The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum Babies, toddlers and the mentally retarded

speratus,

You, like Rome are faced with an insurmountable and indefensible problem if you believe, which you apparently do, that regeneration takes place in baptism. On the one hand you say that the Word in and through baptism regenerates the recipient. On the other hand you say that justification is by faith alone. Okay.... you aren't following this? Since faith is the fruit of regeneration, then all who undergo baptism, being regenerated are given faith, then by logically necessity, all who are baptized are saved, they having faith. If, however, you want to deny that all who are regenerated in baptism aren't saved, then you are faced with the odious problem that regenerated persons are subject to condemnation. Since you seem to want to make baptism an instrumental cause of regeneration, there is no way around this.

This entire line of reasoning can't apply to "infants dying in infancy" because they are not subjected to baptism. Thus it is a moot point. We agree that "elect infants dying in infancy" are saved, no less so than any who are part of the elect.

Do you have a BIBLICAL argument for your defense? I'm not interested one iota in some quote from one of your favorite authors or from a Lutheran Confession. What I desire is to see you prove from the SOLE and FINAL authority which those of us who profess to be followers of Christ are subject to; the infallible written Word of the Living God.

In His Grace,