>> The Bible doesn't say that.<<
Indeed it does. Mark 1:4, Acts 18:8, Acts 8:12, Acts 2:41, Acts 8:36, Acts 22:16, Romans 6:3-5, Mark 16:16
In every Biblical reference Belief ALWAYS precedes Baptism.
>> No, there are examples in Acts where entire households are baptized.<<
You’ll need to get specific, because each case is to be looked at specifically. The RCC doesn’t do that, instead lumps them all together. Scriptural exegesis is not a strong point of the RCC.
If you’re referring to Lydia in Acts 16, there’s no mention of whether or not she even had kids. Since she was a trader “her household” more than likely meant her servants who would travel with her.
If you’re referring to the jailer in 16:30, note that their response is first “believe and be saved” then his household is preached to, and they are baptized. it is obvious that the holy spirit worked in his house at that time, and brought salvation to all. Belief first, then baptism. (It’s also worthy to note that infants are not mentioned, so we have no way of knowing how old the members of his house were.)
If you’re referring to Acts 11:14 – it’s an instruction for the newly saved father to bring the good news to his family. Read verse 15 – “and as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell upon them”. Belief first, then baptism.
>> In Acts 2, St. Peter tells a Jewish audience used to circumcizing babies at 8 days of age, "The promise is to you and to your children". <<
Keep reading: “and everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”
God calls, we respond – not the other way around.
>> You ought to stick with what the Bible actually says, and not how your Baptist tradition understands it.<<
Ball’s in your court to scripturally refute my position. I await your response.
Infant baptism has been the subject of much dispute. The Waldenses and Cathari and later the Anabaptists, rejected the doctrine that infants are capable of receiving valid baptism, and some sectarians at the present day hold the same opinion.
The Catholic Church, however, maintains absolutely that the law of Christ applies as well to infants as to adults. When the Redeemer declares (John 3) that it is necessary to be born again of water and the Holy Ghost in order to enter the Kingdom of God, His words may be justly understood to mean that He includes all who are capable of having a right to this kingdom. Now, He has asserted such a right even for those who are not adults, when He says (Matthew 19:14): "Suffer the little children, and forbid them not to come to me: for the kingdom of heaven is for such." It has been objected that this latter text does not refer to infants, inasmuch as Christ says "to come to me". In the parallel passage in St. Luke (18:15), however, the text reads: "And they brought unto him also infants, that he might touch them"; and then follow the words cited from St. Matthew. In the Greek text, the words brephe and prosepheron refer to infants in arms.
Moreover, St. Paul (Colossians 2) says that baptism in the New Law has taken the place of circumcision in the Old. It was especially to infants that the rite of circumcision was applied by Divine precept. If it be said that there is no example of the baptism of infants to be found in the Bible, we may answer that infants are included in such phrases as: "She was baptized and her household" (Acts 16:15); "Himself was baptized, and all his house immediately" (Acts 16:33); "I baptized the household of Stephanus" (1 Corinthians 1:16).
The tradition of Christian antiquity as to the necessity of infant baptism is clear from the very beginning. We have given many striking quotations on this subject already, in dealing with the necessity of baptism. A few, therefore, will suffice here.
- Origen (in cap. vi, Ep. ad Rom.) declares: "The Church received from the Apostles the tradition of giving baptism also to infants".
- St. Augustine (Serm. xi, De Verb Apost.) says of infant baptism: "This the Church always had, always held; this she received from the faith of our ancestors; this she perseveringly guards even to the end."
- St. Cyprian (Ep. ad Fidum) writes: "From baptism and from grace . . . must not be kept the infant who, because recently born, has committed no sin, except, inasmuch as it was born carnally from Adam, it has contracted the contagion of the ancient death in its first nativity; and it comes to receive the remission of sins more easily on this very account that not its own, but another's sins are forgiven it."
- St.Cyprian's letter to Fidus declares that the Council of Carthage in 253 reprobated the opinion that the baptism of infants should be delayed until the eighth day after birth.
- The Council of Milevis in 416 anathematizes whosoever says that infants lately born are not to be baptized.
- The Council of Trent solemnly defines the doctrine of infant baptism (Sess. VII, can. xiii). It also condemns (can. xiv) the opinion of Erasmus that those who had been baptized in infancy, should be left free to ratify or reject the baptismal promises after they had become adult.
Theologians also call attention to the fact that as God sincerely wishes all men to be saved, He does not exclude infants, for whom baptism of either water or blood is the only means possible. The doctrines also of the universality of original sin and of the all-comprehending atonement of Christ are stated so plainly and absolutely in Scripture as to leave no solid reason for denying that infants are included as well as adults.
To the objection that baptism requires faith, theologians reply that adults must have faith, but infants receive habitual faith, which is infused into them in the sacrament of regeneration. As to actual faith, they believe on the faith of another; as St. Augustine (De Verb. Apost., xiv, xviii) beautifully says: "He believes by another, who has sinned by another."
As to the obligation imposed by baptism, the infant is obliged to fulfill them in proportion to its age and capacity, as is the case with all laws. Christ, it is true, prescribed instruction and actual faith for adults as necessary for baptism (Matthew 28; Mark 16), but in His general law on the necessity of the sacrament (John 3) He makes absolutely no restriction as to the subject of baptism; and consequently while infants are included in the law, they can not be required to fulfill conditions that are utterly impossible at their age.
While not denying the validity of infant baptism, Tertullian (De Bapt., xviii) desired that the sacrament be not conferred upon them until they have attained the use of reason, on account of the danger of profaning their baptism as youths amid the allurements of pagan vice. In like manner, St. Gregory Nazianzen (Or. xl, De Bapt.) thought that baptism, unless there was danger of death, should be deferred until the child was three years old, for then it could hear and respond at the ceremonies. Such opinions, however, were shared by few, and they contain no denial of the validity of infant baptism.