Objections To Infant Baptism: Part 1

Objection: Infants are more able to understand its meaning, so, while well meaning, infant baptism won’t have any really lasting significance.   

By way of reply… Romans 1:20 states that the purpose of the created order is to testify to God’s existence, attributes, & authority & that’s one major reason we are morally accountable to Him.

The 2nd chapter of Romans informs that His moral law is written on our hearts. How do you think it got there, by osmosis?

The text is telling us that God Himself put it there. His Law takes the form of a suzerain covenant that contains His name, a historical prologue, general & specific stipulations, a document clause & witnesses. It takes awhile to reach our corporeal vox but it is there.

John the Baptist appears to have rejoiced at the news of Mary’s pregnancy. Scripture indicates that God communes & communicates with us all day every day from the moment He creates us. That has been His covenantal pattern with the created order all along, so why would you think He doesn’t communicate the meaning of baptism for an infant to the infant somewhere below the corporeal vox threshold since know right from wrong because of His communion with us & John could recognize Mary’s pregnancy?

Finally, baptism is an act of inductive prophecy with an intuitive component.  Isaiah 55 says God’s Word does not return to Him void.   Objections to the effect of baptism based on the level of understanding of which an infant is too young to understand what is  happening place the efficacy of baptism on the infant not God (where it ought to be). 

Maybe infants can or can’t understand, but at least the view on the likelihood they can is coming from the Bible instead of “They’re infants, isn’t it obvious?”

Thank you & May  God bless us all, each & every one