Sola Scripture means “scripture alone”. It is used as authority among protestants who have no other source. While your questions are precious and endearing this is no place to treat your questions fairly. You need to talk with a priest, or some informed Catholic who knows their faith, perhaps even go to a Catholic bookstore where they can direct your interests to simple beginning Catholic books.
Infant baptism is the New Covenant answer to circumcision in the Old Testament. It brought the Jews and others into the Jewish fold as baptism brings us into the fold. So, understanding is needed in order to see that, yes, it actually is in the Bible but in the new form Jesus set forth. Remember he was circumcised into the fold according to Jewish law , but was also baptised by John to set the pattern for all. His command was to be baptized “both you and all your household”, which naturally included babies and all ages.
Rita, I am no longer Catholic and disagree with a some of what you’ve said, but I thank you for your very gracious response.
God bless you, and I hope God continues to reveal His exact intentions to us all so that one day, all who profess Him as Lord can act be as one in the Body of Christ.
A nit, but Jesus never said that “both your and your household” should be baptised.
There are several references to “your household”, or “the entire hosuehold”, but they are post ressurection. In at least one case it is clear that the “whole household” believed the message, which means they were all old enough to understand and believe, and so their baptism comports with the idea of a “believer’s baptism”.
There is no reference in the Bible that indicates a baby was baptised. A household COULD have a child, but there are only a few specific references to household, and they are to specific households, not a general command to all households, and it not at all unreasonable that none of the referenced households would have children too young to understand.
Meanwhile, there are references which tie the concept of a believer’s baptism into the baptism of John, and again there is no indication that anybody was baptised by John that could not specifically voice their own repentance. I would note of course that the believer’s baptism is NOT the baptism of John — when a man is asked if he had been baptised, and said “only by John”, he was re-baptized.
Which means that Jesus’ baptism by John is not a direct sign to us to be baptised, since it was a different baptism than the one we are to engage in.
I also don’t buy a too-literal substitution of baptism for circumcision. We know that we do not need to be circumsized, because the Bible makes that perfectly clear. And we understand the parallelism that is taught in the bible — circumcision was a physical act to physical babies to denote a physical attachment to a physical nation.
Baptism is a spiritual act to spiritual babies (new Christians) to denote a spiritual attachment to the spiritual nation (family) of God.
If one wants to argue that baptism was a direct and literal replacement for circumcision, they would then have to explain why they baptise females.
My apologies for any misspellings.