The Meaning of Baptism: Part 2
*This post may set a record for length here on the Fish Tank! This is due in part to combining posts from two authors together here (see the first post here), but also because the debate over the meaning of baptism is a significant one that deserves more than the simple, short stock answers often given. It may be best to work through our exchange below over several days, but we welcome your comments below!
JOSEPH
[UPDATE: Following the publication of this post, I realized that I may have not been as clear in my argument as I would have liked. I have sought to clarify my argument here.]
Our objective in this series is to determine what the Church’s understanding and practice of baptism should be. For me (and, I think, for Nick), this essentially means determining what the Church’s understanding and practice of baptism originally were. Our project, therefore, is a fundamentally historical one.
It should come as no surprise, then, that Nick and I disagree about the theology of baptism present in the New Testament. And, indeed, I will admit that there is (some) room for reasonable disagreement concerning the New Testament’s theology of baptism.
As far as I can tell, however, there is no room for disagreement regarding the early Church’s theology of baptism. I am no historian, and my word is far from final, but virtually everything I have ever read on the subject leads me to the following bold conclusion: Between the writing of the New Testament and the Reformation, all Orthodox Christians believed baptism to be for the forgiveness of sins, marking the point in time at which (under normal circumstances) a new believer passed over from death to life.
(Under normal circumstances because the early Christians may have allowed for certain exceptions for, say, martyrs.)
Thus, the Epistle of Barnabas (c. AD 70-130) says , “[W]e indeed descend into the water full of sins and defilement, but come up, bearing fruit in our heart, having the fear [of God] and trust in Jesus in our spirit.” Justin Martyr (AD 100-165) writes , “As many are are persuaded and believe that what we teach and say is true … are instructed to pray and to entreat God with fasting, for the remission of their sins that are past… Then they are brought by us where there is water, and are regenerated in the same manner in which we were ourselves regenerated.” And Irenæus asserts (c. AD 180), “And when we come to refute [the heretics], we shall show in its fitting-place, that this class of men have been instigated by Satan to a denial of that baptism which is regeneration to God, and thus to a renunciation of the whole faith.”
What are we to do with this, the voices of men who lived mere decades after the apostles? There are, in my mind, two main recourses: We can either accept or reject the testimony of these Church Fathers as a faithful witness to apostolic doctrine. If we accept it, our historical picture is simple: The apostles taught that baptism was for the forgiveness of sins, and their earliest followers continued in what they had been taught. If, on the other hand, we reject their testimony, we must provide some explanation for how such a great discrepancy emerged so immediately between apostolic and patristic theology of baptism.
Unfortunately, I have never seen such a plausible explanation offered. Nor do I see how one could be offered – there would be too many factors running against it. I briefly consider three below:
1. Baptism is not a doctrine, but a practice. As such, the question of what baptism was could never have been far out of sight for the early Church. It is conceivable( to me, at least) that Paul may not have had a systematic doctrine of the Trinity; baptism, however, was an elementary teaching about which he and the rest of the apostles surely had a set opinion. Therefore, if the earliest Christians were incorrect in their theology of baptism, they were incorrect with respect to a matter that was elementary (Hebrews 6.1-2), practical, and (by all accounts) central to Christian faith.
2. We see no indication of a gradual deviation from apostolic teaching regarding baptism, nor any evidence that there ever was a distinct “Regenerationist” sect (for example) known for its minority view on baptism. But, if we know anything about change in religious communities, we know that it tends not to be abrupt and universal. Thus, if a change in theology of baptism did occur between the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, it was an aberrational one.
3. The amount of time between the composition of the New Testament and the composition of the patristic writings cited here is minimal; in fact, the Epistle of Barnabas may have been written before certain parts of the New Testament. (To put things in perspective, the Church Fathers in question lived centuries before the Nicene Creed.) Again, if we know anything about change in religious communities, we know that it takes time; thus, if a change in theology of baptism did occur between the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, it was a remarkably rapid one.
Regarding baptism, then, it seems that the burden of proof lies squarely on the shoulders of the one who would go against the earliest patristic tradition and say that baptism is merely symbolic or that salvation is by faith alone. For my part, I rejoice in being surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses (Hebrews 12.1).
Two things interest me about Joseph’s opening salvo. First, that he opens with (early) church history rather than with the canonical Scriptures. Second, that he seems to admit that the NT evidence is potentially more open and conducive to a more nuanced interpretation of baptism than the subsequent extra-biblical writings of the apostolic fathers are. On the one hand, I am insistent that this is not the epistemological order I would proceed from. I am convinced that there is a qualitative, seminal difference between inspired holy Writ and all that is not (regardless of how early or late it may have appeared), and that Scripture permanently stands over and against subsequent Christian writings which by definition are reflecting imperfectly on the original faith that was handed down once for all to the apostles (Jude 3). On the other hand, I think Joseph provides those of us who hold a more typically Protestant view of baptism a welcome service in drawing our attention to the fact that church history did not actually begin in the 1500’s in Germany, contrary to much popular belief. This is always a salutary reminder for the sons and daughters of the Reformation, who are frequently guilty of C. S. Lewis’ dreaded chronological snobbery in their theological formulations.
Reserving my primary arguments from Scripture for next week, I offer the following points in response to Joseph’s contention that pre-Reformation attitudes towards baptism are a stumbling block to a symbolic understanding of water baptism:
First, if Joseph wins the day, I fear that we may all begin to do evangelism like this. And that would be bad.
Second, I freely confess my lack of expertise in the patristics (even the modest time I have spent reading them has not been focused on the issue of baptism), and therefore I am willing to basically concede the point to Joseph that the dominant view of the early church after the apostles died off was that of baptismal regeneration. However, I did work through On Baptism by Tertullian this past week, which is the earliest extant treatise in the early church (written between 200 and 206 AD) entirely devoted to the meaning and practice of baptism, and was surprised at what I found in several passages. While Tertullian clearly believes that baptism is more than symbolic and ultimately necessary for salvation—and I will admit that, if clearly enunciated, I find such a view attractive—he says several things that would seem to tell against baptismal regeneration. Consider the following:
“Now, whether they [i.e. the apostles] were baptized in any manner whatever, or whether they continued unbathed to the end— so that even that saying of the Lord touching the one bath does, under the person of Peter, merely regard us— still, to determine concerning the salvation of the apostles is audacious enough, because on them the prerogative even of first choice, and thereafter of undivided intimacy, might be able to confer the compendious grace of baptism, seeing they (I think) followed Him who was wont to promise salvation to every believer. Your faith, He would say, has saved you; and, Your sins shall be remitted you, on your believing, of course, albeit you be not yet baptized.” (Tertullian, On Baptism, Book 12)
“But they whose office it is, know that baptism is not rashly to be administered… And so, according to the circumstances and disposition, and even age, of each individual, the delay of baptism is preferable; principally, however, in the case of little children. For why is it necessary— if baptism itself is not so necessary — that the sponsors likewise should be thrust into danger? Who both themselves, by reason of mortality, may fail to fulfill their promises, and may be disappointed by the development of an evil disposition, in those for whom they stood?…If any understand the weighty import of baptism, they will fear its reception more than its delay: sound faith is secure of salvation.” (Tertullian, On Baptism, Book 18)
In the first citation, Tertullian raises the problem of the apostles’ apparent lack of baptism, and argues that the priority of faith in salvation settles the issue. This does not, of course, make water baptism optional or irrelevant—but it does put the onus where it should be, on faith (as the Gospels themselves, as Tertullian rightly recognizes, do; faith is the primary response that receives grace and salvation from Jesus). He goes on to imply that faith brings salvation, before one is baptized. In the second citation, Tertullian gives advice to those who administer baptism (as well as to sponsors of the baptized), and encourages delay and caution—rather than a rushed ceremony—in part because baptism is not necessary and in part because he recognizes that sound faith is secure of salvation. Again, does this mean that Tertullian is downplaying baptism or relegating it to the realm of adiaphora (“things indifferent”)? Of course not, and I have no doubt that if presented with a person who refused baptism Tertullian would gladly withhold the right hand of fellowship from such a one. Yet he clearly prioritizes faith over baptism, and ascribes salvation essentially to the former. (Interestingly, Tertullian is the only early church father I know of to explicitly renounce and argue against the practice of infant baptism. I do not think this stance is unrelated to his recognition of the priority of faith in salvation.)
One more:
“And since we are double-made, I mean of body and soul, and the one part is visible, the other invisible, so the cleansing also is twofold, by water and the spirit; the one received visibly in the body, the other concurring with it invisibly and apart from the body; the one typical, the other real and cleansing the depths.” (Gregory of Nazianzus, Orations 40.8)
Here Gregory seems to make the same kind of qualification as is found in I Peter 3:21—baptism saves, but not with respect to the act of going under the water itself. Rather, insofar as it is an expression of faith, salvation happens concurrently (assuming the act of coming to faith and the act of baptism are simultaneous) at baptism apart from the body. Indeed, water baptism itself is only typical (i.e. symbolic), while what truly cleanses our hearts is the work of the Spirit. And this is conceptually distinct from our holy bath for Gregory.
Third, I would encourage anyone who is tempted to romanticize the early church fathers to actually read them. I do not deny that many valuable insights and reflections are to be found in their writings. Such exposure would do wonders for many modern Christians ignorant of their rich heritage. Yet to open up their writings is to immediately take a huge step away from the world of the New Testament. It is stunning how consistently shoddy their thinking and their arguments come across to anyone familiar with not only the teaching but the actual arguments underneath the teaching of the NT writers. Let me mention two ways in which this seems to me to be true.
A.) The apostolic fathers often defend the right doctrine with the wrong logic, to put it mildly. One has only to read the Didache’s rationale for Jesus’ teaching on private fasting in the Sermon on the Mount to see this. Whereas Jesus recommends the practice to guard us against our own tendency to hypocrisy (we love to show off to others), the Didache suggests fasting on the fourth and last days of the week, simply because the Jews (the “hypocrites” here) fast on the second and fifth days! The teaching of Jesus is upheld, yet in a way that utterly misses the point of why the command was given in the NT (not to mention being idiotic in and of itself!). It would not be difficult to list a wild assortment of such exegetical foibles and inconsistencies in these writings. Indeed, they are quite comical at times. Such is a common characteristic of the apostolic fathers, defending plain biblical teaching yet on alien, even contradictory grounds to the NT authors themselves. Even in the passage from the Epistle of Barnabas that Joseph cited, I am amazed at its apparent attribution of faith/trust as the fruit of water baptism. This exactly reverses the order of the NT, where faith exists before one is baptized in water. All of the preceding leads me to say this: I do not conceive it to be nearly as difficult as Joseph to imagine that these ancient writers could have missed the delicate thrust of certain passages on baptism in the NT, especially when we consider how nuanced this doctrine (i.e. the relationship of faith and baptism to salvation) is to begin with in Scripture, and particularly given their distortion of a crucial element in the practice of baptism (see my final point below). They clearly did so with respect to many other issues.
B.) Since Joseph also points to the seeming universal consensus on baptism in the early church, I think it fair to point out that this, too, is not in and of itself a conclusive argument. I would contend (with many contemporary biblical scholars in my corner) that the early church fathers went alarmingly astray on a number of other issues almost immediately. Let me mention just a few: the Jewishness of the NT documents is consistently misunderstood (instead of appreciating the OT background and Hebrew orientation of many NT documents, they often turn to metaphysics or philosophy or allegorizing instead to expound their significance); bishops are seen to be a separate class of church leader from elders/pastors (clearly mistaken), which ultimately leads to the downplaying of each local church’s autonomy and the eventual rise of the Roman Catholic church’s hierarchical self-understanding; the book of Revelation is profoundly mishandled in virtually every early commentary on it; and others could be mentioned (for instance, in this book T. F. Torrance has argued that the early church fathers tended to gravitate away from Paul’s radical emphasis on grace). My long-winded excursus here has a single point: even if Joseph is correct on an early church consensus on baptismal regeneration, that simply doesn’t accomplish nearly as much as he hopes it will. The burden on both of us must be first and foremost the relevant NT passages on baptism.
Fourth, Joseph forgets that at the end of the day I am a good Protestant, which means that standing contra mundum runs deep in my veins. I get the impression that Joseph supposes such a stance will bother me or singe my conscience, once I realize the magnitude of what I am rejecting. But I cut my teeth on theologians like B. B. Warfield, who once famously noted that “the Reformation, inwardly considered, was just the ultimate triumph of Augustine’s doctrine of grace over Augustine’s doctrine of the church.” Clearly the Reformers understood the gravity of their rejection of baptismal regeneration, of papal authority and indulgences, and a host of other Catholic teachings. (Intriguingly, one of the few times Calvin ever explicitly plays off the authority of Scripture against the early church fathers is when discussing baptism; see the Institutes 4.15.7, 19). For these men the essence of the Reformation was the insight that the logic of doctrines like baptismal regeneration or priestly absolution stood in profound tension with the teaching of the NT on grace and faith. No one denies that the Reformation—whether right or wrong as a movement—was a radical break with what went before and a self-professed return to the teaching of the NT, over and against corruptions that had sprung in after the death of the apostles. Yet Joseph asks us to make the monumental committment of ruling out a priori even the possibility that something like the Reformation could ever even be needed or desirable in the course of history. I like this attitude better.
Fifth, I would ask Joseph to give an account of the rapid, widespread rise of infant baptism in the early church, given his repudiation of this practice and his enormous respect for early church teaching on other matters. Several things seem to me to be irrefutable about infant baptism: first, that it most likely began to be practiced in the 2nd century, but at the very latest by the early 3rd century. This is roughly about 100 years after the last NT documents are produced. Second, while infant baptism never became the universal teaching or practice of the church, it did nonetheless 1.) become the dominant practice quite quickly, and 2.) was never opposed or denounced as a heresy in the early church. A few influential figures (such as Tertullian) offer faint resistance here and there, but overwhelmingly it is accepted or at least tolerated. Why is this? I would argue that the rise of infant baptism is actually intimately related to the growing influence of baptismal regeneration, combined with the increasing trend of temporally separating conversion and baptism (see below). What is clear is that the motivation behind infant baptism in the first millennium of the church was not the supposed parallel with OT circumcision or the continuity of the people of God (as is often the case today with Presbyterians), but rather the simple desire to save infants who were mortally ill. Everyone admits this. It is all over the literature of the early church.
On the one hand, this scores a point for Joseph, in that the early church clearly saw baptism as salvific. If my view had won the day, such a practice could never have been conceived, let alone condoned. Yet on the other hand, it likewise shows that baptismal regeneration flourishes once the act of water baptism has been logically disconnected from faith. If faith is given the role it is in the NT—namely, as the receptive means of salvation and the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 2:8-9, Galatians 3:1-5, etc.)—then baptism is by definition not those things, since all acknowledge that baptism comes after faith and repentance. The very people Joseph admires for their commitment to baptismal regeneration are the same ones who were helpless to prevent (or complicit in inventing) the rise of infant baptism for salvation apart from faith. In my eyes, this was no historical accident. It makes sense. The one follows from the other.
Finally, I am becoming increasingly persuaded that much of the early church’s distortion of the relationship between faith, salvation and baptism is due to a frequently overlooked phenomenon of enormous significance in their baptismal practice. In the NT, faith and baptism are as closely connected as possible—not only conceptually, but temporally. As soon as someone responds to the gospel proclamation in faith in the NT, they are immediately baptized without any delay or hesitation. I will argue in future posts that this accounts for why baptism is spoken of the way it is in the NT—namely, that it is functioning as a shorthand for the entire conversion experience, of which it is the experiential capstone.
Yet it seems to be an almost universal trend in the early church to distance faith and personal conversion from the actual act of undergoing water baptism. “Catechumen” was the designation given to someone who had been persuaded of the truth of Christianity, but who had not yet been baptized into Christ. It is manifestly not a biblical category. It would be easy to document (and not controversial in the least) how the time frame postponing baptism after faith quickly went from weeks, to months, to three years (!) in the Apostolic Constitutions already in the 4th century. It does not take much imagination what this would do to the thinking of those who were committed (rightly so) to taking seriously the NT’s explicit linking of baptism and salvation. Instead of holding faith and baptism together, as the NT always does, faith was disconnected in the conversion experience from baptism, and the salvific overtones present in the NT began to be attached solely to the act of baptism that was now being withheld long after a person became a believer. I think this aberrant practice accounts for a great deal of the misguided logic of baptismal regeneration in the early church, simply because once faith and baptism are separated, it follows that one must choose to attach conversion/regeneration to one or the other—not to both in different ways, as I contend the NT does.
“Paul does not sharply distinguish between water baptism and Spirit baptism, for the two were closely associated during the NT era and unbaptized Christians were unheard of. The issue of baptismal regeneration arose in later church history when baptism was separated from faith…in the NT era it was unheard of to separate baptism from faith in Christ for such a long period. Baptism occurred either immediately after or very soon after people believed. The short interval between faith and baptism is evident from numerous examples in the book of Acts (Acts 2:41; 8:12-13; 8:38; 9:18; 10:48; 16:15, 33; 18:8; 19:5). It follows, then, that when Paul connects death to sin with baptism, death to sin takes place at conversion, for baptism as an initiatory event occurs at the threshold of one’s new life.” (Thomas Schreiner, “Baptism in the Epistles,” in Believer’s Baptism, pp. 92-93)
I’m enjoying this series – it’s a very interesting and difficult topic. Not having researched it myself, I can’t pretend to respond to your post in any depth or detail, but I do have a few thoughts to offer, linked most obviously to the question of infant baptism but also to the general problem of the New Testament vs. Church tradition.
It seems to me that on this issue, as on many, the early Church found itself facing new situations which were not decisively addressed in the Scriptures. For the first generation of Christians, conversion would necessarily be a matter of personal conviction and would be a fairly well-defined event in one’s life; most new Christians would probably have a moment to point to at which they saw the light and were moved to join the community of faith. And baptism would make sense as the ‘capstone’ of this experience, to use Nick’s term. But what happens once children start being born into Christian families? They’ll be raised with the Gospel from before they can even remember, and like many people raised in this situation today, they may never have a clear or well-defined ‘conversion experience’ – but we wouldn’t want to say that they are therefore not Christians. So what might baptism, or conversion, mean for them?
It seems to me that the New Testament, being a product of and addressed to ‘first-generation Christians,’ doesn’t have to answer this question. Perhaps, then, this is a case of the New Testament not giving us a clear answer because, for perfectly good reasons, it’s not asking the question we want to ask. My goal here is mainly to point out this fact, and to suggest that this may be a situation in which we have very good reason to look beyond Scripture and study the ways in which our fellow Christians have brought the truth of the Gospel to bear on the situations that arose in their lives. This, I think, is in general the value of the Church tradition, and the reason for giving it a certain authority in the Christian life – because if we take seriously the idea that millions of people on this earth over the millennia have been filled with the Holy Spirit and empowered to imitate Christ in their lives, we can’t lightly dismiss the answers they found to questions of Christian practice and living. (Particularly not when they generally agree, as they do on the question of infant baptism.) I’m reminded of a C.S. Lewis quote that I unfortunately can’t seem to find – something about the Trinity, in which he states that although the doctrine isn’t perfectly clear in Scripture he isn’t bothered about it because he cannot believe that the Holy Spirit would have allowed such a pernicious error to arise and persist in the Church. A different situation, of course, but an interesting thought to keep in mind whenever the question of the authority of Church tradition arises. I don’t dispute that the Church can be wrong, horribly and tragically wrong, but I also think that the New Testament simply doesn’t address every issue we need to think about in building a Christian life and community, and our own minds and consciences perhaps can’t fill in the gaps without some help from those who have gone before.
Let me close by mentioning two things I hope you’ll address. First, from what little I know, the closest the New Testament comes to addressing the question of infant baptism is a verse which states that a certain man was baptized along with his whole household. Of course, we don’t know whether the household included children, or whether each individual member of it had independently, and through his/her own conviction of faith, decided to be baptized. But I have heard this verse quoted in support of infant baptism, and I suppose if nothing else it does suggest an interesting concept of faith as a family affair, something a household can do together.
Secondly, and relatedly, I wonder if it might be useful to consider the ‘second-generation Christian’ problem as a more general question of parenting. Before dismissing infant baptism as baptism that rides on the coattails of someone else’s faith, it seems worthwhile to note that no parent can raise a ‘neutral’ child; every child grows up absorbing values, opinions, and beliefs without even noticing, just as they pick up the language their family speaks. Might infant baptism reflect a quite pragmatic realization that some children are, from the very beginning of their lives, going to be in the community of faith, whether they like it or not? Might infant baptism reflect the impossibility, or at least impracticability, of drawing a clear line between such a child’s biological life and his new life in Christ? This reminds me of Israel’s covenant, in which people were free to opt out, but being born into a certain family meant they were automatically ‘opted in,’ at least to begin with. Perhaps the situation of a child born into a Christian family is comparable.
But this second question, of course, takes you away from your historical and Scriptural concerns and so probably isn’t as relevant to your purposes as the first was. In any case, even though you both agree in your disapproval of infant baptism, I hope that you’ll still address the verse (or verses, if there are more) that relate to this doctrine in the Scriptures when you focus on the New Testament in your next post. Thank you very much for a thought-provoking post, and I look forward to hearing more.
Nick:
1. In opening with early Church history, I do not mean to suggest that the early Christian writings are on a par with the NT. I do, however, mean to suggest that the NT must be put in its historical context to be properly understood – and, in this post, I have sought to put it there (in part).
2. I believe the NT evidence is “more open and conducive to a more nuanced interpretation of baptism” only because the opinion of the Church Fathers is so undeniably obvious.
3. To be honest, I am flabbergasted that you would imply that Tertullian did not advocate baptismal regeneration. Consider how he opens his treatise: “Happy is our sacrament of water, in that, by washing away the sins of our early blindness, we are set free and admitted into eternal life!” Or this: “But we, little fishes, after the example of our ΙΧΘΥΣ Jesus Christ, are born in water.” Or this: “Is it not wonderful, too, that death should be washed away by bathing?” His opinion could not be clearer.
Why, then, does he write what he wrote in Chapter XII? He is discussing the apostles – and the apostles, of course, are hardly a typical case. (Similarly, Tertullian discusses the possibility of baptism in blood in Chapter XVI.) Again, my thesis was that the Church Fathers believed that new believers were forgiven of their sins in baptism under normal circumstances – and nothing in Tertullian’s De baptismo militates against that thesis.
4. As far as the excerpt from Gregory Nazianzus, his position seems to be that our soul is cleansed concurrently with the washing of our flesh in the waters of baptism. I don’t believe I have anything to say against that position.
5. I agree that the Church Fathers are sometimes comically mistaken. But mentioning such a mistake from the Didache hardly constitutes an argument against the exegetical credentials of all the Church Fathers. (As far as the Epistle of Barnabas: The writer goes on to say, “Blessed are they who, placing their trust in the cross, have gone down into the water.” He has only inverted the ordering of faith and baptism on a very simplistic reading.)
6. I never said that the universal consensus on baptism in the early Church was, in and of itself, a conclusive argument. I said that it shifted the burden of proof to the shoulders of those who would disagree with them (especially since any plain reading of the relevant NT passages only corroborates their view). Again, with regards to complicated matters such as the Book of Revelation and ecclesiology, I agree that the Fathers were quite flawed – but elementary teaching that baptism was for the forgiveness of sins is in an entirely different class.
7. I never said or implied that Reformation should be ruled out a priori.
8. Regarding infant baptism, here is what Everett Ferguson has to say (in brief) about infant baptism: http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2009/04/07/ferguson-on-infant-baptism-and-mode-of/. I no more endorse infant baptism than I do your position, and I can point to established Christian communities (such as my own) that have advocated baptismal regeneration without lapsing into infant baptism.
Pointing to the deterioration of the Church’s doctrine after the second century to disparage the views of the earliest Christians is essentially an ad hominem attack. In the same way, the simple fact that the Reformation has led to an incredibly fractured Christendom does not count (in and of itself) against Luther’s ecclesiology.
9. I am no advocate of separating faith from baptism. The delay between belief and baptism for a fourth-century catechumen says nothing about the writings of Christians from mere decades after the time of the apostles.
10. To continue that point: The extent to which distortions can creep in is proportional to the amount of time that has elapsed (just as the amount which a message in the game “Telephone” is distorted depends on the number of times it has been whispered). I am talking about Christians mere decades after Paul who were unanimously convinced that baptism was for the forgiveness of sins – convinced of a position for which there is an overabundance of prima facie biblical evidence. And it will take a lot of weight on your side to outweigh all that.
MEGAN: Thanks for your comments, and while Joseph and I probably won’t get around to discussing infant baptism much (simply because neither of us is persuaded of it), it is a worthwhile issue to dialogue on. For a classic defense of it, I’d point you to the two chapters on baptism in Book 4 of his “Institutes of the Christian Religion”; for a good argument against it, the book “Believer’s Baptism” edited by Schreiner and Wright! I will say that I don’t think the household passages in Acts are a solid argument either way, for several reasons–for one, several of the passages make clear that the gospel/word was communicated to the whole household first before baptism, and also because baptists such as myself believe that children at a very young age can legitimately profess faith and be baptized. Given that no infants are specifically mentioned in these passages, I think ultimately it is an argument from silence. Your other thoughts and concerns are no doubt better answered in some of these resources I mentioned than by me! Thanks for following the series, hope it will continue to be helpful.
JOSEPH: I’ll just piggy back on a few of your responses for now, since hopefully we will continue to engage on some of these larger issues in future posts. First, I did not argue that Tertullian did NOT hold to the necessity of baptism for salvation, nor did I mean to imply it. In fact, I prefaced these quotes by conceding your point that the church fathers seem agreed on this! I simply offered these passages as interesting potential exceptions to a strict view of baptismal regeneration, even if all it means at the end of the day is he was a bit inconsistent. As I mentioned, I read the entire treatise this week and so of course am aware of all the statements he makes–this is why these other passages stood out to me so much. The second citation in particular is striking to me in seemingly stating that baptism is not necessary and that sound faith is secure/sufficient for salvation. Overall, it still seems to me that Tertullian puts much more emphasis on the priority of faith than some other patristics that I’ve read, even though from within the context of a salvific understanding of baptism.
Second, as for baptism being in a different category altogether than some of the other issues I mentioned in which they went wrong (and again, I only offered the Didache as one example of dozens; our space is limited here:)…well, it depends on your perspective! Obviously for you baptism is a first order issue in every sense, but for me the timing/mode of baptism is quite secondary (though still important) compared to the MEANING of baptism–and this I think your view and my view, and even many who (wrongly) hold to infant baptism can get gloriously right in line with the gospel. So for me, the church fathers’ mistake in embracing baptismal regeneration is ultimately not a central gospel issue, as it must be for you. For if baptism is ultimatley symbolic and has efficacy only insofar as it is the vehicle for expressing our faith, then nothing essential is threatened–as it would be if, say, the early church fathers all denied human sinfulness or the efficacy of Jesus’ death and resurrection or of faith in him.
Finally, I stand by my line of thought about infant baptism and about the crucial mistake of separating the timing between conversion and baptism. In what I said, I was not arguing that the early church fathers are all culpable directly for it, nor that each would have approved it. But I think it an obvious fact that if a symbolic view of baptism was held, infant baptism would have never arisen. I think that many of the widespread negative effects following the Reformation argue against some of its teachings. Of course, this is not conclusive in and of itself, but I do think it needs to be taken into consideration. And as for the 4th century probation period of 3 years before baptism, that was the culmination of a long trajectory that seems to have started very early on in the post-apostolic period. I’m still persuaded that for the majority of Christian writers in the first 5 centuries, this sketchy practice basically sealed the deal for baptismal regeneration for those who wanted to take biblical statements seriously. A more nuanced view that sees faith as being the instrumental means of receiving salvation and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit with baptism signifying and sealing this immediately after the profession of faith became impossible. Is it possible that some of the earliest Christian writers embraced baptismal regeneration apart from this practice? Of course it is. But I don’t think that can be said for the majority of those who followed, nor do I think it improbable that the practice of disconnecting faith and baptism temporally rose up almost immediately after the NT period as Christian communities entered their 2nd and 3rd generations and conversions were not just “cold converts” with no previous exposure to the gospel anymore. Of course, at the end of the day that’s a matter of speculation…
As for the weight being on me, I think that once again this is a matter of perspective:) I think the weight is entirely on the NT writings, and to say it again: on any reading, the NT teaching on the interrelationship between faith and baptism and salvation is extremely nuanced and connected to many other factors. If the first couple of people in “Telephone” hear even a word or two a bit wrongly, this can have disastrous consequences for the rest who follow. I don’t think “proportion” is at all how that game actually tends to work out if the first few mishear something:) “Earlier” errors in that game are no rarer than later errors or slowly developing errors–especially when what is passed on is spoken “softly” (i.e. with much nuance, as the NT teaching on faith/baptism/salvation possesses), and the first listeners only hear parts of what was whispered but misheard or did not hear other parts that are necessary to complete the whole picture. It just doesn’t seem that remarkable at all that such could be the case…
Nick:
It is not simply a “matter of perspective” whether or not baptism is in a separate category – at least, not according to the author of Hebrews. And since (as you yourself admit) what matters most about baptism is its meaning, your position (as far as I can tell) must be that the entire Church, not even a century after Paul, completely abandoned the the truth about baptism and about faith.
For my part, I am not sure that saying that “the weight is entirely on the NT writings” amounts to anything more than a rhetorical flourish. We both agree that our objective is to ascertain the true meaning of baptism in the NT. The question is how to ascertain that meaning – and with baptism (as with anything else), the Church (as our Catholic friends are wont to remind us) is a “pillar and foundation of the Truth” (1 Timothy 3.15). And the Church, though far from perfect, agreed with me concerning the salvific nature of baptism unanimously for 1500 years.
Anyway, I look forward to next week’s post with great anticipation!
Joseph, we are probably at loggerheads here, because I think you are simply wrong on your first reply–for it quite clearly IS the case that for me, your error (if I am right) is not a denial of the gospel, given that you hold to the necessity of faith and not baptismal salvation in an ex opere operato manner, whereas from your perspective (if you are right) those who reject baptismal regeneration are dangerously close to undermining the gospel, if not actually doing so. In this sense, it absolutely IS a matter of perspective–I do not look at the early church fathers as heretical or as abandoning the gospel in their various errors on baptism (or the many other issues they blundered in), but rather as clouding the clarity of the NT’s vibrant teaching on the role of faith in reconciling sinners with God and making it hard for later interpreters not to fall into various extremes in keeping the balance and nuance of the NT’s position. Baptism IS an elementary doctrine, yet not with respect to its regenerating sinners–but rather as the initiatory rite of the new people of God and as representing our death and resurrection in Jesus, which is brought about by faith in him. This is why I have no problem saying that the vast majority of professing Christians in history who have been baptized as infants are, indeed, our brothers and sisters in Christ, IF they possessed genuine faith in Christ. That you can probably not say the same demonstrates that it is indeed very much a matter of perspective.
As for the second, when you talk like that, you make me again think that you are denying a priori even the possibility of something like the Reformation being necessary or warranted:) Otherwise, you would stand primarily on the argument that the church fathers got the NT right, RATHER than pointing again and again to their consensus as you are wont to do. I am puzzled that you seem much more content to point to their consensus than to the legitimacy of their reading of the NT or open to the idea that they could be (gasp!) wrong–and not in a major blatant way, but in a very understandable way that they may not have fully captured the NT’s complex portrayal of the faith/baptism/salvation dynamic. Everyone on all sides admits it is a big deal that such drastic measures were needed (or that some claimed they were needed) at the Reformation, yet you seem to infer that drastic consequences (i.e. the church being largely mistaken on an issue for a long time) is so historically implausible that it rules out or at least beggars belief that the Scriptures could actually play the role of reforming and correcting God’s people on an issue like this. Indeed, it seems clear that the early church fathers themselves grounded their confidence in their interpretations in their perceived alignment with the teaching of the apostles–not in their consensus with one another on any issue. Why should we evaluate them with a standard different from the one they themselves consciously adopted?
Thus, I could not disagree with you any more profoundly when you wave off my appeal to the NT as a rhetorical flourish. The Scriptures cannot be broken; Tertullian and Augustine and Luther and Calvin and you are I are constantly breaking down in our thinking and reflecting on God’s Word. And I admit I am confused that you seem to think that the primary background or tool for interpreting the Scriptures is subsequent interpretations of the Scriptures in the church after the apostles had died off. No one will deny–I certainly will not–how helpful these are, and I have commended you before and will continue to commend you for not ignoring church history as so many do. But at the end of the day what matters is the meaning and the intentions of the NT authors themselves–not those of their later interpreters. The NT is not forever limited by the interpretations of those who followed. EVERYTHING hangs on the unique inspiration of the Scriptures, and all else flows from the doctrine deposited there once for all for the saints. “How” we understand the NT writings has, ultimately, very little to do with reading the church fathers–these are helpful, but never ever central. The OT Scriptures, the Jewish and Greco-Roman milieu of the early 1st century, and above all the historical-grammatical context of the NT documents themselves are the essential piece. And that is why I am turning there next time right away! Context is king, and the early church fathers are not even close to the heart of the NT’s context.
Scripture permanently stands over the church, and the church is the pillar of truth only insofar as she lives in accordance with and in submission to God’s holy Word. Perhaps it is on this that we chiefly disagree?
Nick:
1. If I or a proponent of infant baptism has misunderstood the meaning of baptism, we have also misunderstood the meaning of faith, which is (on both of our accounts) essential to the gospel. But I am willing to move past this point.
2. Your response to me here leads me to believe that I have not communicated my point clearly. With your permission, I’d like to post a clarification of my main point on Friday.