Presbyterians regularly field the question of whether infants should be baptized. What they are perhaps less accustomed to answering is a more basic question: whether infants can be saved and, if so, whether they can possess saving faith. This is not a matter of mere intellectual curiosity but of practical concern. Many Christian parents have suffered the loss of children in infancy. For them, the question holds deep, personal significance. 

It is tempting to appeal directly to human sentiment: “Surely infants can be saved; of course they can possess saving faith. Just look at them! They are so vulnerable and relatively innocent.” But this sentimental appeal runs the risk of diluting the sinfulness of sin and the perfection of God’s justice (cf. Ps. 51:5). There is nothing obvious or automatic about the salvation of sinners. No one deserves grace, not even infant children. For this reason, human sentiment proves a flimsy foundation upon which to rest our hopes. Perhaps it provides a clue to the way God has wired the world and designed our hearts, but it cannot be the standard of judgment. 

No, to the law and to the testimony—that is our cry. Back to the Bible. According to the Scriptures, not only can infants be saved and have saving faith, but God ordinarily saves the children of believers in their youth, even from their infancy. 

Doctrine Defended

The doctrine of infant salvation is supported by numerous biblical examples, including the psalmist (Ps. 22:9–10; Ps. 71:5–6), Jeremiah (Jer. 1:5), John the Baptist (Luke 1:15, 41–44), and Timothy (2 Tim. 3:15). Of these texts, it is worth considering Psalm 22:9–10 in more detail. 

In verse 10, we find David’s testimony of infant salvation: “From My mother’s womb You have been My God” (NKJV). Notice that David marks his personal relationship with the Lord not from the point of circumcision (cf. baptism), or even birth, but sometime in utero.¹ Likewise, in v. 9, we find his testimony of infant faith: “You made Me trust while on My mother’s breasts.” Of course, nursing infants cannot exercise conscious faith, but faith is a many-splendored thing. Petrus van Mastricht distinguished among seminal, dispositional, habitual, and actual faith (Theoretical-Practical Theology, 1.2.1 §VI). Although incapable of exercising actual faith, the infant David did possess seminal faith—not the conscious act of faith in conversion but the Spirit-wrought seed of faith in regeneration.

One might argue that David was an outlier, an exceptional case. But that does not follow from the canonical context. Located in the inspired songbook of Israel, David’s testimony was intended to be paradigmatic for the believer. Although David spoke of himself, he also spoke prophetically of Christ (see esp. vv. 16–18) and analogically of all those who sing the psalms (Eph. 5:19; Col. 3:16). Of course, there are exceptions—some children are converted later in life (e.g., the prodigal son in a far country), while others tragically are never converted but perish in their sins. As the saying goes, not all those in the covenant are of the covenant (Rom. 9:6). This was certainly the case among David’s own children. Solomon was beloved of the Lord, while Absalom hated his father. Yes, there are exceptions, but the exceptions prove the rule. Infant salvation through infant faith is God’s ordinary mode of operation, the way of the Lord with his people.

This doctrine is not only biblical but definitively (even distinctively) Reformed. For example, Calvin taught, “Infants are baptized into future repentance and faith, and even though these have not yet been formed in them, the seed of both lies hidden within them by the secret working of the Spirit” (Institutes, 4.16.20; emphasis added). Likewise, Mastricht spoke of “seminal faith, which belongs through regeneration even to infants, and which is otherwise called the spirit of faith, or the seed and root of faith” (Theoretical-Practical Theology, 1.2.1 §VI). Indeed, B. B. Warfield went so far as to say, “It is the confessional doctrine of the Reformed churches and of the Reformed churches alone, that all believers’ infants, dying in infancy, are saved” (“The Development of the Doctrine of Infant Salvation,” Works, vol. IX, 436; emphasis added). Hence, the doctrine of infant salvation is neither novel nor eccentric but historically Reformed according to the Word of God.

Uses Applied

In addition to being biblical, this doctrine is eminently practical. First, it protects us from the danger of presumption. In his sovereign grace, God may regenerate covenant children before baptism, during baptism, after baptism, or not at all (cf. WCF 28.5–6). Thus, we do not presume either regeneration or unregeneration but instead believe God’s promises concerning our children. In other words, we regard and treat them as Christians while calling them to faith and repentance.

Second, this doctrine motivates faithful covenant nurture. Although only God can convert our children, he ordinarily uses the godly efforts of parents in this endeavor, even from an early age. As Herman Hoeksema asked,

Why then cannot the Holy Spirit in connection with the living Word of God impress the little child with all the influence of a truly covenant home, the singing of psalms or hymns, the playing of sacred music, the simple prayer uttered by the parents at the cradle, the folding of the little hands of the infant in prayer at the table in the high-chair, and many other influences of the Christian home, to bring the faculty of faith into some sort of conscious activity? (Reformed Dogmatics, 653; qtd. in Engelsma, The Covenant of God, 81)

Third, this doctrine provides great comfort to Christian parents whose children either die in infancy or are severely disabled. According to the Westminster Confession, “Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated, and saved by Christ, through the Spirit, who worketh when, and where, and how he pleaseth: so also are all other elect persons who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word” (WCF 10.3). The Canons of Dort go so far as to say, “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” (Canons, 1.17). Concerning the children of unbelievers we have no such covenant promise but rather the hopeful testimony of God’s character, which is both just and merciful. On this topic, it is truly good to be a Calvinist. On the one hand, no one (not even infants) deserve the gift of God’s grace. On the other hand, no one (not even infants) are beyond the reach of God’s grace.