I think that Christian training should start well before a candidate seeks to be baptized (immersed as practiced in the early years of the Church of Christ). One must believe before being considered a Christian. Today we have it backwards - baptized (by a little water applied to a part of the body in most cases), and then later on "confirmed" in the faith one never knew as a baby (often less than two weeks old). The NT tells us that belief comes first, period.
A little more study of that issue is in order. I left the Catholic church many years ago and it was in part, due to that which you mention about infant baptism. I, however, did a very deep 8 year study on what I believed to be the error of the RCC church and found this about infant baptism.
In scripture, you are correct, many were baptized after believeing. however, scripture also points out that whole households were baptized after the Father had accepted Jesus and believed. It is unreasonable to think that in a procreative, HUGE extended family model that existed back then, that no children or infants were baptized in the whole household model. It was impossible to start a new belief system in the first generation without adult converts to the faith, therefore necessitated the adult believers baptism for conversion.
2. If infant baptism was objectionable, then circumcision would have been to. Circumsicion of babies 8 days old in the Jewish faith was considered the sign of passing along the faith of the father and mother, as commanded by God. If God included infants in the Jewish faith at such a young age without asking for it or believeing in it, and Jesus came to fufill the law and for the fufillment of the jewish faith, why would he completely change that law? Why wouldn’t Christian children have the virtue of being considered christians just as Jewish children did?
And lastly. Baptism bestows grace, santicfiying grace,according to scripture 2Peter Chap3 Vs18-22. If grace is truly a free gift which no one can merit, isn’t it most freely and without asking to give that grace to an infant? In a believers baptism, one is required to do many things to make themselves “worthy of the gift” They must first, without grace, turn to God, Pray the sinners prayer, Believe in their hearts, Ask for baptism, and then recieve grace. If it is a free gift- why all the steps to receive it? Isn’t that alot of doing, or works, you have to do for a free gift? I on the other hand bring my child to the Church, and God accepts him into his family based on my faith and promise to raise him in the faith, just like the Jewish folks do.
As to free will, my child will, at age thirteen, choose to accept or reject their faith through confirmation. They will have been educated in the faith for the previous 8 years, and make a public acceptance of that faith and accept responsibility for their own actions and sin at that time, much as the Bar mitzvah is the equivalent in Jesus’s own faith of Judiasm.
sorry this post is so long, but much explanation is usually necessary on this issue. Christians do need to remember, Jesus was a Jew, a perfect Jew. He came to fufill the law, not change it. The fufillment of Judiasm, should and does resemble it. If your Church does not, maybe a more prayerful study of scripture and the early church/church fathers, didache, and what the Catholic Church ACTUALLY teaches instead of what is assumed, would yield some good fruit.
God Bless!!