A Response to Brandon Adams on 1 Corinthians 10

March 10, 2020 at 10:54 am (Baptism, Church, Communion)

Brandon Adams has propounded a believer Baptist understanding of 1 Corinthians 10. His positive explanation of the passage is here, and his rejection of paedobaptist objections is here. It is worthwhile interacting with these ideas, since 1 Corinthians 10 is such an important passage in the debate, and any reasonable interpretations of the passage on a believer Baptist position are worthy of praise, since I have not met many believer Baptists who have formed many ideas concerning the passage. For my purposes, I will mainly interact with the rejection of paedobaptist false inferences post. I read the other post, and may refer to it occasionally, but the substance of what I wish to say concerns what he says about paedobaptist interpretations of the passage.

Almost immediately, we run into some problems, namely, with how Adams describes the paedo position. There does not seem to be a recognition that paedobaptists do, in fact, advocate some aspects of discontinuity and progression as history moves from Israel to the church. For example, paedos argue that the sign changes from bloody to bloodless (going from circumcision to baptism) because Christ’s blood has been shed, making further bloodshed unnecessary. Therefore, circumcision points forward, and baptism looks backwards. That they point to the same spiritual reality does not mean that they work in precisely the same way. Circumcision affected boys, and girls were understood to be included under their covenant head, whereas in the church, baptism is given to boys and girls alike. This kind of nuance with regard to the paedo position appears to be entirely lacking in Adams’s piece. For example, he says, “The basic thrust is that Israel and the Church are one and the same. Their situation was identical to ours.” In light of what I said above, this statement is a strawman, even with regard to Calvin’s understanding of the continuity. Calvin is talking about the spiritual situation, which is the same, undoubtedly the same. That does not mean that a carte blanche statement such as Adams’s is an accurate picture of Calvin’s views. Calvin argued that the different signs point to the same spiritual reality. That is different from saying simply that the signs are the same, and that there is absolutely no difference at all. Otherwise, why would Jesus Christ need to come at all?

Secondly, Adams goes to a great deal of trouble to try to prove that if the manna is not sacramental, then the entire paedo argument falls to the ground. It should have given him pause that when he quotes so many paedobaptists to negate Calvin’s point (which he does in the positive post and the rejection of the paedo position post), yet those paedos still argue the paedo position. Maybe the paedo position overall does not hinge on whether the manna is sacramental, and whether “the same” means “the same as what we partake of” or whether it means “they all had the same spiritual food among themselves.” To tell the truth, I have not really considered the matter of whether the manna was sacramental before reading Adams’s post, but if I had to take a position on it, I would probably say that the manna was not sacramental. It was their daily bread, and Christ does draw typological significance from the spiritual aspects of manna, but I would agree with Hodge that it falls short of sacramental significance. The typological antecedent for the Lord’s Supper is Passover, not manna, and even with Passover, there is both continuity and discontinuity. This brings us to the next point.

I am more than a bit surprised that Adams brought out the tired argument connecting baptism and the Lord’s Supper together, that if paedos treat baptism this way, then the Lord’s Supper must also be treated in this way, and we have to be paedocommunionist in order to be consistent. This argument has been so thoroughly answered by Cornel Venema’s book Children at the Lord’s Table? that it is irresponsible for a credo Baptist simply to throw this argument in paedos’ faces as if we have never considered the matter before. Almost every major paedo treatment of the subject answers this objection. Adams references precisely zero answers to this objection. The two important points that have to be said in response are these. 1. The paedo position recognizes that the two sacraments have important differences, differences strong enough to preclude treating them in the same way that credos say we must. These differences mostly involve the difference between passive reception in baptism, and both passive and active components in the Lord’s Supper. The reason for this difference is 1 Corinthians 11, which is not mentioned even once in Adams’s piece (also irresponsible, since it is directly relevant to his objection, and is part of the immediate context of 1 Corinthians 10). 1 Corinthians 11 describes how the Lord’s Supper is to be engaged. See Venema’s book for a thorough treatment of the passage. His conclusions are that 1 Corinthians 11 describes how all people are to partake, and that this requirement precludes infants from participating. So, if 1 Corinthians 10 comes in the context of 1 Corinthians 11, it wouldn’t matter whether the manna was sacramental or not, since chapter 11 would modify the participation aspect for today’s church.

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A Response to Tom Hicks on the Question of the Proper Subjects of Baptism, Part 5

March 5, 2020 at 8:55 am (Baptism, Church)

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.

The last section of Tom Hicks’s piece critiquing paedobaptism has to do with inconsistencies in the paedobaptist position. What I will show is that Mr. Hicks does not accurately describe the paedobaptism position, and thus the inconsistencies he sees do not exist.

The first two inconsistencies are very similar in form: the paedobaptist churches exclude people from baptism who shouldn’t be excluded, if the Old Testament circumcision inclusion is the pattern. This argument becomes clearer when he states, “Paedobaptists argue that infants should be incorporated into the covenant of grace on the basis of old covenant membership.” This is a bit unclear, since paedobaptists would not argue that we are members of the old covenant. Still, what Mr. Hicks is getting at, presumably, is this form of argument that paedos use: the position of children in the Old Testament covenants is analogous to their position in the New Testament covenant. But, by putting the argument this way, it appears that Hicks has not put the argument the way most paedos would put it. Children are not baptized on the basis of old covenant membership. We would instead say that infant inclusion in the Old Testament covenants is one argument among several arguments that children of believers ought to be baptized today.

Now for the two particular cases of exclusion he mentions, spouses and servants, I would respond by saying that there are aspects of discontinuity between Old Testament covenants and the New Testament covenant that explain the differences in how these two particular groups of people are seen. The basis of covenantal inclusion in the New Testament is faith (Galatians 3), or being the child of a professing believer (1 Cor. 7). In the Old Testament covenants, it was simply physical descent. So, for spouses, in the Old Testament covenants, they were included under the federal headship of the husband or father, but obviously could not receive the sign of circumcision, nor could any girl, for that matter. Mr. Hicks has to ignore this discontinuity in order to make the claim of inconsistency with regard to spousal treatment. If a spouse is an unbeliever today, she does not have the physical Israeli descent necessarily (presuming she was not baptized herself as an infant) to make the basis of baptism solid. But then paedos would never argue that Israeli descent would make baptism appropriate! The principle is that of households, yes, but adults who wish to be baptized should follow the pattern of Acts. Paedos merely deny that the general pattern of Acts is true for children, given what Peter says in Acts 2 about the promise being given for the children, and what Paul says in 1 Cor. 7 about the positional holiness of children of even one believing spouse.

With regard to servants, how many believing households today even have servants that can be reckoned as part of the household? Almost all servants today are day job employees who don’t live in the house they serve. If there was a situation, however, where a household had such a servant, I would be quite willing to baptize that person, though not against their will. There is no command in the New Testament to force baptism on people who reject the idea. And I would urge the servant to profess faith as well, by my sharing the gospel with him or her.

The third inconsistency Hicks sees is that paedobaptist churches will not baptize the children of non-professing baptized church members. There is direct biblical warrant for this practice in 1 Corinthians 7, contrary to Hicks’s position. Paul says in 1 Cor. 7:14 that the children of a believing parent are not unclean but holy. If that one parent is believing, then they should be professing their faith. When the church is assured that the parent is a believing parent (by profession of faith), then the children are regarded as positionally holy, and eligible for baptism. There may be a delay between the time when a believing parent says they believe and when they profess their faith in front of the church. However, I don’t know a single paedobaptist pastor who would allow a believing parent to continue indefinitely in a non-professing mode of church membership. That would be gross pastoral neglect.

The last inconsistency has really already been answered above with reference to the difference of the principle of covenant membership. Covenantal headship of the family remains similar between Old Testament covenants and the New Testament covenant. However, the basis for covenantal inclusion of households is different. In the Old Testament, it was descent from Abraham. In the New Testament, it is faith. These principles are biblically-theological related, in that faith is the new way of being Abraham’s children (Galatians 3). So, actually, I can turn the argument around and say that the profession of faith of a believer today is precisely the way we show continuity between the Abrahamic promises and the New Covenant!

I greatly appreciate the brotherly, kind way in which Mr. Hicks has engaged the paedobaptist position, and hope that, if he reads my response, he will take my critique as being given in the same way.

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A Response to Tom Hicks on the Question of the Proper Subjects of Baptism, Part 4

March 4, 2020 at 3:21 pm (Baptism, Church, Worship)

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

In part 3 of his critique of paedobaptism, Mr. Hicks attempts to argue that a proper understanding of the regulative principle of worship is inconsistent with infant baptism. His argument runs like this: 1. The RPW forbids any element of worship not explicitly commanded in the New Testament Scriptures. 2. Infant baptism is not explicitly commanded in the New Testament Scriptures. 3. Therefore, infant baptism falls foul of the RPW. He goes further to try to answer some Reformed responses. Some Reformed folk might respond by saying that OT circumcision is the route to consistency with the RPW. He answers that circumcision is only commanded in the OT. A second possible response is that infant baptism is only a circumstance, not an element. His response is that infant baptism is an element.

There are many ways to pursue an answer to this part of the argument, which I consider to be the weakest in the piece. He betrays a misunderstanding both of the RPW and the doctrine of infant baptism as understood by the Reformed. Firstly, he misunderstands the RPW. The RPW is not limited only to what is explicitly commanded in the NT Scriptures. An element could be implied by apostolic example. Secondly, there is more biblical-theological continuity between OT and NT worship than he allows. OT worship most certainly had the call to worship (present in many of the Psalms), singing of Psalms, preaching of the Word, prayer, and benediction, all things that are commanded in the NT (though benedictions only by example!).

Secondly, he misunderstands the Reformed view of infant baptism. He treats it as though Reformed folk believe it is a completely separate thing from an adult baptism. It is not so. The Reformed believe there is only one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. There is not a separate adult baptism element of worship and an infant baptism element of worship. There is only baptism. And baptism is commanded. Since the efficacy of baptism is not tied to the moment of its administration, it does not matter, in Reformed theology, whether the person comes to faith before, during, or after the sign is given. That is why infant baptism and adult baptism are the same thing.

His attempts to forestall objections fall short of the mark, since no Reformed theologian I know would claim that circumcision is what makes baptism allowable according to the NT RPW. It is rather in accordance with what is argued above: 1. Infant baptism is regular baptism; 2. Regular baptism is commanded by Jesus; therefore 3. Infant baptism is in accordance with the RPW. His other attempt to forestall is equally inaccurate, since there is no Reformed author of which I am aware who would even begin to claim that infant baptism is a circumstance. Baptism is an element, as all Reformed theologians agree.

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A Fractal Theory of Everything

March 3, 2020 at 11:45 am (Bible, History, Ph-Epistemology, Ph-Science, Philosophy, Theological Encyclopedia)

For those of my readers who don’t know what a fractal is, this short video explains it in a very compact and non-technical way, and I highly recommend you see that video before you read the rest of this post. I was talking with my father about fractals, and he alerted me to the explanatory powers of fractals. His idea was that no matter how small we go in quantum particles, there always seems to be a smaller kind of particle that makes up the next layer down. So my father theorized that atoms are fractals and that the number of particles one could find is actually endless. Then he combined that theory with the macro level in astrophysics. No matter how far out we go in space, there will always be more to explore. In other words, the universe has fractals in its DNA code on both the micro and the macro level. Mind you, this is only a theory!

I immediately started thinking of the way I had been studying history recently. I used to read generalist history books that were supposed to give me a grand feel for the scope of everything. I found them unutterably dull and boring, because they never adequately explained cause and effect for specific events. So I decided to switch my tactics and read enormous tomes about small events, to see if I could actually learn something about smaller fields of historical knowledge. I found the books infinitely more satisfying to read. I felt that I was really learning something.

All that about history is background to this paragraph. What I have discovered is that history is enormously more complicated than anyone likes to think. Even to describe the major causes why something happens involves enormous research. All historical writing inevitably over-simplifies the cause and effect relationships. Suppose that over-simplification is also infinite? Suppose the causation for any given act of history is actually a fractal? Certainly, cause and effect would go backwards in time to the very beginning. However, wouldn’t it also branch out going backwards? Can we say that a given event only had one cause without that cause being caused by a whole complex of further causes? Wouldn’t causation itself branch out in a fractal manner?

It doesn’t take much of a science fiction boost to this idea to see how it works in forward historical progress. As most people know, a very small change in present circumstances can drastically change the future. The possible futures branch out in a seemingly fractal way as well.

Then I thought about knowledge itself. Knowledge has been fragmenting ever since the Enlightenment. Kant wanted to separate the world of faith from the world of knowledge. In Kant’s world, there is a ceiling that prevents the noumenal world from being known (Kant rejected the idea of revelation, the noumenal world revealing itself to the phenomenal world). But if theology is not the queen of the sciences, as it was in the Middle Ages, then knowledge becomes very fragmented. Suppose, however, that knowledge itself is a sort of fractal? Obviously, it couldn’t be a fractal in the physical sense. However, if knowledge has a fractal-like aspect to it, then we can expect the specialization of disciplines to go on ad infinitum. Certainly, this would be true in the STEM fields if reality itself is fractal. If reality is fractal, then our knowledge of it would be so also. If we reject Kant’s construction, however, then the noumenal world is open to knowledge as well. God can reveal Himself to us, and we can know Him.

On this understanding of the physical world, the historical world, and the world of knowledge, there would be a super-fractal that connects these three worlds together. I believe that super-fractal is the Bible. It binds all knowledge, all history, and the physical universe together. If I am right about the Bible, then there will always be more in the Bible to discover, since it itself is a fractal. It will always have the same general shape of revelatory word following and explaining creationary or redemptive deed on God’s part. However, our understanding of that revelation will always be refining itself, not into something complete different, but in a deeper understanding of the same truths once for all revealed to the saints.

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Canons of Dort First Head, ROE 2 and the FV

March 1, 2020 at 1:15 pm (Federal Vision, Heresy)

I haven’t posted anything on the FV in quite a while. Although the hubbub is nowhere near what it used to be, the FV is still alive and well, with many proponents still teaching in NAPARC churches. While reminding people of this fact may not be pleasant, it is important to remember that we must still keep watch and maintain vigilance against false teaching in our churches, not to mention seeking to exercise real church discipline on them.

I hadn’t read through the Canons of Dort in quite a while, and I was reading Robert Godfrey’s outstanding contribution on the Canons of Dort, when this rejection of error (hence ROE in the title of the post) grabbed my attention as describing one of the key errors of the FV. This is Godfrey’s translation of the ROE:

The Synod rejects the error of those who teach:

“The election of God to eternal life is of several kinds. One is general and indefinite and another is particular and definite. Further, the particular and definite one either is incomplete, revocable, nondecisive, or conditional, or is complete, irrevocable, decisive, or absolute.” Also, “one election is to faith, and another to salvation, so that election can be to justifying faith, and another to salvation, so that election can be to justifying faith without being a decisive election to salvation.”

This teaching is an invention of the human understanding devised outside the Scriptures. It corrupts the doctrine of election, and destroys the golden chain of salvation: “Those whom He predestined, He also called; and those whom He called, He also justified; those whom He justified, He also glorified” (Rom. 8:30).

Notice, in this ROE, the following points. 1. Election can be of two main kinds, according to the Arminians: general and indefinite, or particular and definite. 2. The latter kind (particular and definite) can be further subdivided into two sub-categories: incomplete, revocable, nondecisive, conditional; or complete, irrevocable, decisive, and absolute. The response of Dort is that it destroys the golden chain of Romans 8.

My observation is a simple one, and though I have noticed this, I seriously doubt I am the first one to notice it, but noticing it has changed my perception of the FV a bit on its doctrine of election. I used to think that the FV was Calvinistic when it came to the decretally elect, and Arminian when it came to the non-elect covenant members (NECM’s). However, from this ROE, I can see clearly that, on this point, the FV is actually pure Arminianism without any admixture of Calvinism at all. The reason for this shift in my thinking is that Arminianism also held to these two different versions of election. The Arminian may not have put it in quite the same way as modern FV’ers would have. The modern FV’er would say that one is covenantal, and the other is decretal (though some FV’ers would deny decretal election entirely and say that all in the church are only covenantally elected). However, the Arminian formulation is so close to the FV one that the same objection applies to both. Perhaps this is due, too, to the misperception of Arminianism many people have. Many people think that the true Arminian has no doctrine of election. They do have a doctrine of election. However, that election is based on foreseen faith, so it is a different version of election than Calvinists have. It is my understanding that, on the point of decretal election, some FV’ers would repudiate the idea that God elects on the basis of foreseen faith. However, that point is different from the point I am making about the two different versions of election.

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