‘Only adults should be baptised into the Christian religion.’
This question appeared on the 2022 Christianity GCSE in ‘Christian Practices’. A very similar question appeared on the 2018 GCSE, and similar questions could appear on the A-Level exam (although, so far none have). This question is prompting you to write about when a person should be baptised. This is distinct from the question of how they should be baptised, e.g. by sprinkling water on them or immersing (‘dunking’) their whole body in water. You could also be asked questions about this issue, but you should not discuss it here. (And, in fact, both infant and adult baptisms can be performed in either way.) Here, we will stay tightly focussed on the question of age.
What is baptism anyway?
Let us begin with terms. ‘Baptism’ is simply washing a person with water in the context of a church service. Nearly all Christian denominations do this (Quakers are an exception; see Quaker Faith and Practice 2013: 27. 3); but when they baptise people differs. The Catholic Church normally baptises people a few weeks or months after they are born. However, the Baptist churches normally baptise people when they are older. Indeed, in the past many Baptist churches would only baptise adults, this seems to be this practice that the question has in mind. However, since the 1960s many baptist Churches (at least in the United States) have begun baptising older children too (e.g. 6–12 years old; Jones 2025). For this reason, the modern practice is better called ‘believers baptism’. You, however, should use the older term (‘adult baptism’) in your essay, because this is the one in the question. Regardless of whether people are baptised as adults or older children, there is still a sizable gap in time between when Catholics and Baptists allow people to get baptised. It is the reason for this gap, and whether it is correct, that you would need to discuss here.
The reason for these differences is that Catholics and Baptists disagree on whether baptism is a ‘sacrament’ or a ‘symbol’. It is this difference that we must understand first.
Baptism as a sacrament: the Catholic view
The Catholic Church argues that Jesus taught his disciples seven sacraments — practices by which God’s invisible action in the world is be made visible. Baptism is an example of this. God has promised that anytime a person is washed in water and the correct words are spoken (viz. ‘I baptise you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit’), that person’s sins are forgiven. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (a summary of Catholic teaching; hereafter ‘CCC’) explains, ‘Through Baptism we are freed from sin and reborn as sons of God; we become members of Christ, are incorporated into the Church and made sharers in her mission’ (2020: par. 1213). So a correctly performed Baptism guarantees that a person is forgiven of sin, and has a chance of going to Heaven.
Importantly, God does not need this sacrament to forgive sins; God can and does forgive sins without it (CCC 2020: par. 1257). But this is a way of making visible God’s forgiveness of sins (an act which would otherwise be invisible to us). Moreover, the sacrament works every time it is correctly performed. This means it is possible to baptise people at any age — God has promised to act through the sacrament, so its effectiveness does not depend on a person’s understanding of how it works. Thus, in the Catholic Church people are usually baptised a few weeks after being born. In the past, this was seen as especially important, because many people died when they were still infants. It was therefore seen as best to baptise them at the first opportunity, to give them the best possible chance of going to Heaven.
Baptism as a symbol: the Baptist view
The Baptist churches, however, deny that there are sacraments. While they also believe that God can forgive a person’s sins, they argue that this only happens when a person asks God for forgiveness. And so they will only baptise a person after they have asked for and received God’s forgiveness. The Southern Baptist Convention’s ‘Baptist Faith and Message’ (a statement of beliefs common to their member churches; hereafter ‘BFM’) describes baptism as ‘an act of obedience symbolising the believer’s faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Saviour, the believer’s death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus’ (2000: art. 7; emphasis mine). In other words, the baptism itself does not do anything. It is just a symbol — a way of telling the world that you have put your faith in God’s love, and God has forgiven you.
In most Baptist churches there is no official age limit on when a person can be baptised. But, to ask for forgiveness, a person needs to be old enough to understand the difference between right and wrong. They need to understand the consequences of sin. And they need to understand the role of Jesus in forgiving their sins. Only when a person is old enough to understand these things can they sincerely ask for forgiveness, and only after doing this can they be baptised. To understand these things it is not necessary to be a full adult — some older children understand them very well — but it is certainly not possible for an infant. So, a Baptist Church will only allow someone to be baptised when they are convinced that person is old enough to have sincerely asked for God’s forgiveness. This depends very much on the person, but it is uncommon to allow anyone younger than 6 years of age to be baptised, and in most cases they will be nearer to 12 years old (Jones 2025).
The biblical evidence
At GCSE level, it is not necessary to understand in any detail why the Catholic Church believes in sacraments and Baptist Churches do not. (At A-Level, you would need to be able to explain this, but we will save that discussion for another day.) More important for our purposes is how they use the Bible to support their different views. Baptism is mentioned many times in the New Testament: Jesus Himself was baptised, and there are many stories about his disciples baptising people. Both Catholics and Baptists agree that the disciples learned their practices directly from Jesus, and the way they baptised people is a good guide to the way Jesus wanted it to be done. However, they reach very different conclusions about what is actually being described in the Bible.
Baptists point out that none of the biblical stories about baptism explicitly mention infants being baptised. The Book of Acts (which describes how the disciples spread Jesus’s message after his death) contains nine references to people getting baptised (Calmaco 2020). Every person named in these accounts is an adult. Take, for example, this passage:
Philip went to the city of Samaria and preached about the Christ. When the people there heard Philip and saw the miracles he was doing, they all listened carefully to what he said. [...] when Philip told them the Good News about the kingdom of God and the power of Jesus Christ, men and women believed Philip and were baptised. (Acts 8. 5–12)
The passage is clear that ‘the people’ (presumably including children) heard Philip’s teaching, but only the ‘men and women’ were baptised. Baptists argue that this shows that the disciples (many of whom would have known Jesus personally, or been taught by those who did) did not baptise infants. Their practice presumably reflects Jesus’s teaching, and so present-day Christians should not baptise children either.
However, Catholics can use the Bible to support their claim too. They allow that no passages outright describe infants being baptised, but they argue that some passages strongly suggest that this happened, for example:
On the Sabbath day we went outside the city gate to the river where we thought we would find a special place for prayer. Some women had gathered there, so we sat down and talked with them. One of the listeners was a woman named Lydia from the city of Thyatira whose job was selling purple cloth. She worshiped God, and he opened her mind to pay attention to what Paul was saying. She and all the people in her house were baptised. (Acts 16. 13–15)
Catholics argue that ‘the people of her house’ almost certainly included children. And if ‘all’ of these people were baptised, this means that the children were baptised too. The Catechism recognises that there is no clear description of infant baptism before the second century, but points to this verse and argues ‘it is quite possible that, from the beginning of the apostolic preaching, when whole “households” received baptism, infants may also have been baptised’ (2020: par. 1252). So, they argue that they are actually the ones following the practice of Jesus’s disciples.
Choosing a side
This argument has been going on since at least the sixteenth century. There is nothing in the Bible that decides the matter; both sides remain convinced that the other has misunderstood the text. For your essay, however, I suggest taking the Catholic position, simply because you can tip the argument in their favour by drawing on your prior knowledge of God’s qualities. You would do it like this. Both Catholics and Baptists agree that ‘unless you are born from water and the Spirit, you cannot enter God’s kingdom’ (John 3. 5). In other words, if a person dies without getting baptised, they may not go to Heaven (CCC: par. 1257; BFM: art. 10).
However, the sad fact is that even today some people die before they are old enough to understand God, sin, and the need for forgiveness. If the Baptists are correct, this means that anyone who dies too young to sincerely ask for forgiveness may go to Hell. However, both Churches also agree that ‘God is love’ (I John 4. 8). So, what then is the more loving position: God only admits adults into Heaven? Or God gave us a sacrament which allows everyone a chance at Heaven? Most people today would argue that the Catholic position is more loving, and therefore more consistent with the Bible’s overall description of God.
Structuring your essay
Using the above information, we could then create this essay:
I argue that anyone can be baptised into the Christian religion at any age, because God wants as many people as possible to go to Heaven. Jesus tells us ‘unless you are born from water and the Spirit, you cannot enter God’s kingdom’ (John 3. 5). This means that if a person dies without getting baptised, they will not go to Heaven. Making someone wait until they are an adult to get baptised is not loving, because if they die before they have a chance they will not go to Heaven. And the Bible tells us that ‘God is love’ (I John 4. 8), so God would definitely want people to be able to get baptised at any age.
However, Baptist Christians argue that only adults should be baptised into the Christian religion, because this is the model that Jesus gave us. The Bible tells us that Jesus was ‘about thirty years old’ (Luke 3. 23) when he was baptised. We know that he was right to wait this long, because when he got baptised God appeared and said, ‘You are my Son, whom I love, and I am very pleased with you’ (Luke 3. 21–22). Since Jesus is God incarnate, and our model for how to live, we should do things exactly as he did. This means people should wait until they are adults to get baptised into the Christian religion.
But, I reply that Jesus’s situation was not like ours. Baptism does two things: it shows commitment to God, and it washes away original sin. But the Bible tells us that ‘Christ had no sin’ (II Corinthians 5. 21). So, the purpose of Jesus’s baptism was just to show his commitment to God. And it did not make sense for him to do this until he was ready to reveal himself to the world. We, however, need our sin washed away, and it is better to do this as soon as possible after a person is born. So, even though Jesus got baptised as an adult, it still makes more sense to let other people get baptised at any age.
However, Baptists Christians argue that we should only baptise adults, because this is the way that Jesus’s disciples did it. They point out that all the examples of baptism in the Bible are of adults, for example when Philip baptises ‘men and women’ in Samaria (Acts 8. 12). The disciples learned directly from Jesus, and knew how he wanted things done. If they only baptised adults, then this must be the way Jesus wanted it, and we should do the same.
But I reply that the first Christians actually did baptise people of all ages, and so we can do the same thing. For example, in the Bible we read about the disciples baptising a woman ‘and all the people in her house’ (Acts 16. 15). In another place they baptise a man ‘and all his people’ (Acts 16. 33). Both of these imply that children were baptised with the adults. So, we know that the disciples did baptise children, and so Jesus must have been fine with it. This means that there is no reason not to baptise people at any age.
There are three things to note here:
The structure of this essay is Point of View → Objection 1 → Reply 1 → Objection 2 → Reply 2. This is different (and arguably weaker) than the Quaestio disputata structure used in some other essays here, but it works well for this particular topic (and many students find it easier to use). If you wanted to reorganise this essay as a Quaestio disputata, you could simply reorganise it as Objection 1 → Objection 2 → Point of View → Reply 1 → Reply 2. (You would, obviously, need to adapt the language of the first sentence in each paragraph, but it would otherwise work fine.)
I did not explain the arguments presented in Objection 1 and Rely 1 in any great detail. This is partly to keep this post readably short, but also because they belong to a family of arguments (the ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ family) which we will be exploring in more depth in future posts.
Again, I have given the specific references to scripture in the model essay. And again, you would not be expected to do this in your own essay. Yes, you must give a source for each quotation, but this can always be ‘Jesus/God says . . .’ or ‘The Bible teaches . . .’
I hope the above makes sense. If you have any questions, or if you would like to request a question for next week, please contact us at contact@eductor.org. Alternatively, if you want to have a go at writing your own version of this essay, send it to us at marking@eductor.org and we will return it to you with feedback within 24 hours!
Until next time.
References
Baptist Faith and Message. 2000. Southern Baptist Convention <https://bfm.sbc.net/bfm2000/> [accessed 24 November 2025]
Calamaco, Ever. 2020. ‘Baptism Verses In The Book Of Acts’, One Way Gospel <https://www.onewaygospel.com/baptism-verses-in-acts/> [accessed 24 November 2025]
Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. 2020. Libreria Editrice Vaticana <https://www.vatican.va/content/catechism/en/part_two/section_two/chapter_one/article_1.index.html> [accessed 24 November 2025]
Jones, Charlie. 2025. ‘Commentary: History Reflects Shifts in What's Considered Appropriate Age for Baptism’, The Christian Index <https://christianindex.org/stories/commentary-a-historical-look-at-shifting-attitudes-regarding-appropriate-age-for-baptism,74752> [accessed 24 November 2025]
Quaker Faith and Practice, 5th ed. 2013. Quakers in Britain, <https://qfp.quaker.org.uk/chapter/27/> [accessed 24 November 2025]