Dimensions of Baptism Biblical and Theological Studies

296 Dimensions of Baptism

be different at different stages of the journey, or at different phases of

Christian nurture. 'Grace' and 'faith' are not blank counters. They indicate

movements of relationship between God and human life—the self-giving

movement of God towards creation and the trustful movement of human

beings towards God. Grace and faith are aspects of participation in God, of

being drawn into the interweaving movements of relationship in the triune

life, which are like relations between a Father and Son, ever renewed and

opened to the future by a life-giving Spirit.^39 In the baptism or the blessing

of an infant, the nature of faith is the corporate faith of the community and

the vicarious faith of sponsors, full of hope for what this child can be. It is

not the trusting response of the child himself or herself. The nature of

grace is essentially prevenient, a surrounding of the child with the gracious

presence of God, in and outside the Church community, grace taking every

opportunity to draw this child deeper into the life of God and God's mis-

sion in the world as he or she grows up. Faith will then show different char-

acteristics at different stages of human development, sometimes defined as

'experienced', 'affiliative', 'searching' and 'owned' faith.^40 In the baptism

of a believer of responsible age or in some rite of commitment like con-

firmation, there will be the faith of the community and the 'owned faith'

of the individual. In turn this faith will be responding to grace which is not

only prevenient but transformative, empowering the believer to share in

God's own ministry of reconciliation. Since grace and faith are interwoven

in relationship, the nature of God's gracious approach to a person is bound

to differ according to the nature of human faith which is possible. For those

who practise infant baptism and some later rite of renewal and commit-

ment there are then not 'two-stages' of initiation but a continuum with at

least two focal points within it.

The statement of the 'Ely Report' that 'there can be no place for further

degrees of initiation' or 'no place for any degrees of being "in Christ" or

"in the Spirit"' therefore seems to reflect too static a view of the relation

between God and human persons. There is, of course, an interplay between

grace and faith throughout the whole of life as a 'baptismal process', a

daily journey of dying and rising with Christ. But I am suggesting that

39. For this dynamic view of Trinity, see David Cunningham, These Three are
    One: The Practice of Trinitarian Theology (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1998), pp. 58-74;
    Paul S. Fiddes, Participating in God: A Pastoral Doctrine of the Trinity (London:
    Darton, Longman & Todd, 2000), pp. 28-50.


40. So John H. Westerhoff and Gwen N. Kennedy, Learning through Liturgy (New
    York: Seabury Press, 1978), pp. 145-48.