webdog said:
Argument from silence...strike one.
Another argument from silence...strike two.
Comparing apples to oranges. Christ died for sinners...not nations only.
Baptism always follows faith.
...because you don't prepare for baptism...you prepare for salvation,
to stand before God someday.
Baptizing an infant would be the same as baptizing a family pet.
Neither knows what sin is.
The point was that because there is no record of a post-apostolic
invention of infant baptism, when it began and who began it, or where
it originated, we
cannot assume that it was
not a practice or teaching
of the apostles. The key issue in this "argument from silence" point
is that if something so basic in doctrine and practice
had been so
radically altered,
someone would have complained and raised heck about
it; even if the mainstream Church had declared the gainsayers to be
heretics, there would
still be some kind of record about heretics
opposing infant baptism, but there
isn't any. How can you blithely
dismiss as an "argument from silence" the fact that no Christians in
the first several centuries of church history are on record against
infant baptism? And since it is mentioned, and assumed to be the normal
Christian practice, in the second century, and explicitly described in
the third century as the traditional practice handed down by the
apostles, all these things together would lead one to conclude, in
the absence of any early Christian opposition, that these writers were
correct.
"There are no protests against the validity of infant baptism from
anyone in the early church, even those regarded as heretics, except for
those who advocated waiting until one's deathbed, although some other
people supported waiting until the age of three for baptism."
Just an argument from silence? If nobody opposed a certain practice in the
church, and there are positive references to it, how is it a fallacy to
assume that it
was the normal practice? And if it were claimed to be
apostolic in origin, but
nobody said otherwise, why would it be a
fallacy to think that claim correct?
As for "baptism always follows faith," you are assuming, with a
modern, rationalistic, naturalistic, Enlightenment-based bias, that infants
have no faith simply because their physical brains seem incapable of
it, without regard to their souls or spirits being capable of faith. Why?
"because you don't prepare for baptism"--In the early church,
preparation for baptism in the catechumenate sometimes took
years.
I was sincere in my initial post--so do you have anything constructive
and helpful to offer, please?
