i) To my knowledge, Baptists think the administration of baptism should be contingent on faith. On a credible profession of faith.
That may be age-appropriate. They don't necessarily demand the same thing from a 10-year-old as a 20-year-old. I also suspect Reformed Baptist churches have a higher standard for what constitutes a credible profession of faith than easy-believist churches.
But the basic principle is that children before the age of reason shouldn't be baptized. And after a child reaches or passes the age of reason, baptism is conditional on his desire to be baptized, along with a credible profession of faith.
ii) With that in mind, there's a striking parallel between infancy and dotage. In old age, or sometimes sooner, some adults become feeble-minded. Their short-term memory goes, then their long-term memories goes. They lose their reasoning ability. They eventually lose consciousness.
It's as if they are regressing from adulthood to childhood to infancy. Reversing the stages of cognitive development. Indeed, it's called "second childhood."
Some Christians who become senile were baptized as older children, teenagers, or adults. Their baptism was contingent on a credible profession of faith.
But there's now a sense in which they lost their faith. Not because they renounced the faith, but because they lost the intellectual ability to have faith. In a sense, they will die unbelievers–but not apostates. Much like if they died in infancy.
Then you have Christians who were baptized as babies, in the hope and prayer that by growing up in the faith, they'd grow into the faith. Sometimes that happens, and sometimes not. But in their case they became what their baptism represented. They became believers.
But now that they are senile, they have reverted to the same cognitive condition they were in when they were baptized as infants. They've come full circle.
Whether a senile Christian was baptized before he came to faith, or came to faith after he was baptized, at this point he is like a child before the age of reason. Or even like a baby who sleeps most of the time.
Yet if senile Christians were ever in the covenant, they remain so, despite their dementia. And their membership in the covenant community doesn't lapse when they lose their mind and memory.
That's a special case, but hardly a rarity. Indeed, one of the cruel ironies of modern medical science is that we probably have a higher percentage of senile men and women than ever before. Due to medication and surgery, many people who would have died at a younger age live much longer. And the longer they live, the greater the risk of becoming senile.
Many baptized believers will enter a second childhood which parallels their condition when they were baptized as infants. A spiritual symmetry. They return to God as they came from God.
This is why I believe justifying (and sanctifying) faith can't merely be assent to the understood propositions of the gospel as Clarkians believe (similar to what Non-Lordship Dispensationalists believe, or Sandemanians). I suspect the human *spirit* can believe things which the human *brain* has forgotten or lost. It seems to me that saving faith is a supernatural activity enabled and sustained by the Holy Spirit and that this explains why some people who have intellectually assented to the truths of the Gospel can nevertheless still apostatize and fall away permanently; without having been originally justified and without God's promises of permanent justification having failed.
ReplyDeleteClarkians can't handle passages like Luke 8:13 which seems to teach it's possible to assent to the gospel and still apostatize. The view of faith I'm proposing seems to be consistent with the traditional Reformed distinctions of notitia, assensus and fiducia. Whereas the Clarkian view of faith amounts to notitia and assensus and regards fiducia as a meaningless and redundant distinction. The Clarkian definition would seem to make regeneration superfluous and can't explain the phenomena of nominal Christians, apostasy, or the conversion of men like Gerry Matatics, Scott Hahn or Robert Sungenis out of Evangelicalism and into Catholicism. Some Clarkians have actually tried to convince me that men like Matatics/Hahn/Sungenis never understood and/or assented to the propositions of the Evangelical gospel (which I take to be the true gospel). Really? I'm not commenting on their state of grace (or lack thereof), but I think they're smart enough and honest enough to have understood the Evangelical gospel and to have assented to it intellectually (with their brains). The Clarkian view of faith strains credibility [pun intended].
Babies who never made a profession of faith are the same as old people whose minds may forget their profession of faith?
ReplyDeleteThen I guess I might as well marry my baby to an older man because, after all, it's the same as if that baby grows old and forgets who her husband is.
Except...obviously it isn't. Not in the least.
i) Thanks for the unintelligent comment. You might begin your remedial education by learning the difference between analogy and identity.
Deleteii) I'd add that if you had anything resembling reading comprehension, you might have picked up on the fact that I wasn't referring to "babies who never made a profession of faith," but to people who were baptized *before* they made profession of faith. People baptized as infants who later made profession of faith, then became senile in old age.
"Yet if senile Christians were ever in the covenant, they remain so, despite their dementia. And their membership in the covenant community doesn't lapse when they lose their mind and memory. "
ReplyDeleteThe key point in the debate is implicit here, and I think unravels Steve's larger point.
Reformed Baptist (of which I am one), like Reformed paedobaptists, but unlike easy-believists, emphasise membership of the covenant. This, in turn, raises the questions of a) who is a member of the covenant and b) (by implication) what is sufficient grounds for someone to evidence their covenant membership so that the church can baptise them.
On an Reformed Baptist understanding, Christ's mediation in the New Covenant is perfectly efficacious on behalf of all the members of that covenant. His intercession for them is infallible. By necessary consequence, only elect persons can be members of the New Covenant - and, because of the perseverance of the saints, nobody who is truly a New Covenant member, can ever cease to be. On this understanding, the phenomena of old age is irrelevant. A person who evidences their New Covenant membership whilst they have the capacity to do so, can be baptised - and senility/dementia/etc., whilst it may affect their ability to express their faith, would not be an evidence of a lack of faith. In the case of an infant, though, the infant has *never* *yet* been able to evidence that they are a member of the New Covenant, and so there is no grounds to baptise them *yet*. The cases are thus not true parallels, and the point unravels.
Steve says in reply to someone else's comment that 'I wasn't referring to "babies who never made a profession of faith," but to people who were baptized *before* they made profession of faith. People baptized as infants who later made profession of faith, then became senile in old age.' That distinction is valid; but, it does not really help. A baptised infant might be regenerate or unregenerate. They might, at the time of their baptism, have been in a spiritual condition to express their faith but lacked intellectual capacity - or, they might have been in a spiritual condition where had they had the capacity, they would have expressed their hatred of God and rejection of his covenant, because they were not yet born again. A believer who has turned senile is not an analogy to the infant of Christian parents. Furthermore, there's nothing about the infant in this analogy that relates them to the traditional Reformed understanding of paedobaptism. All the points that Steve makes could equally well be made about a pagan infant who has no right to baptism, under the paedobaptist view, but who is later converted and becomes senile.
Ultimately, there are both 'gains' and 'losses' on both sides. It is not a question simply of "to baptise or not to baptise". Paedobaptists "gain" the baptism of their infants under the New Covenant, but lose the perfection of the New Covenant, and cannot preach that Christ's mediation for his covenanted people is perfect; covenanted people may still be lost. Baptists "lose" the baptism of their infants (for the temporary intervening time period until they evidence that they are regenerate, if they are), but are able to uphold the proclamation of Christ's infallible mediation under the New Covenant.
"A person who evidences their New Covenant membership whilst they have the capacity to do so, can be baptised - and senility/dementia/etc., whilst it may affect their ability to express their faith, would not be an evidence of a lack of faith."
DeleteActually, your own comparison is disanalogous. If they lose their mind, they lose their faith. That evidences a lack of faith. Loss of faith is lack of faith.
"In the case of an infant, though, the infant has *never* *yet* been able to evidence that they are a member of the New Covenant, and so there is no grounds to baptise them *yet*."
My post takes the prospective development into account.
"The cases are thus not true parallels, and the point unravels."
It's a chiastic parallel, where part 2 reverses part 1, like a palistrophe, viz. A-B-C,C′-B′-A′
The baby begins in a faithless state, then becomes a believer.
The adult begins in a state of faith, then becomes an unbeliever (due to senility).
"A believer who has turned senile is not an analogy to the infant of Christian parents. Furthermore, there's nothing about the infant in this analogy that relates them to the traditional Reformed understanding of paedobaptism. All the points that Steve makes could equally well be made about a pagan infant who has no right to baptism, under the paedobaptist view, but who is later converted and becomes senile."
DeleteThat falls outside the scope of my argument, but if you wish to press the point, what about a foundling? If a newborn is deposited on the doorstep of a paedobaptist, he can have the abandoned baby baptized, consistent with paedobaptist theology.
"Actually, your own comparison is disanalogous. If they lose their mind, they lose their faith. That evidences a lack of faith. Loss of faith is lack of faith."
DeleteWhy? I think you need to argue that this is a consequence or entailment of Reformed Baptist theology - you seem to assume so, but I cannot see why (and have never read any Reformed Baptist saying something that entails this). As I said in my reply, Reformed Baptists emphasise *covenant membership* as the primary category. Faith is the outward evidence of covenant membership, and New Covenant membership is irrevocable. You are emphasising the active exercise of faith as the primary issue - that is not how Reformed Baptists approach the issue, when approaching it systematically. A believer who goes senile is not actively evidencing their membership, but neither have they actively denied it - they are simply incapacitated. But, they are incapacitated *after* having evidenced it, and that is a significant difference from someone who has *not yet* evidenced it, and *may never* evidence it (because it may not, in fact, actually exist).
The logic of your position is that Baptists ought also to not consider as believers those who go into a coma, or who simply fall asleep - because they are not actively expressing their faith through their minds. I think you need to explain why you believe that the Baptist view entails a requirement to be actively expressing one's faith through one's mind, before someone can be viewed as a current member of the New Covenant.
"The adult begins in a state of faith, then becomes an unbeliever (due to senility)."
I think the "becomes an unbeliever" is much too strong. I see no reason to go beyond "could not, in the absence of any other knowledge, be distinguished from an unbeliever". But, in the case of a believer who goes senile, there is other knowledge. We already (however it may be) know that they were a believer before they became incapacitated.
"Why? I think you need to argue that this is a consequence or entailment of Reformed Baptist theology - you seem to assume so, but I cannot see why (and have never read any Reformed Baptist saying something that entails this)."
DeleteNo I don't. It's a consequence of psychology, not theology. They lose the capacity to have faith.
"You are emphasising the active exercise of faith as the primary issue."
No I'm not. Rather, I'm emphasizing the existence (or nonexistence) of faith. Not just the inability to express their faith, but the inability to have faith. They lost that. They no longer remember what they used to believe. And they are now too feeble-minded to grasp or give assent to doctrinal propositions.
"A believer who goes senile is not actively evidencing their membership, but neither have they actively denied it."
I already drew that distinction in my post. For you to repeat a distinction I myself registered in the original post does nothing to contradict my argument.
"they are simply incapacitated."
"Incapacitated" in the sense that they now lack the capacity to even have faith.
"But, they are incapacitated *after* having evidenced it, and that is a significant difference from someone who has *not yet* evidenced it, and *may never* evidence it (because it may not, in fact, actually exist)."
i) Once again, you're drawing distinctions which I explicitly drew in my post. Therefore, those distinctions are hardly inconsistent with my argument.
ii) I'd add that "evidence" of covenant membership is merely probative rather than constitutive.
"The logic of your position is that Baptists ought also to not consider as believers those who go into a coma, or who simply fall asleep - because they are not actively expressing their faith through their minds."
No, that's you recasting my position into something contrary to my actual position.
"I think the 'becomes an unbeliever' is much too strong."
Why? If they cease to believe, they cease to be believers. When they lost their mind, they lost their faith. That mental state is gone.
I see no reason to go beyond 'could not…'"
Just like babies!
"But, in the case of a believer who goes senile, there is other knowledge. We already (however it may be) know that they were a believer before they became incapacitated."
You have an odd habit of introducing distinctions and qualifications which I already included in my original post. So that hardly counts as evidence against my argument, when my argument makes allowance for those very distinctions.
You're still fixating upon the exercise of faith as if it were the primary issue within Reformed Baptist theology, which it isn't - as I've said twice. Covenant membership is the issue.
DeleteI also would like you to explain exactly why, on your (in my view, mis-)reading of Baptist theology, why your argument cannot be extended beyond presumed permanent incapacity through *senility* to incapacity through any other means, and why your reasoning selects for a difference between presumed permanent incapacity, and potentially temporarily incapacity (e.g. through being in a coma, or asleep).
As an overall comment, I'd say that you seem to have fixated upon the active, present-time exercise of faith as the fundamental in Baptistic belief and practice, but on my reading of Baptistic theology and experience of Reformed Baptistic practice, this is totally inaccurate as a representation of real-world Reformed Baptists.
There's also nothing wrong with referring to distinctions that you also mention. The point is that you don't recognise their implications.
i) You're a very poor listener. You keep recasting the issue in terms of your preferred categories, imputing that to me, then criticizing my "fixation," when that's entirely your projection, even though I repeatedly corrected you on my actual position. You suffer from a serious mental block.
Deleteii) Moreover, you play both sides of the fence. On the one hand you say covenant membership is the primary issue. On the other hand, you make baptism conditional on the exercise of faith–as necessary evidence for covenant membership.
iii) When you sleep, your mind and memory remain intact. Nothing lost. Nothing gone. Indeed, dreaming involves cognition and memory.
iv) As for comas, that depends on why the patient is comatose. That can be a temporary loss of conscious. But their mind and memory remain intact. Or that can be due to severe brain damage, which may result in loss of memory and cognitive function.
v) I don't know why you speak of "presumed permanent incapacity through *senility*" as if the permanency of their incapacitation is merely presumptive. Do you have medical evidence that senile dementia is a reversible condition?
Hi Steve,
DeleteAs for being a poor listener, I hear what you're saying just fine; I just find it a wholly innaccurate characterisation of Baptist belief. Remember that you began your post by explaining an intent to interact with Reformed Baptist views. It's right for you to use your preferred categories when explaining your view; but when you're interacting with another view, it's incumbent upon you to show that you understand categories and inter-category relationships in the thinking *of those that you are attempting to interact with*.
There's no inconsistency in making covenant membership primary, whilst insisting upon making baptism conditional upon the exercise of faith, as the evidence of covenant membership. I am talking about logical priorities. The logical priority for covenant membership in the theological scheme in no way entails that one can't then work from there to the necessity of faith for the administration of baptism. A Baptist wouldn't baptise someone after they've become senile, so there's no issue here.
You seem to be relying throughout upon a theory of faith in relation to the human psychology, which is obvious to you, but I think needs explaining to make what you're trying to say clear to others.
"Do you have medical evidence that senile dementia is a reversible condition?" - I have read or heard testimonies from people at the bed-sides of believers who had dementia, who had unexpected, and unexplained, moments of temporary lucidity, in which they expressed their love for Christ. Hence my skepticism that dementia must go into a special category that is different to temporary conditions, with such a fixed wall of separation between them that it can really help to illuminate something about baptism.
David
I myself have posted on terminal lucidity. As the soul decouples from the dying brain and body, cognitive function resumes. But so long as the soul is coupled to a deteriorating brain, there's loss of cognitive function.
DeleteMore later.
Theological analysis isn't the same thing as theological exposition. Analysis isn't confined to what the adherent under review affirms. Rather, it considers implications or inconsistencies which he might deny.
Deletei) Suppose, for the sake of argument, that loss of faith due to senility is merely presumptive. How does that help your objection? After all, in credobaptism, the warrant for baptism is the candidate's presumptive regeneration, probatively attested by a credible profession of faith.
DeleteTherefore, you've actually bolstered my argument from analogy. In principle, I could stake out the weaker claim that the senile Christian is presumptively an unbeliever. That would parallel the presumptive regeneration of the baptismal candidate.
ii) You also appear to be confused about the thrust of my post. You seem to think my post intends to give a sufficient reason for infant baptism. But I didn't indicate that was the force of the comparison.
It's not an argument for infant baptism. Rather, it undercuts an argument against infant baptism, by complicating the objection to infant baptism.
If a senile Christian's loss of faith, through not fault of their own, doesn't invalidate their baptism, why does lack of faith invalidate infant baptism? In both cases, faith is now absent, even though faith was said to be the ground or warrant for baptism. If their baptismal status is unwarranted due to lack of faith in one case, why not the other?
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ReplyDeleteNot having delved too deeply in the paedo vs. credo debate I wonder if a possibility that has occurred to me in times past has been explored by scholars. Namely, whether the early Church (possibly even during the lives of the Apostles) could have practiced multiple baptisms so that a person was baptized both as an infant and later as a professing disciple (say around the age for Jewish bar mitzvah and as the Christian counterpart).
ReplyDeleteSome may dismiss the possibility on the basis of Eph. 4:5 which refers to "ONE baptism." However, Heb. 6:2 refers to "the doctrine of baptismS (plural)." We know as a matter of fact that there were baptismal practices that haven't been fully documented in church tradition or fully described in Scripture. For example, baptism of people "for the dead" (1 Cor. 15:29), whatever that meant.
We also know that baptism wasn't strictly a novel practice with John the Baptist. Prior to John the Jews had various ritual cleansings/baptisms. If there were multiple baptisms in Judaism immediately prior to John and Jesus coming on the historical scene, why not also in the new Messianic sect? One of the Jewish baptisms was for proselytes in order to identify themselves with the Jewish people and their God. This is one of the reasons why I'm a credobaptist. However, some of the arguments for paedobaptism also make good sense to me. The Household argument and the psychological fact that Christian parents would naturally want to initiate their children into the Christian faith and Covenant as soon as possible are two of the most power arguments in my mind. That's what makes me wonder if it was possible the Apostolic church may have baptized persons multiple times. I can imagine many of the apostles being repeatedly enquired by Christian parents as to what to do for their newborn infants. Especially Jewish parents who understood some kind of connection and correspondence between circumcision and baptism.
[ Though, it seems to me that it's likely early on that baptism excluded infants. Otherwise:
1. why would the disciples assume Jesus would refuse to bless children if they and their parents were already baptized [Mark 10:14; Matt. 19:14; Luke 18:16].
2. Paul doesn't contrast/compare baptized children whose parents both were believers with the children whose parents only one of which was a believer.
3. In all the discussion regarding covenants and the importance of obedience in the book of Galatians, why didn't Paul address infant baptism. Why, for example, didn't he tell the Judaizers that their fixation and insistence on circumcision was irrational and unnecessary since they're already baptizing the infants of believers and not only new converts. In other words, Paul didn't make a strict connection/correspondence between circumcision in the Mosaic covenant and baptism in the New Messianic Covenant. We only tease that connection out of Col. 2:11-12. Though, Paul may have made the connection more explicit in his oral teaching, but that it didn't make it into inspired Scripture. ]
Thoughts anyone?
Admittedly, Mark 10:14; Matt. 19:14; Luke 18:16 don't explicitly state the parents were baptized. But presumably they (or some of them) were since they were accepting of Jesus and His message enough to want their children to be blessed by Him. And we know that His message included a message of repentance and baptism (John 3:22-23, 26; 4:1-2).
Delete