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I’ve had the great privilege of baptizing a few of my friends’ babies recently, which has sparked some discussion on the topic of infant baptism. At one point, a friend of mine asked me “Can an infant have faith?” I thought it was a brilliant question I didn’t know how to answer! So here is some of my own musing and research on the matter.
While not explicitly outlined in Scripture, the Bible does give clear evidence that infants (and even those still in the womb) are capable of receiving the gift of salvation. Some of that evidence even suggests the capacity for infants to have faith. Consider five examples.
First, In 2 Sam 12:14-23, David is confident that the child is now with the Lord. He says “I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.” While this could be interpreted pessimistically as a general statement of “I will one day die and join the child in the grave,” an optimistic interpretation is preferred. David’s psalms express confidence in being with the Lord after death rather than being abandoned to the grave.
Second, in Psalm 139, David expresses the Lord’s total knowledge of himself even in the womb, with reference to “your book.” Together with other Old Testament references to God’s book, we’re given the impression that God knows the full list of all those whom he will redeem to eternal life. Together with 2 Samuel 12, it seems apparent that David believed infants and even children in utero were full recipients of the gift of salvation.
Third, in Psalm 22, David declares “Yet you are he who took me from the womb; you made me trust you at my mother’s breasts. On you was I cast from my birth, and from my mother’s womb you have been my God. Be not far from me, for trouble is near, and there is none to help” (Ps 22:9–11). The word “trust” is most often translated from Hebrew to Greek as “hope” rather than faith, but as Hebrews 11:1 says, “faith is the assurance of things hoped for.” Thus, David is claiming a certain kind of faith in infancy.
Fourth, in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus repeatedly affirms the faith of “little children” (παιδία) as exemplary. This term in Greek broadly refers to any child below the age of maturity (roughly 12 years old), including infants. Matthew 2:13-16 identifies Jesus as a παιδίον both before the trip to Egypt, when he is under two years old, and when he returns however many years later. This same word is used by Jesus when he says “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 18:3–4). How old is this particular child? He seems able to have come to Jesus when called, so perhaps as young as 18 months—but quite possibly older. Later in Matthew 19:13, it says that παιδία “were brought to him,” perhaps denoting their need to be carried. The data is inconclusive, but the point is all the more compelling the younger the child is: Jesus calls us to be utterly dependent on God.
Fifth and most significantly, see Luke 1:41-45. John the Baptist leaps in the womb of Elizabeth at the arrival of pregnant Mary. As one commenter notes:
The oriental greeting was an extended affair, ‘a ceremonial act whose significance lay in the content of the message’ (Ellis, 76). But here the important thing is not the content of the greeting but the person who made it. Even before Elizabeth herself could respond to Mary’s words, the child in her womb leapt with joy (σκιρτάω, 1:46; 6:23**). Although it is said that an emotional experience of the mother can cause a movement of the foetus (Ellis, 76), it is more likely that a miraculous expression of the emotion of the unborn child is meant than that Elizabeth simply saw her own joy reflected in the unconscious movement of her child. Although it is not clear that the narrator of Gn. 25:22 thought of conscious movements of the twins in Rebekah’s womb, the rabbis so interpreted the text, and there was also a tradition that the unborn children sang a song at the Exodus (SB II, 100f.; cf. Od. Sol. 28:2; Callimachus 4:162ff.). To jump for joy was of course a familiar enough idea (2 Sa. 6:16; Mal. 4:2; et al.; G. Fitzer, TDNT VII, 401f.).1
Is this evidence enough to assert that infants can have faith? It may be helpful to further define what we mean by “faith.” Classical Reformed theology attributes three essential components to faith: notitia, assensus, and fiducia. Each of these are most clearly displayed in Romans 10:14 “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?”
Notitia refers to the knowledge of the facts of Christianity: that the God of the Old Testament, the God of Heaven and Earth, sent his Son Jesus to take on humanity and die in our place, freeing us from sin if we are washed in his blood. Assesnsus takes knowledge of the facts a step further to affirm those facts as true. Fiducia completes faith by committing our lives to God’s purposes and giving our trust and worship wholly to him.
It’s worth noting, these three categories were defined by Reformed scholars in the context of defending justification by faith alone. Just like Paul’s questions in Romans 10, the focus of these categories was the ordinary experience of a mature faith, not fringe cases like the mentally disabled or very young. But could these still track with an infantile faith?
Starting with notitia: the most obvious question is to what extent an infant can know anything. The brain of a toddler has developed enough to understand language and enable basic verbal responses. They have a basic understanding of right and wrong. Toddlers can certainly understand the words “Jesus loves you,” and “Jesus died and rose from the grave.” They may even have the capacity to understand and practice repentance.
What about a newborn? Well in one sense, newborns have no capacity for understanding. They mostly just react to the most basic stimuli from their environment: the warmth of their mother’s skin, the comfort of her shushing; the pain of a needle drawing blood from their heel; the discomfort of a wet diaper; the frustration of hunger. But if we had to speculate, even at the risk of sounding poetic, what does an infant know? If they know anything at all, they know their mother. They are aware of her smell and her voice; they have known both from the very formation of their nose, ears, and brain in utero. They know their mother is the source of safety and sustenance. They know of their need for their mother.
Now to fully plunge into poetic speculation: may it be possible that a newborn knows God in a similar way to knowing their mother? Again, in one sense, no: a newborn knows nothing. But in another sense, God may be all they know. Paul’s quotes on Mars Hill may be fitting here: “In him we live and move and have our being” and “For we are indeed his offspring” (Ac 17:28). The majority report in Reformed scholarship is that the soul of each person is created by God and joined to the body at the moment of conception.2 So in some way, knowledge of God is even more basic and intimate than knowledge of one’s mother.
This knowledge comes under assault at its very genesis as we inherit original sin.3 As David confesses “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Ps 51:5). Immediately we begin to suppress the truth of God in unrighteousness, unless perhaps God grants us faith by his grace to open our minds and hearts. This would be analogous to the assensus component of faith. The next step of fiducia would then parallel an infant’s utter dependence and trust in its mother.
Could this happen in the heart of an infant? Based on the passages above, I’m open to the possibility. What would this look like in practice? That’s the real challenge to imagine. I imagine it would look like whatever David meant when he wrote “you are he who took me from the womb; you made me trust you at my mother’s breasts.”
It should be said that faith is not equal to or contingent upon a confession of faith. A confession of faith is an external outworking of an inward reality which has its origin in God’s effectual call and regeneration. In other words, we are saved through faith itself, not the outward work of expressing that faith. Furthermore, faith can be confessed in ways appropriate to one’s age and ability. Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, says that John “leaped for joy” in her womb at pregnant Mary’s arrival. That is as close to an in utero assensus and fiducia as I could imagine.
Stepping out of infancy, babies could confess their faith in small, age-appropriate ways. I believe my own 15-month-old has expressed faith in small, age-appropriate ways: pointing to the sky in response to songs and stories of Jesus’ resurrection; asking for longer and longer prayers during mealtime and bedtime; heartily declaring “Bah!” at the end of prayers as his way of saying “Amen!”
Many Christian assert that baptism should be withheld from anyone until they are able to make a clear outward profession of faith. As a Reformed presbyterian, I do not agree. Baptism is the covenant sign of inclusion in God’s people, which is offered to believers and their children. In this conversation I am not saying that infants can be the proper recipients of baptism because they can possess faith in infancy. That is missing the point of a covenantal understanding of the sacrament. But I am also not saying that infant baptism is strictly a sign to children of the faith they may one day have or may one day confess. Good Reformed theology and Biblical precedent show that children—even infants and babies still in the womb—can already have faith at their baptism. Reformed theologian Herman Bavinck notes as much when recounting the Reformed tradition’s response to anabaptism:
But the Anabaptists consistently advanced still another argument against infant baptism. They asserted not only that infant baptism is not mentioned in Scripture, but also that children could not experience or demonstrate faith and repentance and therefore were not permitted to be baptized. Over against this position the Reformed argued that though children could not—as the Lutherans held—possess the acts of faith, they could most certainly possess the disposition (habitus) of faith. They employed a wide variety of expressions—like the seed, the root, the inclination, the potency, the disposition, or the principle of faith, or the seed of regeneration, and so forth. But on the issue itself there was complete agreement. On the basis of Scripture, Jer. 1:5 and Luke 1:35, and in keeping with the catholicity of the Christian religion, all the Reformed maintained against the Anabaptists that children as well as adults could be received by God through grace, regenerated by his Spirit, and gifted with the seed of faith.4
Another place I’ve looked for guidance is the Canons of Dort. The salvation of infants was an important topic to the synod.5 Two articles stood out to me as particularly relevant.
Since we are to judge of the will of God from His Word which testifies that the children of believers are holy, not by nature, but in virtue of the covenant of grace, in which they, together with the parents, are comprehended, godly parents have no reason to doubt of the election and salvation of their children whom it pleaseth God to call out of this life in their infancy.6
Faith is therefore to be considered as the gift of God, not on account of its being offered by God to man, to be accepted or rejected at his pleasure; but because it is in reality conferred, breathed, and infused into him; or even because God bestows the power or ability to believe, and then expects that man should by the exercise of his own free will, consent to the terms of salvation and actually believe in Christ; but because He who works in man both to will and to do, and indeed all things in all, produces both the will to believe and the act of believing also.7
In short, we recognize that salvation by grace through faith (Eph 2:8). Salvation is a gift which God gives to us according to his own sovereign and gracious choice, not contingent upon anything within us including our works. The gift of salvation is received through faith. At least some infants (the synod suggests all the infants of believers) receive the gift of salvation when they die. The synod does not explicitly say that infants receive this gift through faith. The devines present would have emphasized the role of grace as the source of salvation instead of focusing on its instrumental cause, which, for the ordinary case of mature believers, is faith. But in light of the evidence and reasoning above, perhaps the instrumental cause is still faith—just in “seed” form.
Stepping outside the bounds of good exegesis and theology, it is interesting to consider the relationship between a child’s faith and the faith they see modeled by their parents and church family. Parents literally raise their children from their start to know Jesus as their personal savior. Their default understanding of the world assumes Christianity, and their manor of life will copy the belief and practice modeled by their parents. If they grow up watching their parents go to church, have quiet times, have conversational prayers with Jesus out loud, etc, they will believe that’s the way the world works—until they choose to do and believe otherwise. In some way, it is as if “the ball is in their court” to walk away from their faith. But until they make that conscious decision, they have literally inherited the beliefs of their parents because it is the only world they know.
If you were to ask a three year old in my church “Is Jesus real? Do you know him? How do you know him?” They’d likely respond by saying (in their own three-year-old way) “Yes, Jesus is real. I know him. He loves me, and I love him! I talk to him every night with my mommy and daddy. I like singing songs to him at church.” Is that a genuine profession of faith? It seems to reflect a real knowledge of and trust in Jesus, and results in the fruit of prayer and worship.
I wouldn’t call that a “false faith.” It is merely a young faith. It will mature with the child. As they physically develop and grow more independent from their parents, they will spiritually develop and their faith will grow more independent from their parents’. One day, the child must come to a deeper understanding. Their notitia, assensus, and fiducia will become a conscious, verbal, discursive faith. This is different from their seed of faith not in kind, but in degree and development.
So then, can an infant have faith? I am inclined to say yes. It is not identical to a mature, well-articulated, fully-catechized faith we hope to see in every professing adult. But it would be, as Bavinck describes, “the seed, the root, the inclination, the potency, the disposition, or the principle of faith.” My inclination is not a rock solid conviction; I recognize I am well beyond the bounds of certainty. But I feel comfortable enough in where this speculation has landed.
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1 I. Howard Marshall. The Gospel of Luke. NIGTC. 1st American ed. Vol. 3. Eerdmans, 1978. EBSCOhost.
2 This is the position of “creationism” (not like “young earth creationism,” in a different technical sense. The minority report holds to a view called “traducianism,” which holds that “the souls of the children are as much derived from their parents as their bodies are.” For a defense of traducianism, see Gordon H. Clarke, “Traducianism,” THE TRINITY REVIEW, July, August 1982 (Unicoi, Tennessee), 1-7. https://www.trinityfoundation.org/PDF/The%20Trinity%20Review%200026a%20Traducianism.pdf For a defense of creationism, see Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology: Expanded Edition (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 2021), 190-195.
3 The eternal destiny of children who die in infancy is not the focus of this paper. B.B. Warfield surveys the church’s stance on the topic and argues for the salvation of every dying infant. See B.B. Warfield, “The Development of the Doctrine of Infant Salvation” Reprinted from the pamphlet of this title published by the Christian Literature Company of New York in 1891 (copyright now held by Charles Scribner’s Sons). https://www.monergism.com/development-doctrine-infant-salvation
4 Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 4 “Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation. Edited by John Bolt (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), 525.
5 Nicholaas H. Gootjes, “Can Parents be Sure? – Background and Meaning of Canons of Dort I,17” Clarion, Vol. 44, No. 20, Oct 6, 1995. https://www.christianstudylibrary.org/files/pub/articles/Nicolaas%20H.%20Gootjes%20-%20Can%20Parents%20be%20Sure%20-%20Background%20and%20Meaning%20of%20Canons%20of%20Dort%20I_17.pdf
6 Canons of Dort, First Head of Doctrine, Article 17. https://prts.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Canons-of-Dort-with-Intro.pdf
7 Canons of Dort, Third Head of Doctrine, Article 14. https://prts.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Canons-of-Dort-with-Intro.pdf
