Edmund Schlink's Theology of Infant Baptism

Abstract: The issue of the proper administration of baptism remains a major sticking point in theological discussion between those who affirm the practice of infant baptism and those who do not. Schlink's treatise on baptism is a helpful resource for understanding the historic arguments about this practice from the perspective of one who ultimately upheld it. In his view, the validity of infant baptism rests ultimately on the triune God's "salvific action to create anew" through baptism, to transfer the baptized into the ownership of Jesus Christ, and to connect their life to his death and resurrection. In Schlink's view, the one receiving baptism is totally passive. Moreover, there is a fundamental unity between the baptismal event and the action of the Holy Spirit through the church, "the mother of believers." Schlink thus stressed that faith is not only a presupposition for the salvific reception of the sacrament, but it is also awakened in the sacrament through the effective working of the Holy Spirit. While Schlink's argument in favor of infant baptism was informed by many decades of ecumenical and dogmatic work, it also took shape in light of Karl Barth's rejection of infant baptism and in view of the impasse that had developed in twentieth-century German scholarship regarding the historical evidence for and against this practice in the early church. Only after drawing inferences from baptism itself and from the doctrine of the church did Schlink then turn to set forth his theological justification for infant baptism. The present analysis summarizes the key elements in his argument.