FIDDES Baptism and the Process of Christian Initiation 297
there is a specific range of interplay that belongs to the period of initiation,
extending over one section of the journey, a phase that we call 'the begin-
ning'. How then shall we demarcate the ending of this section, and say that
initiation has come to an end? It cannot be a matter of salvation having
been finished, since salvation must be a life-long (possibly an eternal)
process of 'being saved', being transformed into the image of God which
is visible in Christ. The 'baptismal process' of life is also a journey of
salvation. Questions such as 'is Baptism sufficient for salvation, or is some
other rite needed?' are altogether then on the wrong track. I suggest that
the section of the journey of salvation which is called 'initiation' is about
becoming a disciple, about responding to the call to be a disciple and tak-
ing up the responsibilities of a disciple. Faith must become an ethical
response before the beginning has come to an end. Thus far Karl Barth is
surely right when he insists that the beginning of Christian life involves
'the grateful Yes of man to God's grace... [which] must become at once
the Yes of a grateful work.. .to the foundation of the Christian life belongs
the ready doing of this work'.^41 Though Barth adds immediately that this
first step is 'empowered' by grace, he unfortunately divides the human
'Yes' from the divine 'Yes', baptism in water from baptism in Spirit, as
two different moments. Baptists will agree with Barth that the 'grateful
Yes' is most appropriately located in believer's baptism, but unlike Barth
many will want also want to locate God's Yes in this event; Barth makes it
purely a human act of obedience, responding to a prior baptism with the
Holy Spirit.^42
Those who practise believer's or disciple's baptism will find it disclos-
ing the particular kind of interplay of grace and faith that happens towardsthe end of the process; those practising infant baptism will have a focus of
the particular interplay that happens near the beginning. Baptism, in this
view, is always 'complete' for what it is: there is nothing defective about
the presence of the kind of grace and faith appropriate to the point in the
process where it happens. Barth's polemical reference to infant baptism as
'half-baptism' misses the point here. But in no case can baptism be com-
plete initiation. In the case of infant baptism the later moment of freely
accepted discipleship will belong to the foundation or beginning of Chris-
tian life; eucharist and confirmation (or some other rite of laying on hands)- Barth, Church Dogmatics, IV/4, p. 42.
- This is strangely at odds with his earlier insistence that all divine self-revelation
is mediated 'sacramentally' through secular objects: see Church Dogmatics, 11/1, pp.
50-62.