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.

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?

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!

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…

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.

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.