[Infant baptism introduces a state of grace that rights reason by lifting the burden of material evil … I mean, Original Sin … from the baby.
This short-circuited the Manichean agenda.
Rather than asking reason to memorize secret knowledge in order to escape the burden of matterevil, Augustine asked reason to accept the historic configuration of Original Sinevil.
Once the latter was regarded as plausible, baptism could remove the evil, leaving the believer in a world infused with Original Sin, yet, at the same time, liberated from the necessity of escape.]