A Response to the Reformed Baptists: Against Naked Scripture Reading

Posted on December 13, 2021 by Bobby Grow

What’s going on with these Reformed Baptists? I’m referring to people like James White, Rich Pierce (White’s sidekick), Owen Strachan et al. I just had a fun exchange with White’s guy, Pierce on Twitter. It’s always the same thing with these guys. I cut my teeth in the blogosphere with these types of extended engagements with the JMac crew over at the Pyromaniacs blog back in the day. White, and his whole Alpha and Omega crew, along with the Apologia guys, and then people like Strachan and Jeff Johnson, and all their followers in the so-called Reformed Baptist camp suffer from the same sort of arrogant naivete. They all operate with this notion that it’s possible for the biblical interpreter to read Scripture without a hermeneutic. In other words, they simply believe that they purely read the 5 Points of Calvinism out of the text of Scripture (or a modified/heretical understanding of the Trinity, in some cases). They don’t acknowledge any reception history from its development in the Reformed history of ideas. In fact, they are anti-Confessional (except maybe for the London Baptist Confession of Faith, the parts that resonate with them). Here’s a sampling of my recent excursion with that really nice guy, Rich Pierce:

This guy took this tone with me immediately, in a previous tweet exchange. This is how it always goes with them. The irony is that they operate out of an Enlightenment rationalist/naturalist hermeneutic, not confessionally Reformed whatsoever. They fail to recognize that all reading is interpretation, and that confessional Christian reading is simply the mode that has given the orthodox categories we use to think the Trinity and Christological loci like the hypostatic union, homoousios so on and so forth. Instead, they read from the confessionalism provided for by the naturalism inherent to the Enlightenment; being confessional is an inescapable reality of interpretation (any kind of interpretation). The only people in Reformation history who claimed to read the Bible outwith confessionalism were the Socinians (and maybe the Anabaptists before them). That’s the spirit people like White, Pierce, Strachan et al. operate from. Indeed, in Strachan’s case, and now White is defending him, he arrives at his eternal functional subordinationism (EFS) of the Son, precisely because of their anti-ecclesial confessional reading of Holy Scripture. No matter how much testosterone these guys muster up to counter critiques like mine, just as Pierce does above, the facts of the theo-logic, they are ignoring, remain.

What they don’t understand is how the order of authority works. People like White/Pierce seem to think that if you use conciliar categories (like we get from Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, Chalcedon etc.) that somehow you are denying the Protestant Scripture Principle (or more colloquially, sola Scriptura), but that is to engage in a radical error of thought. The ecumenical confessions/creeds, for example, are subordinate to Holy Scripture insofar that they are attempting to supply a grammar for the inner-theo-logic of the text. In other words, given the occasional nature of the text, which it always is, even if the occasion turns out to be purely canonical, the authors of Scripture make theological assertions; that is, they leave many things either inchoate or unstated in their respective communications about God. What the creeds/confessions do, in principle, is come along and recognize that things are stated about God, in Scripture, that require a grammar; particularly so that the Church can know the difference between truth and error; not to mention, so that the Church can speak and think intelligibly about God. There is no inherent denial of the Protestant Scripture principle in this endeavor. The only real problem that can and has obtained, at points, is that the ‘metaphysic’ used to flesh out said biblical theo-logic could potentially be at odds with the Scriptural categories and witness vis-à-vis God. This has always been the basis of my critique with reference to the developments of scholasticism Reformed dogma in the 16th and 17th centuries. But this sort of thinking goes right over the heads of people like White, Pierce, Strachan et al.

In order to end this post on a positive note, let me share something I’ve shared multiple times in the past from Oliver Crisp. He offers a nice taxis, in regard to how to think the relationship of Holy Scripture to the creeds, confessions, and theologoumena. And with this we’ll close:

Scripture is the norma normans, the principium theologiae. It is the final arbiter of matters theological for Christians as the particular place in which God reveals himself to his people. This is the first-order authority in all matters of Christian doctrine.
Catholic creeds, as defined by and ecumenical council of the Church, constitute a first tier of norma normata, which have second-order authority in matters touching Christian doctrine. Such norms derive their authority from Scripture to which they bear witness.
Confessional and conciliar statements of particular ecclesial bodies are a second tier of norma normata, which have third-order authority in matters touching Christian doctrine. They also derive their authority from Scripture to the extent that they faithfully reflect the teaching of Scripture.
The particular doctrines espoused by theologians including those individuals accorded the title Doctor of the Church which are not reiterations of matters that are de fide, or entailed by something de fide, constitute theologoumena, or theological opinions, which are not binding upon the Church, but which may be offered up for legitimate discussion within the Church.[1]

It would be nice if the Reformed Baptists under consideration could internalize the above, but they won’t. Instead, they will continue to appeal to their egos and insecurities and respond the way Pierce did to me in the aforementioned. Unfortunately, these things have real life consequences; like denying an orthodox understanding of the Holy Trinity (as we now see in Strachan, and White’s defense of him). This is why sometimes I’ll bring this sort of discussion up for consideration. Peoples’ eternal souls are literally at stake in many cases.

[1] Oliver Crisp, god incarnate, (New York: T&T Clark International, 2009), 17.

For a Believer’s Baptism: Against the Sacramentalized Infant Baptism of Augustine

Posted on October 5, 2021 by Bobby Grow

Augustine took infant baptism to a level it hadn’t been theretofore prior to his development of a doctrine of original sin contra Pelagius’ theology. My friend (who I had a falling out with some years ago), W. Travis McMaken, offers a nice sketch of Augustine’s doctrine of original sin, and its necessary remedy through the Church’s sacraments, particularly through infant baptism. Travis writes the following in his published dissertation entitled: The Sign of the Gospel: Toward an Evangelical Doctrine of Infant Baptism after Karl Barth. For Augustine,

Original sin brings with it the state of guilt because sin dwelling in our flesh ensures that the fruit of such a tainted sexual union is likewise tainted. This taint is not mere inclination toward sin but the actual condition of sin insofar as one is born with “disobedience of the flesh.” So Augustine, speaking of newborn infants: “the sinful flesh of those through whom they are born gives them a guilt which they have not yet contracted in their own life.”

Thusly did Augustine joint original guilt to original sin by means of infant baptism. Infants are baptized, and this must be done for a reason. The only intelligible reason is that they are in need of the forgiveness from sin that baptism brings. But since infants have not yet committed any sins of volition, we must look elsewhere for the source of their guilt. This source is found in their birth and in the network of sexual reproduction that stretches from each person back to Adam and Eve. Given such an account of sin, Augustine was able to advance against the Pelagians a robust account of grace and predestination as that which rescues an individual from their hopelessly guilty state.

Infant baptism was practiced in extremis in the early Christian centuries, but it was always something of a practice in search of a theology. By pressing into service in his dispute with the Pelagians, Augustine “provided the theology that led to infant baptism becoming general practice for the first time in the history of the church.” This was not his intent. In fact, he argued that it was already the church’s general practice, and had been since the time of the apostles. Other sources considered above belie this claim. Further, the logic of his argument moved away from the practice of infant baptism and toward the establishment of his doctrine of original sin and guilt. However, once “original sin was established as the basic framework for thinking, then it was natural for it to become the principal reason for infant baptism.” This resulted in infant baptism quickly becoming established as standard practice—and, indeed, the definitive form of baptism—rather than an in extremis concession. As Karen Spierling notes, “infant baptism was an established practice of the Christian church” within one hundred years of Augustine’s dispute with the Pelagians.

In this way, Augustine provided Christian theology with the first of its two great arguments in support of infant baptism, namely, the sacramental argument: all humans are sinners in need of salvation, and the sacraments in general and baptism in particular are the appointed means for removing sin and securing salvation, therefore infants ought to receive baptism lest they die in their sins. This argument, and Barth’s rejection of it, is the subject of further consideration in chapter two.1

In McMaken’s purview Augustine represents the paragon of a developed sacramental doctrine of infant baptism vis-a-vis original sin. Travis is not alone, and stands on the shoulders of others in this unremarkable understanding in regard to Augustine as the sacramental theologian par excellence.

My own view, as a Baptist, follows Barth’s, and the New Testament’s teaching which entails a credobaptism (or believer’s baptism). Indeed, prior to Augustine’s development, believer’s baptism was the preferred method for baptism; particularly as people paid attention to the teaching of the NT, and the Apostolic practice. It wasn’t until later, like Augustine and following, wherein infant or paedobaptism took on an ecclesial life of its own. As McMaken will turn to next (in his section on a survey of the development of a doctrinal baptism), he identifies the Reformed ‘covenantal’ rationale for infant baptism. While there is some discontinuous theological rationale within the Reformed development of a paedobaptism, there clearly is some continuous overlap between the so-called covenantal and sacramental arguments for an infant baptism.

As someone who follows the Protestant Scripture Principal though, I am compelled to reject the theological reasons for an infant baptism, and solely affirm believer’s baptism. Because of my commitment to a doctrine of the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ, as funded by Barth’s and Torrance’s doctrine of election, respectively, I can appropriate certain themes from both the earlier developed sacramental and covenantal forms of infant baptism, without committing myself to infant baptism simpliciter. These things represent a complex that we will not have time to disentangle in this post, but suffice it to say that if we see Jesus’ vicarious humanity as the speculum (mirror) of our election and justification in general, then it follows as corollary, that we can posit His baptism, both in the Jordan, and at Golgotha, as both sufficient and efficient for fulfilling the conditions that a baptism entails (canonically). What the Christian does, in the wake of His baptism for us, is bear witness to the always already finished work of Christ, as we participate in and from His life for us. Indeed, Christ meets both the objective and subjective sides of baptism for us, just as He meets those more generally as the Electing and Elected Godman for us. As we come to recognize what He has already accomplished for us, as we come into a spiritual union with Him, it is in and from this participation that following Him into the waters of baptism find their gravitas; indeed, as we stand where He first stood first for us, that we might now bear witness to His always already finished work of redemption all the way down.

1 W. Travis McMaken, The Sign of the Gospel: Toward an Evangelical Doctrine of Infant Baptism after Karl Barth (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013), loc. 379, 386, 395.

My Objection to Baptismal Regeneration

Posted on September 10, 2019 by Bobby Grow

These will simply represent some off the top reflections on the topic of baptism, in particular so-called baptismal regeneration. To be frank, I have almost no tolerance for even considering this doctrine. I see it as heretical with all the gravitas that word is supposed to convey. In fact, on both Twitter and Facebook I posted the following quick quip: “Baptismal regeneration is not biblical; it is hermeneutical QED.” I received a response from someone I respect, but who I also severely disagree with on this very significant point. I didn’t realize he maintained this position tell he made his comment; he wrote:

I’d argue that Romans 6-8 stands as a witness against this statement. But, of course, I’m sure you read it otherwise. So, it appears the debate itself is hermeneutical all the way down.

And further:

Bobby – It’s certainly a serious and important matter. Furthermore, one position on it is right (true, orthodox, and faithful to the witness of scripture) while the other position is wrong. I’m certainly not trying to trivialize it. My point is that there is no perspicuous witness of Scripture on this point. Everything hinges on the reader’s tradition of hermeneutics. Otherwise, there would be no disagreement or debate.

For the Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran Churches, your rejection of Baptismal Regeneration is a profound misreading of scripture (and heresy—insofar as your reading departs from the orthodoxy collectively affirmed by these communions and the consensus fidelium). But you, being formed and schooled in the Reformed Protestant tradition, have learned to read scripture differently on this point. So, based on your tradition’s hermeneutic, you are ready to declare the majority of your fellow Christians, as well as the long history of Christian witness from at least the Church Fathers to Luther and beyond, in heresy.

Now, you may be right. The majority of the present, as well as the majority of the past have no special claim on truth. Both sides of the debate will have to argue it out, as we have been doing since the Reformation, furnishing arguments rooted in scripture. But neither side can say, Scripture clearly and plainly bears witness to my position. Scripture’s witness on the matter just is the crux of the debate.[1]

I responded to my interlocutor:

but this isn’t ultimately a matter of biblical exegesis in your response, but ecclesiology and theory of authority. It is a matter of thinking grace and its givenness; again, bound up in dogmatic concerns, that are discernibly proximate to Scripture’s witness or not. If Scripture is not simply a wax nose of one’s tradition then it can speak for itself and on its own canonical terms. And it can do so in such a way that will be perspicacious to the point that it can divide through the bone and marrow of the Church’s tradition. That’s the basis upon which I argue that baptismal regeneration is false. Not to mention that the early church itself engaged in credobaptism. Ie credo in the sense that belief preceded baptism, it wasn’t instigated by it.

Sometimes it seems to me that folks seem to adopt a sort of biblical relativism and equate that with being charitable. Yes, I can recognize a pervasive interpretive pluralism as a sociological phenomenon, but that doesn’t mean the bible doesn’t teach something that is clearly greater than one’s location in whatever tradition. That seems to be the premise of your response, but I think that is wrong.

I want to expand even further. The seriousness of this is hard to overstate. Neither my son or daughter have been baptized yet, but they have professed and confessed Christ as their Lord and Savior for years. Because of a variety of life circumstances neither of my kids have been in an ecclesial situation where they could be baptized. According to my interlocutor’s tradition my kids are not ‘saved.’ But this is where things become exceedingly problematic for his tradition. Holy Scripture does not provide us with the pattern he asserts; when he asserts that the consensus fidelium has maintained for centuries of the Church. This is not the consensus fidelium, it is the consensus Catholicium; there’s a strident difference. He claims that this even bleeds into the trad of the Church all the way up and until Luther. Even so, many things, such as indulgences were present in the Church up and until Luther. Further, there are many things that have been present in the Western Church for millennia at this point; greatest of which is the doctrine of Apostolic Succession and the interpretive Magisterium of the Holy Roman Catholic church. None of these represent exegetical arguments from Scripture for baptismal regeneration, instead they present us with a fertile tradition wherein things like baptismal regeneration are allowed to be home-spun from layers of traditional fabrics that have been woven extra Scriptura.

Back to my point about pervasive interpretive pluralism. This is the sociological phenomenon Roman Catholic sociologist, Christian Smith, identified in his book Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism Is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture. But forthrightly, so what! All this does is identify a superficial, but real phenomenon that will result the moment more than one person attempts to exegete Scripture (or anything else for that matter). This does nothing to subvert the reality that Scripture teaches something, and it does so per its own canonical and theological context. Indeed, Scripture, if it finds its reality in Christ alone, then this must be allowed to be regulative for determining the ultimate meaning of the Text; not some tradition in the Church, no matter how ancient or layered that tradition is. As C.S. Lewis noted, it is utter chronological snobbery to make arguments based simply upon a time-honored tradition; whether that be with reference to the past, present, or future. This is the basis of my interlocutor’s argument; which he obviously recognizes is an issue. Nevertheless, he still appeals to the “consensus” as if it ought to have some sort of interpretive weight simply because it is.

Like I noted previously, to make the appeal my interlocutor does is one that is grounded petitio principii in what yet needs to be proven. In other words, his appeal is to an ecclesial tradition that is itself subject to the reality of Scripture’s witness. Does it withstand that witness; a witness that comes loaded with its own categories and points of teaching? Is Scripture really so malleable that it is subject to a reader’s response interpretation that is in-formed by an alien tradition that may or may not have proximity to Scripture’s ‘Sacra Doctrina?’

The weightiness of this question cannot be overstated. My interlocutor ostensibly maintains that the Church alone has the capacity to dispense effectual or saving Grace; as if grace is a quantity or substance that has the capacity to be possessed and manhandled by the Church herself. But is this really what the reality of Scripture teaches? All throughout Scripture we see just the opposite. We see the Apostle Paul referring to his ‘in Christ’ theology, or what Calvin, or even Cyril would call unio cum Christo (union with Christ) soteriology. In other words, we don’t see the Church in the place or as the dispenser of salvation through the holy sacraments; instead we see Christ directly as the mediator of salvation himself for the many. We see teaching by the Apostle John that tells us to confess our sins directly to God in Christ, and here comes the te absolvo; not through the disbursements of the Church.

Baptism is clearly an important step in the salvific process, but in Scripture baptism does not save; instead it bears witness to the Savior’s work in the recipient’s life. Theologically it is Christ’s vicarious faith, his vicarious baptism for us in his vicarious humanity that has salvific weight. But it isn’t baptism that brings salvation, it is Christ himself and his vicarious identification with us. There are no conditions for salvation to inhere in someone’s life, other than saying yes by the Spirit in and through the Christ’s Yes for us as He serves as our Mediator and High Priest. This is the ground of salvation, not a watery immersion (or sprinkling). But we must attend to Scripture itself, and not allow the Church’s tradition to supervene in such a way that Scripture is not allowed to speak and even contradict the Church’s teaching. If we don’t attend to Scripture this way then there is no way for the voice of the living God to contradict aberrant teaching within the Church’s walls; there is no voice but an ad hoc voice presumed to be the Lord’s voice as it comes conflated with the Church’s.

The Pink Elephant

The seriousness of this issue is this: if what my interlocutor is claiming is true then I am not his brother in Christ, and he is not mine. From my perspective I can maintain that he is saved, as long as he sees salvation coming from the dispensary of Christ’s life itself rather than the treasury of merits in the Church. But from his perspective I cannot be saved unless I am in his Church, or in the traditional line of churches he believes represent the so-called consensus fideilum (the consensus of the faithful). This is as serious as things get. This is not merely an adiaphoric teaching that we can agree to disagree on. Nein, it is an issue that determines whether or not we believe someone will spend eternity with Christ or not. There is nothing more serious than this! In our time of glossing over things, in the age of the internet and social media, it seems like issues like this are often papered over; but this cannot be. If my interlocutor is right then I am not saved, and on my way to an eternal hell. If I am right, at best, his salvation is questionable. I can see him as a brother in Christ, but not with much assurance.

[1] Anonymous Facebook commenter, accessed 09–10–2019.

The Freedom of the Christian as a Contravention of Paedobaptism and the Church’s Tradition

Posted on March 12, 2019 by Bobby Grow

I am stuck on a baptism tip at the moment; reading a gargantuan book on it by Everett Ferguson. I have taken no small amount of push back on Facebook and Twitter in regard to my position on baptism; if you missed that I am credobaptist (indeed, I am quite baptistic in orientation — at least when it comes to this locus). Famously, well in the right circles, Karl Barth also maintained a credobaptist position; but my other favorite, Thomas Torrance, didn’t. Torrance was critical of Barth on this point, and believed it was a rationalist thread left-over in Barth’s thinking; but I don’t agree with Torrance. I think Barth was attempting to allow Scripture to chasten his theo-logic, and thus wasn’t willing to submit to the type of hermeneutic that has given rise to infant or paedobaptism. At certain important points it is noteworthy that TF Torrance operated under a more decisively ecclesiocentric hermeneutic, whilst Barth functioned with a radically Christo-centric one. Interestingly, many of Barth’s students are paedobaptist; indeed, many of them are Presbyterian. But I am baptistic, and go with Barth’s understanding of baptism. When I refer to credobaptism, I am not referring to ‘adult-baptism’ only. No, credo-baptism includes anyone, of any age who confesses Christ as their Lord and Savior.

But I wanted to provide a greater context for the way we think about the Church; and the way I think we ought to. As I noted above, ecclesiology plays a large role in the way that people arrive at either paedo or credo baptism. Some of us are committed to more episcopalian church understandings, with its hierarchy of authority in place. Others of us operate in the Free Church tradition; we might see this as a modified expression of what took place in the so called Radical Reformation (the Anabaptists come to mind). I would suggest that while Barth is Reformed in orientation, his understanding of the Church fits best with the Free mode of operation; a mode that eschews ecclesial authority in favor of a Christ-centric authority that is constantly breaking in upon the Christian Church, such that she is free to think freely juxtaposed with the Church’s tradition. In other words, the Free Church tradition has the capacity to think as if God speaks over against, and often in concert with Church tradition. But it is this over-againstness that hierarchical theories of Church government have a harder time contravening. In this tradition it is seemingly harder to not see the Church herself, through all of her accretions of traditions, as authoritative; even, and especially when it comes to the teaching of Holy Scripture.

We should not think that Barth himself balked at the significance and placement of Christ’s Church as a highly and significant place wherein God still speaks. But it is this that is most important; i.e. that God still speaks, and thus the Church and her traditions can be contradicted, or augmented with constructive new realities about God becoming known in the Church’s wrestlings with Him as He speaks to her. What we will see in the following, from Barth, is how he nuances his appreciation of the Church of Christ, while at the same time underscoring how he sees her situated vis-à-vis the Christ. I want to share this, and then use this sort of paradigm as a marginalizing-tool in regard to the authority that Church tradition ostensibly has in regard to the interpretation of Scripture’s teaching. Barth writes:

In New Testament passages like Rom. 12.4f; 1 Cor. 10.16f, 12.12f; Col. 1.18.24; Eph. 1.22f, 4.12, 5.23 29f, etc., the Church is described as the body of Christ. One meaning of this description is undoubtedly this: that the existence of the Church involves a repetition of the incarnation of the Word of God in the person of Jesus Christ in that area of the rest of humanity which is distinct from the person of Jesus Christ. The repetition is quite heterogeneous. Yet for all its heterogeneity it is homogeneous too (although the uniqueness of the objective revelation forbids us to call it a continuation, prolongation, extension of the like). The fulness of the Godhead dwelt in Him “bodily” (Col. 2.9). In Him God immediately (but also, of course, externally and visibly) delimited, touched and determined human history. In this particular history one man or person (for that is at least one meaning of body) delimited, touched and determined another and all others, so that now they are no longer what they are without this One who delimits them. And all this is proved to be real in the history of the Church, in the historical, the externally and visibly actual form of the totality of those who are delimited, touched and determined by Him as the Son of God. The co-eternal Word of God built in the womb of the virgin His house, a human body, and joined to it the church, as members to a head (Augustine, De civ. Dei XVII, 20, 2). “He was by his sufferings buried in the earth and, like a root unset, hidden in the world, and there grew from it that fair tree, the Christian Church, outspread over all the world” (Luther, Pred. üb. Röm. 15, 4 f., Adu. Post., 1522, W.A. 10.12, 91, 10). “He will not be content that the story occurred and he fulfilled it for his person, but he mingleth it with us and maketh thereof a brotherhood, that he might be a common good and heirship for us all; he setteth it not in a absolute context, but [in] a context of relation, to say that he hath done so not for his own person or sake, but as our brother and for our sole good; and we will not be otherwise regarded and known of us, save as he who with all this is ours and we in turn his and so we belong together most intimately, so that we cannot be more closely tied, like those who alike have one father and are set in the like common and undivided inheritance and can assume, glory and take comfort in all his power, glory and goodness as in our own” (Pred. üb. Mc. 16.1f; E.A. 11, 208).[1]

An interesting take on the Church, and its significance vis-à-vis the persons who make up the Church as that is given reality in the person and work of Jesus Christ. I think the point that stands out to me most is Barth’s point about what he identifies as relationis (‘context of relation’). This fits well with the notion that the Free Church operates with, in regard to its ability to emphasize the sort of I/Thou-Thou/I relationship that the Christian can operate within insofar as that space has been made for them before God in Christ’s vicarious humanity. The emphasis of this sort of ‘personhood’, of the sort grounded in the history and reality of the Christ’s humanity, allows the Christian, in this milieu, to operate under the condition that God has spoken and continuously speaks, afresh and anew, such that the Christian can live as if they can really hear their Lord speak to them; both individually, and as the Church. But in this context the Church does not have the authority to speak, but only bear witness to the living voice of God that speaks over and again to His Church; and to those who make up His Church as that is grounded in Jesus Christ, and the esse of God’s Triune Life.

So, how does any of this apply to a doctrine like Christian baptism? I don’t know (LOL). No, maybe you’re picking up what I’ve been laying down, a bit. I am trying to create space wherein the Christian is able to approach the Church’s tradition and the Bible’s teaching as if the the latter has priority over the former; and the former only has reality as it corresponds to the latter. I am trying to suggest that the Christian has a conditioned freedom as they hear from God, afresh and anew; and that within this context the Church’s tradition is understood, as it ought to be, in its eschatological reality. I am trying to push forward the idea that the Church’s tradition, and often, the natural theology that funds it, is open to the interrogation of God’s voice as that comes afresh and anew to the Christian in the attestation of Scripture’s disclosure.

I must think, then, that paedobaptism is a development that has taken place in the Church’s tradition. As such, it is open to the interrogative voice of God as that is given to the people who find their reality in His reality in Christ. As such, paedobaptism, at the very least, is open to the critique of Scripture’s teaching insofar that that teaching finds its reality in Christ; a Christ not bound by the Church’s tradition, but by His own Free reality as God for us.

In sum what I am attempting to note is rather simple, really: Viz. 1) That paedobaptism is an innovation of Church tradition; 2) that Church tradition, for the Protestant, is subordinate to Scripture’s teaching; 3) that Scripture’s teaching has a freedom given to it as it is located in God’s voice for His people; 4) Therefore, at the least, credobaptism, as an prima facie teaching of Scripture ought to be given due recognition, even among adherents to paedobaptism. All of this because Christians have a relationship with God, through union with Christ, that allows them to hear His voice afresh and anew; a voice that has the capacity to contradict the traditions of the Church. Now, could my thinking be flipped-on its head? Maybe credobaptism is a development of the Church’s tradition, and not the prima facie teaching of Scripture that I have suggested it is. But the history of interpretation doesn’t actually bear this out. What we find is that infant-baptism is indeed a development of the post-Apostolic tradition. And paedobaptists would want to insist, I’d think, that credobaptism, in fact, is not a development of the Church catholic’s tradition; primarily because the paedobaptist gives the Church’s tradition a privileged place vis-à-vis their interpretation of Scripture’s teaching.

Remember: I’m thinking all of this on the fly. I’m thinking out-loud. I recognize there might be some holes here and there. But in general I think the thesis built into my thinking has something to it.

[1]Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics I/2 §16, 13-4 [italics mine, they are the translations of the various Greekisms and Latinisms Barth has in his text].

Some Probing Thoughts on My Constructive Position on CredoBaptism as that is Funded by the Vicarious Humanity of Jesus Christ

Posted on March 11, 2019 by Bobby Grow

I am baptistic in orientation. I grew up as the son of a Conservative Baptist pastor. I have shed many distinctives that Baptist doctrine is comprised of, but one doctrine I haven’t shed is the Baptist understanding of Baptism; some would call it Zwinglian, or the memorial position. What I affirm can also be identified as credobaptism; in other words, my position is that a person who is baptized in water must first be a believer in Jesus Christ. I see baptism as a witness to the church and the world that a person has confessed faith in Christ, by the faith of Christ. As a constructive innovation on my position, or we might say, as a ‘dogmatic’ turn, I also maintain that the reality of baptism is first grounded in the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ. I take Christ’s baptism for us to be decisive, indeed the baptism that sets Christ himself a part for us unto God; indeed in the perfect tense. As such, it is as we are brought into union with Christ’s humanity, by the Holy Spirit, that we partake in the sanctified humanity, the initiate humanity of the risen Christ wherein baptism comes to make sense. As a result, I see baptism as a signum (sign) of God’s reality (res) for us in Christ. As such I see the faith of Christ as the ground upon which baptism makes ultimate sense, in regard to its relationship to justification before God. In this way I can see baptism in a riffed way on the Calvinian motif of what he calls duplex gratia (double grace); I say riffed because I am taking that holistic way of thinking, in regard to salvation, and applying that to what takes place in the baptism of Christ. It is because Christ first trusted the Father for us that we might trust in God. It is in this Spirit moved trust that we see the Son lovingly condescend and assume humanity with the purpose of dying, being buried, and rising again as the new creature of God that we might, in and through union with His humanity, also partake in the new creation that God has destined us for in His pre-destination to not be God without us, but with us. It is in this frame that I see baptism making sense as a ‘sign’ to the world that we have become participants in the Divine nature through the new life we have entered into through the baptized humanity of Jesus Christ.

As a result of my position on baptism I see it grounded in a reality that has objective or ‘carnal’ reality whether we affirm it or not. This is, again, is why I see baptism primarily as a locus that has to do with witness-bearing to the world that God in Christ is for us and not against us. It bears witness to the reality of what Christ has accomplished for us as a work that only God good undertake in our stead as He entered into our status that we might enter His through the risen humanity of Jesus Christ. In this frame baptism is not grounded in the ‘believer’ per se, but in the One who believes for us; in Jesus Christ. So, there is a de jure and ontological character to baptism that is not contingent upon my belief, per se. But it is as I come to a spiritual union with Christ, as that is actuated by the Spirit in and from the faith of Christ that I as a believer come to the point that my confession, grounded in Christ’s, is attested to by entering into the waters of baptism that Christ alone entered first for me. It is in this action that the new creaturely reality I have already entered into, first because Christ entered into it for me in his vicarious humanity that becomes formally acknowledged as my purposeful confession of and for Christ; as that has been realized and fully realized in the reality of Christ’s baptism for us.

Against Infant Baptism, Me and Uncle Barth: W. Travis McMaken on Eberhard Jüngel’s Explication of Barth and Baptism

Posted on September 9, 2015 by Bobby Grow

Travis McMaken (Travis)[1] has recently (2013) had his PhD dissertation published in Fortress Press’ Emerging Scholars series. His published work is titled: The Sign of the Gospel: Toward an Evangelical Doctrine of Infant Baptism After Karl Barth. I just picked it up and started reading it and I am glad that I did; it is an excellent introduction (and thick development) to not just Barth’s theology of Baptism, but to baptism’s theological development through the Christian ages. As I just worked my way through the first chapter I came across many gems and insights, but since this is a blog I will have to limit myself to one; one that resonates most deeply with me, you see, I am a Credobaptist after all, like Barth.

For me, in the first chapter the insight that resonates most with my sensibilities in this area of consideration is the brief coverage that McMaken gave to Eberhard Jüngel’s engagement and clarification of Barth’s theology of baptism. Jüngel’s point impacts me the most because it, in a simple and straightforward way makes clear the way that Barth tied his understanding of credobaptism into and from his doctrine of election. As McMaken highlights, for Eberhard this served as the locus classicus for understanding and approaching Barth’s theology of baptism vis-à-vis his doctrine of election. In a word, the reason for this (for its centrality i.e. ‘election’ for Barth) is: response.

Travis McMaken on Eberhard Jüngel on Karl Barth

(At length)

Eberhard Jüngel provides a unique contribution to the reception of Barth’s doctrine of baptism. This contribution consists in pointing to the fundamental importance of Barth’s doctrine of election in Church Dogmatics II/2 for his doctrine of baptism. Precisely their inattention to this point constitutes the weakness of the reception Barth’s doctrine of baptism receives from the previously discussed authors, especially among those who are otherwise sympathetic to Barth’s theology. Of those theologians discussed above, only Roman Catholic Aldo Moda notes that the impulses that control Barth’s late doctrine of baptism can be traced back to his doctrine of election, and he has been informed by Jüngel’s work. Furthermore, attention to the implications of Barth’s doctrine of election for his doctrine of baptism aligns with the most recent work on the development of Barth’s theology. For instance, Bruce McCormack has argued that Barth’s doctrine of election in CD II/2 represented a new stage in the clarity and self-consistency of Barth’s christological theology. While the discontinuity of what follows this decisive part-volume with that which came before can sometimes be overstated, it is nonetheless true that Barth’s doctrine of election towers over the Church Dogmatics as a whole.

Jüngel estimates that people will not likely penetrate to this realization. Rather than recognize the integral relation between Barth’s doctrine of baptism and his theology as a whole, readers fixate on the practical fruit of that doctrine. They then reject these practical consequences while failing to engage with the dogmatic premises that lie in the background.

For his part, Jüngel means to make those dogmatic premises explicit. He does so with reference to the ethical context of Barth’s doctrine of baptism CD IV/4. Jüngel notes that the vital thing for Barth is the baptizand’s responsiveness, which implies responsibility. This has direct ties to Barth’s doctrine of election in CD II/2. There Barth establishes Jesus Christ as not only the electing God but also the elected human being. This means that “God in His free grace determines Himself for sinful man and sinful man for Himself” (CD II/2, 94; KD II/2, 101). Such a twofold determination provides the context for the responsiveness that Barth is after in his doctrine of baptism. God has determined to be God in relationship with humanity, and that humanity will exist in relationship with God. Humans live up to their election by being responsive to, and responsible before, God. For Barth, Christian baptism is a decisive moment in this responsive relationship. As far as Jüngel is concerned, all of this protects one of Barth’s most vital insights, namely, that God is God and humanity is humanity; “Just as God proves that he is himself through acts of divine being, so humans should prove to be human through acts of human being.” Baptism is a definitive instance of an act that proves one as a human being in responsible relationship with God.

Thus Jüngel advances his claim: “The doctrine of baptism is … not an appendix to the Church Dogmatics, but rather … a test-case.” Consequently, anyone who “wants infant baptism should not seek nourishment for the pulpit from Barth’s doctrine of election…. It is one or the other—one must decide for oneself.”

Both those who argue that Barth’s doctrine of baptism can be met by resources to traditional Reformed arguments and those who would revise his doctrine of baptism from within—and especially those who offhandedly claim this as a possibility—stand under Jüngel’s judgment.[2]

Don’t all roads always lead us back to Barth’s doctrine of election? Indeed! I am a big fan of Barth for so many reasons; his theology of baptism is just one more of those. I am a Baptist thinker, when it comes down to it (at least in a relative sense). I am a big advocate for a response based understanding of salvation, and Barth’s doctrine of election as related to baptism helps to illustrate how a robust theology of response ought to look in my view.

I commend this to you for your consideration! And thank you Travis for your work on all of this!

[1] Travis has been a friend of the blog, and of mine now since probably in and around 2006 or 2007 (since the time before he ever even had an MDiv let alone a PhD).

[2] W. Travis McMaken, The Sign of the Gospel: Toward an Evangelical Doctrine of Infant Baptism After Karl Barth (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013), 82 Scribd version.

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