman, you are doing more than just give it a name. It's not an arbitrary name that one can simply use without any implications. It is a choice which is patently unfair though it may certainly be ignorance of the facts that leads one do this rather than malice. However, to complete the original thought: to tar all infant baptism as "Roman" is to do many things, not least of which is to characterize the proper practice of infant baptism with the gross errors of Tridentine Romanism. The infant baptism of the early church cannot be so identified, nor can the infant baptism which faithful Presbyterians and Reformed practice.
Confessor
Puritan Board Senior
He gave "Roman baptism" as an example of an unfair description in response to someone else who spoke of Baptists as denying "Christian baptism." He was aware of the unfairness as he was making his point.
From an historical point of view it would be more accurate to say that postponement of baptism was distinctively "Romish," as it followed from the teaching that baptism washes away all sin.
Whitefield
Puritan Board Junior
Be careful of resting this totally on the absence of a specific example in Scripture, it might come back on you in the other sacrament.
It is problematic even for the Baptist practice of baptism, because the fact is there is not a single example of a child brought up in a believing household who was baptised when he could speak for himself.
It would be a wrong assumption since the apostles began this practice. The Roman church came after them as you know.
I would like to see the scriptural example of an apostle baptising an infant!
I'd like to see one proving immersion.
But then I am not saying the scriptures prove immersion am I? I am asking those who claim that apsotles baptised infants to give me an example of it? I therefore fail to see the relevance of your post in regards to the question I asked.
-----Added 5/29/2009 at 06:48:40 EST-----
It would be a wrong assumption since the apostles began this practice. The Roman church came after them as you know.
I would like to see the scriptural example of an apostle baptising an infant!
Can you prove from the Scriptures they didn't?
Nope, but I do not have to do I? For the assertion was that the apsotles did it, I just want someone to prove that very bold statement to me. Where in the bible do we read that, I am not asking where in the bible we necerssarily infer that they did it, for such inference is open to interpretation, I am simply asking were we read that they did it?
galactic reformer
Puritan Board Freshman
Where are any ages given for recipients of baptism?
R Harris
Puritan Board Sophomore
Hmmmm . . . . have either one of you heard of "Landmarkism"? The Baptistic Landmarkians would beg to differ with you.
Ivan
Pastor
Of course I have. I am NOT a Landmark Baptist. I have never called a paedobaptist a heretic.
Personally, I would be very cautious about suggesting this from an historical perspective. It seems to have been a widespread practice in the early church, and not particularly peculiar to Rome. I would, however, agree that the belief that baptism "washes away all sin" was, to be sure, a misguided incentive for many to postpone baptism.
This incentive for the postponement of baptism seems to have been all the more powerful in the 2nd century due to the "current thought" then "that no remission was possible for sins deliberately committed after baptism" (Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, p. 198), though at the same time period this view was offset by "a more lenient attitude" that "was widely adopted in practice" (p. 199), emphasizing God's mercy and His desire for repentance and confession.
DTK
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