timmopussycat
Puritan Board Junior
I appreciate your honesty.Speaking as a baptist who is open to continual reevaluation, I will say that the historical argument is the most powerful one that I've encountered. I can say that in 35 years of studying this issue, no one has been able to convince me from scripture of the paedobaptist position. I've got an M.Div. from Westminster, I've read John Murray, I'm in a PCA church now and I've had long discussions with my (very intelligent and well-read) pastor, and I'm just not convinced. You can talk about household baptisms, continuity with circumcision, I've heard them all; I may not be able to convince you, but you won't be able to convince me either.
But there is one argument that has really made me stop and think, and I'm still thinking it through and haven't been able to dismiss it. It's not so much the presence of early evidence of infant baptism, but the lack of any early evidence of any opposition to the practice. The argument goes, if the practice of the apostles was to baptize believers only, then whenever the practice of infant baptism was introduced, one would expect some sort of outcry against this non-apostolic innovation. But what we see in history is no controversy over infant baptism at all until, I think, the Anabaptists.
It's an argument from silence, but for me as a baptist, it's one I can't dismiss lightly.
Speaking of an argument from silence, I [used to] bring one up all the time that is related to the bolded portion of your above comment. In the Scriptures, why do we not find "outcry" or even a little peep of an objection to the New Covenant administration now EXCLUDING the children of God's people from the sign and seal of the covenant of grace? I mean, in the Scriptures we find objections and confusions within the Jewish community about other things related to this *transition* from Old to New--but to have their children now considered OUTSIDE of and SEPERATED from the covenanted people of God--the visible Church?! The Jewish mind at the time would only understand this to mean that their children have been cut off from God. This is the worst possible news anyone of them could have received. One would expect to read of something...anything that would indicate something like this.
Yet, nothing. Not a word. Not an objection. Not a question.
The answer is that the Apostles would have taught the Jewish church that in the New Covenant the time to receive the covenant sign was after profession of faith. Since we do not have extant the complete writings of first century Jewish writings contra-Christianity nor the complete writings of the Judiaizers within the church, we simply don't know what was or wasn't said in reaction to such a teaching if in fact CB was taught.