Many people coming to Anglicanism stumble over infant baptism. They come for the beauty of the liturgy, the appreciation of both Word and Sacrament, of Scripture and Tradition. But for many, whether Baptist or not, infant baptism is a hang-up.
There are many good reasons for such worries and many good answers—including on this site (see here, here, and here). There are several issues at stake: the biblical and traditional precedents, the role of individual freedom versus coercion, beliefs about Church and state, etc.
In this post, I want to address one question in particular, though I suspect it gets to a core concern for most people. The question is:
Why do we baptize infants if they cannot make a mature profession of faith?
The short answer is: In the Anglican view, baptism does not depend on a profession of faith to be a valid baptism. The necessary condition is God’s grace, implemented through immersion in water in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is a valid baptism, even if the profession of faith is not yet present or if the profession of faith turns out to be hypocritical.
In other words, baptism and profession are distinct but not separate activities, and this is why the order in which they happen is less important. They are intrinsically related but have different orientations. The profession of faith is what we say to God (and to others). The sacrament of baptism is what God says to us. Typically, in an adult conversion, the order is: profession first, then sacrament. But it need not be that way. The sacrament may come first, followed by the profession (which is why confirmation is so important).
Infant Baptism and Profession of Faith in the Catechism
The question about baptism and profession of faith hit home for me recently while teaching these topics from the Anglican Catechism, To Be a Christian. After questions on the nature of sacraments in general, and of baptism in particular, the Catechism asks these two questions back-to-back:
- “What is required of you when you come to be baptized?” (Q. 128)
- “Why is it appropriate to baptize infants?” (Q. 129)
The answer to the first is straightforward: repentance and faith. “Repentance, in which I turn away from sin; and faith, in which I turn to Jesus Christ as my Savior and Lord and trust the promises that God makes to me in this sacrament. (Psalm 51:3–6, 13–17; Mark 1:14–15; Acts 2:37–38)”
This answer is well and good, and I don’t think too many people would object. However, its particular wording, followed by the question about infant baptism, makes for an interesting pairing. If what is required is that I turn away from sin and that I turn to Christ in faith and the embrace of his promises, how then can I be baptized if I am an infant without the developed mental or spiritual faculties by which to make such decisions?
If one needs to repent from sin and turn to Christ before receiving baptism, how can an infant be baptized?
Which Comes First—Profession of Faith or Sacrament?
The Catechism seems to recognize this difficulty, which is why it uses the same language in the following question about infant baptism: “Why is it appropriate to baptize infants?” (Q. 129).
The answer: “Because it is a sign of God’s promise that they are embraced in the covenant community of Christ’s Church. Those who in faith and repentance present infants to be baptized vow to raise them in the knowledge and fear of the Lord, with the expectation that they will one day profess full Christian faith as their own. (Deuteronomy 6:6–9; Proverbs 22:6; Mark 2:3–5; Acts 2:39; 16:25–34)”
The question uses the same language of “faith and repentance” as required for baptism, but shifts the primary referent from the baptized to the parents and godparents. It is their faith and repentance that legitimates bringing the child to baptism, with the expectation and exhortation to raise the child so that they will one day “profess full Christian faith as their own.”
The Catechism is consistent in maintaining that faith and repentance, or we could say, “profession of faith,” are, in a sense, required for baptism, along with the vow to raise the child Christianly. (A related question, which I have addressed briefly here, is how the parents’ faith can “stand in,” as it were, for the child’s—a notion that cuts against American individualism.)
What is important to note is that, while for adult converts, profession goes before sacrament, with infant baptism, the parents’ profession precedes the sacrament, followed by the child’s profession.
To understand why the profession of faith can come before or after baptism, we need to see what a sacrament is before we can see how the two are related.
What is a Sacrament?
In Anglicanism, a sacrament is, according to the classic Augustinian definition of the Catechism, “an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace” (Q. 121).
A sacrament, then, is made up of two things: the outward and visible “sign” (in the case of baptism, a watery immersion in the triune name) and an inward and spiritual “grace” or “reality” (death to sin, new life through union with Christ’s death and resurrection).
The hard part for our culture—both Protestants and Catholics—is how to relate “sign” and “reality.” If, to overgeneralize, the Protestant temptation is to separate sign and reality, the Catholic temptation is to conflate sign and reality.
For the Great Tradition, on the other hand, a sign “shares in” or “communes with” the reality to which it points. The language of the sign “pointing to” the reality emphasizes the distinction between sign and reality—they’re not the same thing. The pointing says, “I am not the full thing.” At the same time, the sign shares or participates in the reality, which emphasizes that it is not completely separate. The language of “sharing” says, “I do have something of the full thing.” The sign gives you a real taste of the real thing, but there’s always a greater depth beyond our grasp. This is what theologian Hans Boersma has called a participatory or sacramental ontology.
For Anglicans, then, when we see or experience the sign of baptism, we are seeing “in” the visible material of water and actions of the priest a greater reality that transcends physical sight—the death of a child of Adam and the birth of a child of God.
It’s not that the water ritual on its own makes this reality happen (the Catholic temptation). But nor is it that the ritual tells of some other completely separate reality (the Protestant temptation). Rather, the water ritual both points to and makes present an ever-greater reality to which it points.
How are Sacrament and Profession of Faith Related?
Clarifying the different understandings of sacrament hopefully gets at what bothers many Protestants about infant baptism. They’re worried that baptizing babies turns the ritual into a mechanical or magical performance, in which the sign itself is the reality. In short: they’re worried about the Catholic temptation. You perform the ritual and—poof!—you’ve got a saved baby. That’s not what’s happening in the Anglican sacramental understanding. The sign shares in the reality, but it’s not the reality itself.
Because of a worry about the Catholic temptation, many Protestants reject the idea that the sacrament “really” conveys grace at all. They avoid the language of sacrament, employing instead the language of “ordinance.” In this view, baptism doesn’t do anything to the recipient; it can only affirm or witness to something that’s already been done. The sign may be necessary, but not because it is intrinsically related to the reality; only because Jesus told (“ordained”) his followers to do so. In effect, the sign and reality have become separated. The sign can only point to but cannot share in the reality.
For this baptistic “ordinance” view, which epitomizes the Protestant temptation, baptism and profession are separate and distinct activities. They are both human responses to the work of God in converting the sinner, but baptism follows profession as a sign that points to a separate reality—namely, the profession. Baptism can only “point,” however; it has no “share” in the reality of salvation. It is, as it were, two steps removed. As I have heard it put before, “baptism is a profession of a profession.” A person is converted by God, then professes his or her faith, and then partakes in a ritual baptism, testifying to the prior profession.
For the Anglican view, baptism and profession relate differently to salvation. Baptism is a sign that points to and shares in the reality of salvation, while the profession of faith testifies that a person has agreed willingly to turn from sin and embrace Jesus in faith.
The collapse of a sacramental understanding of the world has made it hard for both Protestants and Catholics to understand how infant baptism makes sense. And this is yet another reason we need a comprehensive theological renewal of catechesis—a deep instruction in the Christian faith.
The challenge for catechesis, however, is not just that we don’t understand the historical or biblical teaching on, say, infant baptism. We need to be catechized into a world in which these practices make sense. We need a catechesis that introduces us into a fully Christian view of reality. People may come to Anglicanism stumbling over the sacrament of infant baptism, but the real hurdle is a sacramental understanding of reality.
Great post! I wonder if part of the challenge isn’t just that we struggle to grasp sacrament, but we also struggle to grasp the Biblical concept of “covenant” that the catechism emphasizes as the rationale for infant baptism. Thanks! Steve
I commend the author for tackling what I consider the ambiguous and confusing juxtaposition of Q. 128 and Q. 129 in To Be A Christian. I fear the answer to Q. 129 has muddied the waters; the Thirty-Nine Articles and the Rite of Baptism are much clearer.
As much as I want to give a full-throated Amen to this article, I’m afraid it still raises some questions. Every time I think I understand, I read it again and find myself scratching my head.
The author states:
“In the Anglican view, baptism does not depend on a profession of faith to be a valid baptism.”
It would be helpful to define “valid.” Does the baptism of an infant differ in substance and effect from the baptism of a professing adult? Is infant baptism awaiting “completion” in a way that adult baptism is not? This latter question is important because of a parenthetical point made by the author relative to infant baptism:
“(which is why confirmation is so important).”
The other point of confusion is the discussion of sign and reality:
“For the Great Tradition, on the other hand, a sign ‘shares in’ or ‘communes with’ the reality to which it points. The language of the sign ‘pointing to’ the reality emphasizes the distinction between sign and reality — they’re not the same thing. The pointing says, ‘I am not the full thing.’ At the same time, the sign shares or participates in the reality…”
It is not clear to me what the author intends by this. How does this differ from the classical definition of sacrament: an outward and visible symbol of an inward and spiritual grace? The real question is this: does the outward sign act instrumentally to affect the inward grace in the case of infant baptism? If so, then the rite of baptism does more than point to or share in the reality; it affects the reality. It is a speech act that accomplishes what it says. The author address this, following, but I am still confused as to what he means:
“It’s not that the water ritual on its own makes this reality happen (the Catholic temptation). But nor is it that the ritual tells of some other completely separate reality (the Protestant temptation). Rather, the water ritual both points to and makes present an ever-greater reality to which it points.”
Again, I am left with the question: does the water ritual — in conjunction with the faith of the parents and the intent of the church — affect the “ever-greater reality to which it points”?
Social media is blunt instrument for having such a nuanced conversation, but it is what we have available. Again, I commend the author for tackling this topic in such a thoughtful manner.
Thank you for this response, John. As far as I can tell, this is one of the more considerate and thoughtful comments I have read on the Internet. I appreciate your willingness to tend the digital commons.
Let me first say that I don’t consider the wording of the Catechism to be muddied or negatively ambiguous. If it is ambiguous, it is so positively because of the literary genre of catechisms, which are meant to be foundational, not final. That is, the Q-and-A format is meant to be a launching point for the work of catechesis—the kind of interaction that happens between catechist and catechumen—not the final resolution that closes discussion. In this sense, I find the ordering and wording of the Catechism to be eminently useful for catechetical learning to happen, and also in sync with the 39 Articles and Rite of Baptism.
Second, and more to the substance of your question, let me try to be clearer. I am arguing in this piece for a thoroughly sacramental or participatory understanding of infant baptism, which I take to be more metaphysically precise than a covenantal view, while still encompassing what the covenantal view (and by implication, a speech-act theory view) strives to do, which is to talk about how creaturely actions are not simply external symbols or “tokens” (as the 39 Articles would ascribe this view) but effective signs that do what they say.
A sacramental view helpfully problematizes the question of how the physical ritual “affects” the invisible reality. To say that the outward sign can “affect” the inward reality presupposes a nominalist worldview in which Creator and creature operate on the same metaphysical plane. It is a view in which the more the creature acts the less that God acts—a zero-sum or competitive view of the Creator-creature relationship. What a sacramental view of reality entails—and by implication, a sacramental view of baptism—is that the creaturely act participates or shares in the invisible reality in a non-competitive way. It strives to give a greater conceptual clarity about how God works an invisible reality (salvation) “in” and “through” the use of creaturely realities (water). The scare quotes around the prepositions connote real but not identical presence.
I doubt this answer will clear up all the confusions in the article, but I find myself returning to where I left off at the conclusion: what is needed is not only a clear instruction in the view of sacraments but also a thoroughgoing catechesis in a sacramental view of reality.
Alex,
Thank you for your response; it is quite thoughtful and goes some significant way in clarifying some of the issues I raised. If you will allow, I would like to make one comment and reiterate one issue — one of the most important — that you did not address.
First, the comment. Whether my use of the word “affects” places me in the nominalist camp I will leave to your judgment. But, to characterize my position as constituting a zero sum game is to misunderstand. Game theory implies/requires a competition, and that has no place in my “argument/question.” God promises to do B in response to our doing A; in that sense, A affects B solely because God has determined to act in that way. That is cooperation — our cooperation with God — and is the very opposite of competition. It is not a zero sum game precisely because it is not a game/competition. It is in this sense that the outward sign of baptism affects the inward grace. I suspect we are saying substantially the same thing but using different terms. You may correct me if you think that is not the case.
Second, the question. I do think Q 129 muddies the water because it seems to imply a fundamental difference in adult, believer’s baptism (as a completed act) and infant baptism (as a forward looking promise). As an aside, I understand J. I. Packer to make that same distinction in his essay “Taking Baptism Seriously.” That led to my questions:
Does the baptism of an infant differ in substance and effect from the baptism of a professing adult? Is infant baptism awaiting “completion” in a way that adult baptism is not? This latter question is important because of a parenthetical point made by the author relative to infant baptism:
“(which is why confirmation is so important).”
Those are the questions that you did not address in your response. Would you care to address them in a follow up?
You are almost forcing me to believe that civil, substantive discussions can actually take place on social media!
Blessings.
John
Ah, I see what you mean. Thanks for the follow-up and invitation for further discussion. I’ll bypass the first comment, as I agree that we’re aiming for the same thing. I appreciate what you say about God determining to act in this way. I take that to be an indication of safeguarding divine simplicity and avoiding the competitive view.
As to your question, thanks for clarifying. No, I don’t see Q129 to say that infant and adult baptism differ in substance or effect, one of which is complete, the other awaiting completion. The statement that baptism is a “sign of God’s promise that they are embraced in the covenant community of Christ’s Church” is one that could apply to adults as a well as infants. If it said “symbol” or “token” or something as pertaining to children but “sign/sacrament” relating to adults, I would share your concern. But “sign” I take to mean “real participation” in the sense that I gave in the original article. Augustine would say that we are saved “in hope” but not yet “in reality” (that Latin is a rhyme: “in spes,” not yet “in res”). A sacramental “sign” gives a real share in the reality to which it points without being simply identical to the reality. Profession of faith, which is typically ritualized in the sacrament of confirmation, is a separable though related activity. With an adult, it usually happens around the same time as baptism. With an infant, the profession is present first in the profession of the parents/godparents and then later when the child grows up. But again: it’s distinct from baptism. Even if the child ends up not making such a profession, it is still a real baptism, just as when an adult makes a profession of faith and is baptized but then turns away from the faith. It was still a real, valid, legitimate baptism. The person was baptized in hope but not in reality, just as we all are.
Does that response go anywhere closer to being clearer? Thanks again for asking such a good question.
Alex,
I only wish the Catechism were as clear as your response. Blessings, brother.
John
Apparently there are different understandings of infant baptism amongst Anglican churches. In my church, the priest pronounces the baby forgiven of his or her sins and sealed with the Holy Spirit forever. That is why I don’t attend baptism services. I have read other Anglican scholars who clearly believe that the child is saved through baptism by the faith of the godparents. And then they say this isn’t baptismal regeneration! Is the child saved or not by virtue of baptism?
Thanks for the great article.
I don’t mind that a person baptised as a baby, but unless they accept Jesus Christ as their saviour then they are not saved are they? It is really shows the parents desire for their little one – and in the world today that desire is not always carried through. And if they do accept Christ, then they have already been baptised and so can not make an adult witness to their faith. In my multi-denominational church (Anglican, Meth. Presby) a few of the members have been infant baptised and later adult baptised. But more have been infant baptised and not confirmed (and don’t see the point in being confirmed.)
One is saved because Christ accepts them by his grace through faith which ordinarily occurs in baptism. The infant is indeed saved through the faith of its parents/sponsors. However the child will need to eventually have faith for his/her self. This is taking ownership of their baptism. “ Rebaptism “is not only not necessary but frankly it is wrong because it makes baptism man’s work instead of god’s work and ignores that it is his covenant sign . Ontologically there is no such thing as a rebaptism.