For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will-- (Eph. 1:4,5)
Hmmmmm...the meaning of the above two sentences sound a lot alike.... Could it be that Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Cranmer, and the other original Reformers believed what the Bible taught here? By your definition, all these men would qualify as "hard shell" Calvinists--even though the famous 5 points were not fully elucidated until 100 years later in the Cannons of Dort.
In comparison to this, when a Christian is baptized is a minor point.
You are so wrong.
Yes, God predestined people to salvation before the foundation of the world, but he only did this because he already knew who would accept his offer of internal salvation before he made anything. God knows everything and nothing can be hidden from him, so of course God knew who would accept him and who wouldn't even before he made us.
However, this does not mean that WE know who will accept him and who will not. That is why we are commanded to preach the gospel to all creatures.
A baby cannot understand the gospel therefore they can't be baptized. Further more a baby doesn't need to be baptized, because they are not at the age of accountability and are therefore sinless before God. I have no idea why Catholics can't understand this.
Well, formulating the neat little construct and then finding proof-texts to support it is precisely what got them in trouble.
In their defense, the greater evil of their moment (and of the previous 1000 years) was the roman catholic church and they felt they needed an intellectual defense which insultated the 'salvation/damnation' decision entirely away from the decision of men in order to defeat the corruption of the RCC. Perhaps so. (Remembering that no one could read the Bible for themselves at that time; the RCC had seen to that.]
Now that we have the Gospel in our hands and in our language, it is obvious that the construct is irreconcilable with the "whosoever will" of the Gospel. So, while we owe the reformers a great debt for freeing us from the RCC, Christ speaks through the Bible to every heart and those who accept His offer will be saved. It is clear beyond doubt that He -- the Giver of Life -- excluded no one from His offer -- not one.