There is, as most of us know, a perennial debate between paedobaptism and credobaptism. One reason the debate remains at a stalemate is that the reason people take different sides has less to do with the direct arguments, which are rather weak on either side, than with the indirect or supporting arguments. For your doctrine of the sacraments has less to do with sacramentology than with ecclesiology. The doctrine of the church, variously construed, is what undergirds various views on baptism. Let’s take three cases:
I. Roman Catholicism
The direct argument for infant baptism is baptismal regeneration. On this ground, the baptismal candidate need not satisfy any prior condition; he not be in a state of grace, for the rite of baptism is itself what confers the grace signified by the sacrament.
However, the direct argument, even if otherwise sound (which I deny), cannot stand on its own. For although the subject need not satisfy any prior condition to validate the sacrament, the officiate must meet a prior condition to validate the sacrament. Just consider how the Roman Church defines the true church. According to Vatican II,
"The Church is a sheepfold, the sole and necessary gateway to which is Christ (Jn 10:1-10)."
"[The Church is] societally structured with hierarchical organs."
"This Church, constituted and organized as a society in the present world, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him," Lumen Gentium.
So it is a particular doctrine of the church that underwrites Catholic baptism.
II. Presbyterian paedobaptism
Presbyterians give a couple of direct arguments for infant baptism: (i) household baptism and (ii) the parallel between baptism and infant circumcision.
However, even if these arguments were otherwise sound, they are, at most, practical arguments, implying the de facto observance of infant baptism. They do not, however, supply the de jure grounds.
For this, Presbyterians downshift to a couple of supporting arguments: (i) federal headship and (ii) the continuity of the covenants. According to federal theology, God deals with people, not merely as individuals, but as representative units under a representative head. And whatever the other dispensational discontinuities or administrative details, there is only one covenant of grace. Whoever is saved is saved the same way, whether in the OT church or the NT church. Indeed, the New Covenant is the culmination of federal headship and the capstone of OT promise.
III. Reformed credobaptism
Among Reformed Baptists, the direct argument lies in the simple fact that wherever baptism is explicitly illustrated or enjoined, there is a faith-condition.
To this the Presbyterians then counter that faith-condition is an incidental prerequisite owing to the fact that the NT church was a missionary church which naturally addressed its evangelistic message to adults. But once a Christian family was established, the OT default setting would click in.
Now, whatever the merits or demerits of this particular counterargument, the position of the Reformed Baptist runs deeper. Insofar as baptism is the rite of church membership, what qualifies a baptismal candidate really turns on the definition of the church, and terms of church membership. Consider the following statements from the London Baptist Confession:
"The catholic or universal church is invisible—consistings of the whole number of the elect who have been, who are being, or who yet shall be gathered into one under Christ who is the church's head.
All persons throughout the world who profess to believe the gospel and to render gospel obedience unto God by Christ are, and may be called, visible saints, provided that they do not render void their profession of belief by holding fundamental errors or by living unholy lives; and of such persons all local churches should be composed.
The members of these churches are saints by reason of the divine call, and in a visible manner they demonstrate and declare, both by their confession of Christ and their manner of life, that they obey Christ's call…yielding full assent to the requirements of the gospel.
All believers are under obligation to join themselves to local churches when and where they have opportunity to do so," LBCF 26:1-2,6,12.
In brief, the true members of the true church are the elect. They are believers, visible saints. True faith is a living faith.
IV. Weighing the options.
So how do these three options shake out?
1. None of the supporting arguments is altogether compelling. Although they are consistent with their respective sacramental positions, and probilify one view over against another, they do not entail that view by strict implication, for they operate at a rather more general level of abstraction.
2. I personally have no firm position on the baptism of infants. In a sense, you could accept the Baptist view on the significance of baptism, but accept a Presbyterian view on the baptismal candidate, for if baptism is a sign of grace rather than a means of grace, then its administration conveys no saving benefit, withholding its administration withholds no saving benefit, while its abuse conveys no matching malediction.
3. I regard the corroborative doctrines as more important than the doctrine they corroborate.
4. And I do have settled views on the corroborative doctrines.
5. Regarding Romanism, of this one could say a little or a lot. But I'll content myself with two or three comments:
i) It is pretty breathtaking to see Jn 10:1-10 cited to prove that the Church is the door to Christ, rather than Christ as the door to the Church. In a way this says it all. It perfectly encapsulates the difference between Roman and Reformed soteriology and ecclesiology. Needless to say, it represents an utter inversion and perversion of the Johannine text.
ii) There is a tension between sovereign grace and sacramental grace, for sovereign grace is particular and irresistible, whereas sacramental grace is indefinite and ineffectual.
iii) The most perilous part of sacramental realism is that it fosters a false assurance of salvation, for the subject puts his faith, not in Christ, but in the sacrament, or the Church which redeems the sacramental token.
6. Regarding the Presbyterian and Reformed Baptist arguments, I would say that both sets of supporting arguments are fundamentally true, but one can give full assent to the supporting arguments without giving full assent to their secondary application.
This is, on the one hand, what lends them their enduring appeal; on other hand, this is why they fail to convert many to the opposing position. They are compelling in their own right, but not quite as convincing when conscripted to adjudicate the paedo/credobaptist debate. For the supporting arguments are doctrines deployed in defense of another doctrine.
7. One doesn't have to be a Presbyterian partisan to regard their model of covenant theology as essentially sound, for the London Baptist Confession is only a modification of the Westminster Confession.
8. On the other side, were it not for the felt need to make room for infant baptism, there is nothing that a Presbyterian ought to find objectionable in the Baptist definition of the church. The invisible church is the company of the elect, and although the visible church is a mixed multitude, no principled Presbyterian would knowingly admit a reprobate or nominal believer into full fellowship.
Indeed, Presbyterians are famous, some one would say infamous, for their devotion to church discipline.
The Catholic and Baptist views represent the antipodes of ecclesiology. Although the Roman Church professes herself to be the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church, yet as a practical matter, sanctity takes a very distant third to unity and catholicity.
In this respect, a low-church Baptist has a higher ecclesiology than a high churchman, for the Reformed Baptist has a higher standard of church membership.
9. Precinding Catholicism as out of bounds, I would say that it matters less what you believe about baptism than what you believe about the supporting arguments.
Take whichever side you will on baptism as long as you come down squarely on both sides on the supporting arguments.
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