So every Jew up until the time of Christ - to include Christ - was "FORCED" into the community of God by circumcision? If it is a cop-out, then go to the Scriptures and blame them - they tell us that an infant should be circumcised to become part of God's people. So is God "coping-out"? In both Baptism and Circumcision, Jews nor Catholics consider this as the final means of entering Heaven. It is just the entry into the Church. We are now God's children as a result. We can certainly give up our inheritance later. If Christianity is a fulfillment of Judaism, it should be plain that there is a precedent being set for infant baptism by the fact that for 2000 years, people were already bringing their children into the Church by circumcision (Church defined as God's community of people)
You have said that unwritten traditions are fine as long as they have apostolic basis. Really, are you defending Sola Scriptura for the sake of an idea? Isn't 4000 years enough precedent for you?
Kosta, I thought you have said that in Orthodoxy, an unbaptized baby who dies is not free of the fallen nature and would be technically lost forever. Of course, God makes the final call, and can save whoever He wants. But "by the book", an unbaptized baby who dies has a serious problem. :) Is this fair?
I think on this, Latins and Greeks agree that something different is in store for unbaptized babies - but it is not hell. I think some would call it paradise but without God's abiding presence.
Regards
I has to dow ith the ancestral (original) sin. Orthodox teaching on this Augstinian construct differs.
"I think on this, Latins and Greeks agree that something different is in store for unbaptized babies - but it is not hell. I think some would call it paradise but without God's abiding presence."
From what I have always understood, while we tend not to make definitive proclamations based on things not clearly defined in revelation, Orthodoxy simply believes that unbaptized children prior to the age of reason go to heaven. The only thing that an infant has inherited is the result of the ancestral sin, which is death and corruption. The infant has been incapable of making choices that would separate him from God and God's mercy. Therefore, the "default setting" for the human race is salvation and God's mercy -- we have to choose something different for ourselves if we wish not to receive God's mercy.
There is a sense in which it is "something different," I suppose, in that no real progress down the path of theosis has happened because there has been no opportunity for ascetic struggle.
If you want to see what a church believes, watch what they do. Orthodox Christians take a very relaxed approach towards baptizing their infants. While nothing prevents an infant from being baptized at the earliest possible time, and while it would seem, based on some Orthodox customs, that baptism often happened on the 8th day after birth (continuing the pattern of circumcision on the 8th day), this is rarely practiced today.
Most children are not baptized before the 40th day. This is mainly so that the mother can have her churching prayers read on or after the 40th day, be present for the baptism, and enter the church for the child's churching and for the child's first communion (baptisms commonly take place on Sunday mornings before the Liturgy in many parishes.)
Sometimes the child gets older, even. There is an Orthodox joke that the age of the child being baptized depends on the size of the parish's baptismal font (they need to be immersed.)
If we Orthodox were worried that our unbaptized children wouldn't go to heaven if something unexpected happened, we would baptize them much more quickly.
An unbaptized child of an Orthodox parent would be given an Orthodox funeral/burial, memorial services would be served, and the child would be commemorated at the Liturgy (just as an Orthodox catechumen who dies unexpectedly before being received into the Church is considered to have died an Orthodox layman.)