Evidence Against The Assumption Of Mary In Acacius And Other Sources

I discussed Jerome's Letter 119 in my last post. I was focused on the subject of eternal security, but the letter also has some significant material on another topic, including in the same section of the letter (7). So, what I said in my last post regarding whether Jerome was presenting his own views in that section of the letter is relevant to what I'm addressing in this post as well. For reasons explained in my last post, I think section 7 of the letter is presenting the views of Acacius of Caesarea, not Jerome. But either way, here's the relevant portion of that section of the letter:

More About Eternal Security In Jerome

In a post several weeks ago discussing some support for eternal security found in Jerome, I mentioned that I was waiting for the publication of an English translation of his Letter 119. That translation was delayed, but recently came out (Thomas Scheck, trans., St. Jerome: Exegetical Epistles, Volume 2 [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University Of America Press, 2024]). I've now read it.

Some Church Fathers On The Efficaciousness Of Prebaptismal Faith

Some of the church fathers who use highly efficacious language about baptism also use highly efficacious language, including language about the new birth and salvation, when discussing prebaptismal faith. However you explain that (that they viewed justification as a multistep process, that they were inconsistent, or whatever), it offers partial corroboration for the view that we're justified through prebaptismal faith. They ascribe more to prebaptismal faith than advocates of baptismal regeneration typically do. It also provides another example of the diversity of the baptismal beliefs of the pre-Reformation sources. The historian Nick Needham writes that the view of these fathers "effectively makes initial justification itself a twofold process: faith introduces us to salvation, and baptism perfects the introduction" (in Bruce McCormack, ed., Justification In Perspective [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2006], 42). He cites Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem, and Basil of Caesarea as examples. He goes on, "Basil's use of 'seal' imagery may indicate that he regarded baptism as the public and official declaration of a justification that until then has been private and unofficial" (ibid.). Whether you explain these fathers' comments as Needham does, explain them in some other way, or remain agnostic about it, I agree that such comments are found in the three fathers he mentions. At least in the passages I've read, it's clearer in Cyril and Basil than in Origen, but seems likely to be present in Origen as well. It may also be present in a Western source of the fourth century, Fortunatianus, though his comments are highly metaphorical and harder to interpret. He wrote in his Commentary On The Gospels:

An Important Point To Keep In Mind In Baptismal Discussions

Advocates of baptismal regeneration make their position seem more plausible and historically popular than it actually is by assuming the presence of baptism in passages (in the Bible or elsewhere) that don't mention it. Even if an entire document or everything we have that was written by a particular individual says nothing about baptism, it will be assumed that baptism is meant to be included in any reference to faith, repentance, justification, or whatever. Something similar is done by advocates of infant baptism. If baptism is discussed without any mention of baptizing infants, even if the comments on baptism seem to be of a highly credobaptist nature, it will be assumed that the author believed in infant baptism. Supposedly, there was no need for him to spell out his belief in infant baptism, since it's so obvious, was part of the background knowledge of his audience, etc.

One of the problems with that sort of approach, in the context of baptismal regeneration or in the context of infant baptism, is that some of the relevant documents were addressed to non-Christian audiences. I've discussed some examples in the past (e.g., The Epistle To Diognetus, Justin Martyr). See this post on Aristides, for example. The best explanation for why these authors don't mention baptism in the relevant contexts is that they didn't think baptism was involved. It would be problematic to conclude that Christian audiences assumed the inclusion of baptism without any mention of it in these contexts, and it's even more problematic to make that assumption about non-Christian audiences.

Television Fame

"After I had appeared on Thames Television's evening news discussing my fourth book, I was greeted excitedly by one of the counter staff at my bank with, 'Oh, I saw you on telly last night!' She had seen me at least once a week for a couple of years and never mentioned having read anything of mine. Now, after five minutes' chat on the screen, I was somebody famous. Television fame, I learned, meant being famous not for actually having done anything but just for being on television." (Guy Playfair, The Evil Eye [London, England: Jonathan Cape, 1990], 21)

Belief In Faith Alone And Eternal Security At The Time Of Caesarius Of Arles

Caesarius lived in the fifth and sixth centuries. I've occasionally mentioned him in other posts. I recently saw a quotation from him related to sola fide and eternal security, from his Sermon 186. I'd read some of his other material, but not that sermon. Having read it since then, I want to quote a relevant portion of it, then comment on it:

Filling Their Heads And Hearts With Trifles

"Alas! that Christians should stand at the door of eternity, having more work upon their hands than their time is sufficient for, and yet be filling their heads and hearts with trifles!" (John Flavel, Keeping The Heart [Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications, 2019], 110)

The Historicity Of The "I Am" Statements Of Jesus

Critics often object to the historicity of the gospel of John on the basis of the presence of "I am" statements of Jesus there that aren't found in the Synoptics ("I am the light of the world", "I am the good shepherd", etc.). Whether such statements are absent from the Synoptics is a disputed issue, but to whatever extent they are, their presence in John is much less problematic than is typically suggested. We don't need to know why the statements weren't included in the Synoptics in order to have sufficient reason to believe in the historicity of the statements. But it's easier than critics suggest to explain why the "I am" statements would be absent from the Synoptics if the statements were made by Jesus.

Will we tell them it's a false hope?

Jeffrey Long, a prominent researcher in the field of near-death experiences (NDEs), recently did an interview with Danny Jones. Long has collected a large database of NDEs at the NDERF web site. He and his collection of NDEs are often mentioned in discussions of NDEs and related phenomena. I want to comment on some significant parts of his recent interview with Jones.

The Recent Disputes Over Baptismal Regeneration And The Southern Baptist Convention

There's been a lot of discussion lately about how Southern Baptists view the reference to baptism in the Nicene Creed. I've seen the usual false claims about how everybody in the early church believed in baptismal regeneration, all of the church fathers believed in it, nobody opposed it before the Reformation, and so on. Few opponents of baptismal regeneration say anything significant about the extrabiblical evidence for their position, and the few who speak up typically only mention a small percentage of that evidence. For example, it's seldom mentioned that the ancient sources who held some kind of highly efficacious view of baptism widely disagreed about the nature of that efficaciousness. Christians of the patristic era disagreed about the meaning of "baptism for the forgiveness of sins". That's not a later development. There's a major need for opponents of baptismal regeneration to improve their handling of the issue. Here are some resources to that end.

Evaluating Arguments From Silence

Lydia McGrew recently produced a few videos that make some good points on the subject: here, here, and here.

Faith Alone In Celsus And His Sources

I've often mentioned that we need to take more than the church fathers into account when thinking about the patristic era. (See here for one of my posts discussing the topic.) Several decades ago, Thomas Torrance published a book that was highly critical (overly critical) of how the earliest church fathers viewed grace (The Doctrine Of Grace In The Apostolic Fathers [Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock, 1996]). Despite being so negative about the earliest fathers, he was more positive about some sources later in the second century:

What standard, if not the standard of the day of judgment?

"Every one of us must answer for himself. We can never be justified or made to feel secure by the practices of others. It is the greatest folly to regulate ourselves by any other standard than that by which we shall be judged." (Henry Scougal, in Robin Taylor, ed., The Life Of God In The Soul Of Man [Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2022], approximate Kindle location 703)

More About The Name Statistics Argument

Luuk van de Weghe and Jason Wilson recently published an article furthering the argument for the historicity of the gospels and Acts based on name statistics. Here's a short video Michael Jones recently produced about that article, and here's a longer one by Than Christopoulos.

What type of justification through works?

Critics of Protestantism often appeal to the popularity of justification through works among pre-Reformation sources as an argument against justification through faith alone. There's some merit to that argument, but it's often overestimated. The significance of the Biblical evidence is often underestimated, along the lines of what I've referred to elsewhere. And the amount of support for justification through works among the extrabiblical sources is often exaggerated.

Another point that should be made, which isn't made often enough, is that the extrabiblical sources who advocate justification through works widely disagree in what form of it they advocate. I've provided many examples with regard to what might be called initiatory rites, for example (baptism, the laying on of hands, anointing with oil, etc.). See here. And there was widespread disagreement about the issues surrounding whether justification can be lost and, if so, which sins are mortal. Think, for example, of what Hermas wrote about the concept of limited forgiveness or limited penance (The Shepherd, Visions, 2:2). Or see the post here for further examples. In the medieval era, think of Pope Boniface VIII's claim in 1302 that "it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff" (Unam Sanctam).

It could be objected that people have also disagreed about what type of faith is justificatory. But justification through works includes faith alongside the works, so the same objection can be raised against justification through works. And proponents of justification through works disagree with each other about the nature of the works that justify, just as people disagree about the nature of justifying faith. When you add something to faith, whatever that something else is, you have a more complicated situation. And there have been many something elses added over the years, with widespread disagreements from the earliest centuries onward about what those something elses should be. So, the appeal to an alleged unified opposition to sola fide is weakened accordingly.

Your Lot In Life

"Wherefore did David, who was both a prophet and a king, himself also live all his time in toils? whereas Solomon his son spent forty years in security above all men, in the enjoyment of profound peace, glory, and honor, and going through every kind of deliciousness? What again could be the reason, that among the prophets also one was afflicted more, and another less? Because so it was expedient for each. Wherefore upon each our remark must be, 'Thy judgments are a great deep.' [Psalm 36:6] For if those great and wonderful men were not alike exercised by God, but one by poverty, and another by riches; one by ease, and another by trouble; much more ought we now to bear these things in mind." (John Chrysostom, Homilies On First Corinthians, 29:7)

Protestants Should Make More Of An Issue Of Who We Pray To

One of Stand To Reason's podcasts took a question yesterday about prayer to saints. I've noticed for years that Protestants seldom bring the subject up on their own initiative, even though they should. They don't even address it defensively much, and they bring it up as evidence for Protestantism even less. There are multiple Biblical and multiple extrabiblical lines of evidence for praying only to God. For a collection of resources on the topic, see here.

More Examples Of Extrabiblical, Pre-Reformation Support For Eternal Security

In the ninth century, Rabanus Maurus wrote:

When The Church Lies Down At Ease

"What the arms of Rome could not do against Hannibal, his Capuan holidays are said to have accomplished; his soldiers were conquered by luxury, though invincible by force. When the church lies down at ease, she is apt to feel the diseases of abundance." (Charles Spurgeon)

Exchange Everything For Him

"If you value other things more than God, if your life is really driven by another value, then you exchange the imperishable for the perishable. You trade the diamond for a peach forgotten at the back of the refrigerator. You trade the ruby for a banana sitting in the sun. You trade a bar of gold for a bolt rusting in the rain….Let's be like Secretary of State William Seward in 1867 who helped America buy Alaska from the Russians for $7,200,000. Oh, the ridicule of the people: 'Seward's folly,' they called it. Exchanging seven million dollars for ice! Well in the last 130 years Alaska has yielded billions upon billions of dollars in resources to America. Things are not what they seem. I plead with you, open your eyes. And do not exchange your God for anything. Exchange everything for him." (John Piper)