Prior to the Reformation, faith was always associated with baptism. This obviously raised issues for infant baptism, since it is difficult to see how infants can exercise faith. To deal with this difficulty, Augustine taught the concept of fides aliena, an alien faith that belonged to others was applied on behalf of the infant. Usually, this was the parent’s faith, but sometimes the church’s. However, many theologians viewed this as an unsatisfactory answer. So, the Catholic church developed the idea of fides infusa baptisme, faith or power which was “infused” to the infant through baptism. It was into the world of fides aliena and fides infusa that Martin Luther was born. Although Luther broke away from the Roman Catholic church in many key areas (one such area being justification by faith alone),[1] he largely embraced Rome’s view of infant baptism. One major difference was that Luther saw no problem with…