Gavin Ortlund recently said that he'll be having a discussion with Trent Horn about baptism during the last week of this month. I don't know which particular baptismal issues they'll be discussing, but I want to address a topic related to baptism and justification that probably will be relevant.
I've recommended Gavin's material on baptism in the past, such as here and here. He makes a lot of good points. For example, he's mentioned that in his work as a pastor, he's encountered many people who seem to have been regenerated prior to their baptism. However, as my two posts just linked explain, there are some significant arguments that I haven't yet seen Gavin bring up in these discussions. I want to expand on one of those here. This is just one line of evidence among many others for justification apart from baptism. But it's one that's been neglected. I've discussed other extrabiblical evidence against baptismal justification, such as in Josephus and Clement of Rome, but what I want to do here is address some material in Tertullian. I've brought it up before, briefly, but I want to address it in more depth than I have in the past.
Tertullian wrote the earliest extant treatise on Christian baptism. It seems to have been composed near the end of the second century. You can find a few English translations of that treatise (and some non-English ones) here. I'll be focusing on Ernest Evans' English translation published in 1964, which is the most recent edition of the treatise I've read. Though Tertullian advocated baptismal justification, he refers to people in his day who disagreed with him, and his arguments are of such a nature as to offer evidence against his position in some ways. I want to address both of those aspects of his treatise.
In sections 12-14, Tertullian refers to people in his day who believed in justification apart from baptism as the normal means of justification, not just an exceptional means. In section 13, he quotes them saying, "Therefore those for whom faith is enough have no need of baptism: for Abraham also pleased God, with no sacrament of water, but only of faith." I want to make several points about this passage and the treatise as a whole. Part of what I'll be doing is responding to some actual and potential objections to my interpretation of the document:
- I think the translation of Tertullian's work that people have read more than any other is S. Thelwall's, which was produced in the nineteenth century and is found at ccel.org/fathers and newadvent.org/fathers. He has a note for section 13 of the treatise saying that the people Tertullian was responding to were "probably the Cainites". Everybody else I've seen commenting on the subject only says Tertullian might be addressing the Cainites, doesn't discuss who he thinks Tertullian is responding to, or suggests he was likely responding to some other group. Thelwall is the only source I recall coming across who's said it's likely that Tertullian was replying to the Cainites in the relevant section of his treatise. That, by itself, doesn't mean Thelwall is wrong, but it should caution us against accepting his assessment. Unfortunately, it seems highly likely that he's wrong, and it's a significant error, but his edition of Tertullian's treatise is probably the most influential one ever produced, by far, because of its widespread use on the internet.
- Though Tertullian opens his treatise by referring to a female leader among the Cainites to whom he's responding, the evidence suggests he's also addressing baptismal issues more broadly. In section 15, after addressing a large variety of baptismal issues, he comments, "I know not if another matter besides is being worked up into a controversy about baptism." He accuses the Cainite woman mentioned in section 1 of "making a particular point of demolishing baptism", but he argues against baptizing people when they're too young in section 18, for example. It seems unlikely that he was concerned about the appropriate age of recipients of baptism and other such issues among people who were doing away with baptism. That contrast between sections 1 and 18 makes the most sense if Tertullian is addressing multiple groups, not just one. Similarly, in section 12 he describes one group, then refers to what "others" believe, which means he's not always responding to the same people. So, we can't assume that the reference to a female leader among the Cainites in section 1 means that he's only responding to her or the Cainites more broadly throughout the treatise.
- He begins section 12 with a reference to "certain persons" and makes no reference back to the Cainites or the Cainite woman mentioned in section 1. Instead, he goes on to describe the views of the people he's responding to and others and goes on in the next section (13) to refer to "those thorough-going scoundrels, raisers of unnecessary questions". If these people were Cainites or a similarly disreputable group, Tertullian probably would have brought up that fact by naming the group, as he did when responding to the woman mentioned in section 1. It seems that Tertullian is addressing different opponents than the woman he mentions there or the Cainites more broadly. As noted above, he goes on in section 12 to refer to what "others" believe at one point, so he has to be responding to multiple groups to some extent.
- The beliefs of the individuals under consideration (in sections 12-14) aren't described by Tertullian as Cainite views, their beliefs don't come across as Cainite ones, and what they're arguing seems to contradict the views of the Cainites. Earlier, I quoted their comments in section 13 appealing to the example of how Abraham was justified. But the Cainites apparently held a negative view of individuals like Abraham. They would be unlikely to appeal to his example. That's why they're called Cainites. They held a positive view of men like Cain and Judas and a negative view of individuals Christianity has traditionally viewed positively (like Abraham). Irenaeus is the earliest and most credible source to describe the Cainites for us, and he did so close to the time when Tertullian wrote. (For a lengthier, but later and less reliable, treatment of the Cainites, see Epiphanius' comments on them in Frank Williams, trans., The Panarion Of Epiphanius Of Salamis, Book I [Sects 1-46] [Leiden, The Netherlands: SBL Press, 2009], 269-76.) Irenaeus tells us, "Others again declare that Cain derived his being from the Power above, and acknowledge that Esau, Korah, the Sodomites, and all such persons, are related to themselves. On this account, they add, they have been assailed by the Creator, yet no one of them has suffered injury….They also hold, like Carpocrates, that men cannot be saved until they have gone through all kinds of experience." (Against Heresies, 1:31:1-2) That doesn't sound like a group who would appeal to the example of Abraham being justified without baptism. The Cainites apparently would have distanced themselves from people like Abraham, would have thought somebody like him wasn't justified, and would have disapproved of his pleasing God rather than approving of it. So, it's not just that we have inadequate evidence that the people Tertullian is responding to are Cainites. It's that we have multiple lines of evidence that they aren't Cainites.
- If they were Cainites or heretics of some other relevant type, that would diminish their significance, but the fact would remain that they were a group who argued for justification apart from baptism. That would be relevant to the popular claim that nobody held that view prior to the Reformation. Even if the group who held the view in this context were Cainites or a similarly bad group (which the evidence doesn't suggest), the bad nature of the group would lessen their significance, but wouldn't eliminate it.
- Tertullian accuses them of citing 1 Corinthians 1:17 "as though this were an argument for abolishing baptism" (14). The "as though" qualifier raises the possibility that Tertullian is attributing something to them that they didn't believe. Maybe he thought their position would logically lead to such a conclusion, even though they didn't intend it or directly articulate it. Or maybe he's equating their non-justificatory view of baptism with "abolishing baptism". It doesn't seem that these people were arguing for "abolishing baptism" in the sense of opposing baptism in every context, though. They were, after all, appealing to 1 Corinthians and other sources that advocate practicing baptism. But let's assume, for the sake of argument, that these people Tertullian was responding to were advocating abolishing baptism in some significant sense. Maybe they were comparable to the Salvation Army, in the sense that they accepted the validity of baptism in some contexts (e.g., Paul's in 1 Corinthians), but didn't include it as part of their regular practice. The bigger issue here is whether we have to agree with every position held by these people Tertullian is responding to in order to cite them as providing precedent for a non-justificatory view of baptism.
We don't have to agree with them on everything (every one of their arguments, every one of their practices, etc.), much as advocates of justification through baptism can and often do cite Tertullian in support of their position while typically disagreeing with some of his views (e.g., his view that angels prepare the baptismal waters [4-6], so that "we are made clean by the action of the angel, and made ready for the Holy Spirit…the angel, the mediator of baptism, makes the ways straight for the Holy Spirit who is to come next" [6]; "Those who are at the point of entering upon baptism ought to pray, with frequent prayers, fastings, bendings of the knee, and all-night vigils, along with the confession of all their former sins" [20]). How many advocates of baptismal justification agree with Tertullian's rejection of infant baptism (18)? It seems that the large majority of proponents of justification through baptism disagree with Tertullian a lot more than the typical proponents of justification apart from baptism disagree with the individuals cited in sections 12-14 of the treatise. If advocates of baptismal justification can cite Tertullian in support of their view, why can't advocates of non-justificatory baptism cite the individuals mentioned in sections 12-14 in support of the non-justificatory view?
- It's often said that nobody before the Reformation denied that John 3:5 is referring to baptismal regeneration. But Tertullian refers to how the group he's responding to in section 12 rejected that interpretation. Read his citation of John 3:5 at the beginning of section 12 and what he goes on to say. And see here for further problems with the claim that nobody before the Reformation denied the baptismal regeneration view of John 3:5.
- Tertullian makes some concessions and uses some arguments that substantially undermine his position. In section 4, he writes that "there is no difference between those whom John [the Baptist] baptized in Jordan and those whom Peter baptized in the Tiber". Elsewhere, he encourages Christians to "make a copy of the baptism of John" (20). Yet, he says that John's baptism wasn't justificatory (10). Why, then, should we think that the baptisms performed by Peter and others were a means of justification? Ernest Evans, who was highly sympathetic to Tertullian's view, noticed his inconsistency and commented, regarding Tertullian's placing John's baptizing in the same category as Peter's, "This is one of Tertullian's thoughtless remarks, made for present rhetorical effect." (comment on line 16 of chapter 4 here)
Tertullian acknowledges that justification was received through faith alone, independent of baptism, prior to Jesus' resurrection (11-13). Supposedly, a "law of baptizing" went into effect after Jesus rose from the dead (13). But since people were justified prior to the time of the resurrection, and the resurrection is part of what justifies people (Romans 4:25), why think a requirement for baptism would only go into effect after the resurrection? If things like Jesus' atoning work and resurrection had a backward application to people living prior to the time when the atoning work and resurrection occurred, why would the alleged justificatory nature of baptism only go into effect after the resurrection happened? A more efficient way of explaining the evidence as a whole is that people have always been justified through faith alone, without baptism or any other means being added to faith or being required as the context for faith. Being justified through faith alone, apart from baptism, has been normative before, during, and since the time of Jesus' resurrection.
One of the problems with views like Tertullian's is that they create so much discontinuity. There's a particular way in which a view like Tertullian's does so that ought to be highlighted here, since it gets so much less attention than it should. While many people recognize that Tertullian's view widens the discontinuity between John's baptism and Christian baptism, since he considers John's baptism non-justificatory and Christian baptism justificatory, it should be noted that the discontinuity problem is more significant than that. Christian baptism of some type began prior to the resurrection (John 3:22-4:2). Notice that the passage in John 3-4 just cited distinguishes between John's baptism and that of Jesus. By having baptismal justification go into effect after the resurrection, Tertullian isn't just distinguishing post-resurrection Christian baptism from John's baptism, but is also distinguishing post-resurrection Christian baptism from pre-resurrection Christian baptism. If both types of baptism mentioned in John 3:22-4:2 were non-justificatory, as the evidence suggests and as Tertullian concedes, then the burden of proof is on the shoulders of those who want us to depart not only from the precedent of John's baptism, but also from the precedent of the baptism of Jesus mentioned in John 3-4.
Furthermore, Tertullian's appeal to John 3:5 as giving us what he calls the "rule" of baptismal justification doesn't make much sense if baptismal justification wouldn't go into effect until so long after John 3 was spoken.
And John's gospel emphasizes Jesus' statements about salvation during his earthly ministry (John 3:16, 5:24, 11:25-26, etc.), and John tells us that he wrote his gospel to lead people to salvation (John 20:31), using language similar to Jesus' language earlier in the gospel. If the means of being justified had changed so much after the resurrection, then John's emphasis on Jesus' pre-resurrection teachings about justification makes less sense.
- What about having baptismal justification begin prior to Jesus' resurrection, in order to avoid problems like the ones faced by Tertullian's view? There are major problems with that alternative as well, as discussed here and here, among other places in our archives. Justification through faith alone, without baptism, has been normative both before the time of the resurrection and since then.
No comments:
Post a Comment