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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Validity of baptism from other churches?
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Og: Thread Killer
Ship's token CN Mennonite
# 3200
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Posted
Back to the OP's line of thinking:
In the more sacramental churches, would a previous BB non-sacramental baptism, sprinkled or not, be accepted as valid for joining?
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I wish I was seeking justice loving mercy and walking humbly but... "Cease to lament for that thou canst not help, And study help for that which thou lament'st."
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seasick
...over the edge
# 48
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Posted
If done with running water or by immersion in water and in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, then yes.
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We believe there is, and always was, in every Christian Church, ... an outward priesthood, ordained by Jesus Christ, and an outward sacrifice offered therein. - John Wesley
Posts: 5769 | From: A world of my own | Registered: May 2001
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
Og: Yes, because in spite of the belief of the Christian doing the baptism, the baptism would be a sacrament. We rely on God to be faithful, not the theological understanding of the person doing the job.
We've been poking around the edges of how far differing views on the nature of the sacraments are considered to bring their efficacy into question, in Catholic teaching in particular, but that's about the size of it.
Posts: 5748 | From: North East England | Registered: Jul 2003
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
quote:
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Originally posted by Gracious rebel:
From Psyduck
quote:
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you can't be a Calvinist and an evangelical, or a Calvinist and a Baptist
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Oh dear you've just written off my entire denomination
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I'd hate it to look as though I was writing off anybody, G-r, and I have no problem affirming your denomination as a grouping of Christian churches composed of brothers and sisters in Christ. (Whether or not they'd view me the same way!)
You only quoted me partially - maybe it was a bit that particularly got to you, and if so, I apologise. But what I said in full was: quote:
Well, I don't. With the best will in the world, I don't think that these people are Calvinists, but evangelicals who think they are Calvinist - and indeed say they are, which they have every right to do. They don't even have to explain the contradictions in their positions, if they don't want to. But on the basis of the unfolding of this thread, I'm reinforced in my own conviction that you can't be a Calvinist and an evangelical, or a Calvinist and a Baptist, without the kinds of contradictions that mean that you are only the one when you stop being the other momentarily. Specifically, I don't believe that the doctrine of grace implicit in believers' baptism is compatible with a Reformed position.
which is I hope a bit gentler.
But I do stand by what I meant. I simply can't understand how someone whose view of baptism is that it is the public profession and embracing of Christian faith, in an act we freely undertake, can simultaneously believe that the whole of salvation is God's work from beginning to end. The Reformed tradition baptises infants for a variety of convergent reasons; the Church/Israel Baptism/Circumcision one is one, but another is that, following Paul, baptism is connected with the death of Christ, which took place for us when we were powerless to accept or reject it. Salvation, in this tradition, is always something done for us which we could never have accomplished for ourselves, but it seems to me that there's nothing more Arminian (and not necessarily the worse for that) than believers' baptism as all its advocates on this thread have expounded it. Surely, believers' baptism is all about the cruciality of our response. That's why I just can't get my head round the fusion of BB with any sort of Calvinism.
Or rather - I can. And it really worries me. On the one hand you have a tradition which on its right wing emphasizes relentlessly election, predestination, the inscrutability of the Divine Decrees. On the other, you have a tradition which emphasizes a decisive, life-changing experience. What really worries me is that if you fuse them, you wind up with a hybrid theology that sees a particular kind of conversion experience as the guarantee of election. It's then terribly hard to avoid the temptation of saying that people who haven't had the same kind of experience as me aren't saved.
At least as bad - and maybe far worse - I've come across many people who have come to doubt their own conversion experiences within this kind of hybrid framework, sometimes because others have made them doubt if the experience they have had really is the Real Thing. In this framework you seem to have the danger (which doesn't seem to occur in an Arminian framework to the same degree, or in the same way) of people coming to be insecure about their own conversion experiences, and the theoretical possibility is there - which doesn't obtain in the same way in an Arminian setting - that this could all be some sort of terrible delusion, part not of election but of reprobation. And I've also come across one or two instances of this insecurity being exploited destructively by people who seem to want to erode the faith of others.
Calvin himself was so terribly circumspect about the conclusions that you could draw from subjective experience. You could, perhaps, know your own election, but never anyone else's. Which is basically the same as saying that you could know God's love, and trust it. The traditional Calvinist piety is a trusting in God's promises, and the traditional Calvinist sacramental piety is to take them in simple trust as means of grace. The heart of them is what God offers, not what we bring. Faith is what lets us see what God means by these great things. As the Westminster Confession says: quote:
Baptism is a sacrament of the New Testament, ordained by Jesus Christ, not only for the solemn admission of the party baptized into the visible Church, but also to be unto him a sign and seal of the covenant of grace, or his ingrafting into Christ, of regeneration, of remission of sins, and of his giving up unto God, through Jesus Christ, to walk in newness of life: which sacrament is, by Christ's own appointment, to be continued in his Church until the end of the world...Not only those that do actually profess faith in and obedience unto Christ, but also the infants of one or both believing parents are to be baptized...The efficacy of baptism is not tied to that moment of time wherein it is administered; yet, notwithstanding, by the right use of this ordinancy the grace promised is not only offered, but really exhibited and conferred by the Holy Ghost, to such (whether of age or infants) as that grace belongeth unto,[that's teh Calvinsit bit!!!] according to the counsel of God's own will, in his appointed time.
I hope that explains my difficulty, particularly as to believers' baptism.
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The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty.
"Lle rhyfedd i falchedd fod/Yw teiau ar y tywod." (Ieuan Brydydd Hir)
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
Psyduck - what stops you accepting that some people see baptism in the same way that they see any other work - not necessary for salvation, but necessarily springing from salvation?
That, ISTM, is a very simple way round your quandary about evangelical Calvinists.
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
You mean that the elect are predestined to seek a believer's baptism which isn't necessary for salvation but without which they aren't predestined to salvation, so aren't saved?
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The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty.
"Lle rhyfedd i falchedd fod/Yw teiau ar y tywod." (Ieuan Brydydd Hir)
Posts: 5433 | From: pOsTmOdErN dYsToPiA | Registered: Feb 2002
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Psyduck:
You mean that the elect are predestined to seek a believer's baptism which isn't necessary for salvation but without which they aren't predestined to salvation, so aren't saved?
Well, if you want to put it that way.
It's not my view, BTW, but I don't see why it can't fit into the general framework of evangelical Calvinism. It's just a "work of the "faith without works" variety, rather than the "works of the law" variety.
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He hath loved us, He hath loved us, because he would love
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
No doubt the theoretical physicists on the Ship can put me straight, but I'm told that there's a mathematical procedure called "Renormalization" which is used to "solve" certain problems - and that it involves something like divideng by zero then multiplying by infinity, so that essentially you get any answer you want. That's what that sounds like, to me.
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The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty.
"Lle rhyfedd i falchedd fod/Yw teiau ar y tywod." (Ieuan Brydydd Hir)
Posts: 5433 | From: pOsTmOdErN dYsToPiA | Registered: Feb 2002
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
Um..
Well I'm not entirely defending the position (not being a calvinist) but I think you have to add into the pot a dislike of the established church in general and Roman Catholicism in particular.
I might be wrong, but I guess this is the train of thought:
1. God elects some to be saved and ordains them from the beginning of time.
2. One becomes aware in this life that God has elected you.
3. That knowledge brings with it certain duties - including becoming a full and active member of a local church, taking regular communion with your brethren and being baptised by full immersion.
I think they would argue that baptising infants is the antithesis of calvinism in that you are welcoming individuals into the church, and only God can do that.
Personally, I don't think either argument really holds a whole lot of water (as it were) but baptising known believers into a radical faith makes more sense than baptising random individuals who may or may not embrace the faith.
But then the calvinism argument doesn't work for me because I think it is largely bunk.
C
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arse
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
Just had a thought, and that being such a rare occurence I thought I'd share it with everyone reading this thread.
Does anyone here think that we can baptise ourselves? If so, you can stop reading now.
Okay, those of you who're still with me - doesn't this shoot down in flames the idea that baptism is primarily our response to the gift of faith? It's about something done for us by God through the Church, surely.
So, as an infant, we don't have the power to reject the gift. As an adult, as we become increasingly self-possessed, we gain the power to refuse grace and also the power to refuse baptism by refusing to turn up. There's a difference here - it's not that a child can't give consent, but rather that an adult can refuse by turning away from God, if you like.
Is there anyone around who believes in the position that Cheesy presented earlier? That we should be careful not to baptise non-believers since it's a response to faith? Because if that's true then I'd be grateful for an answer to my argument about people falling away from faith in later life, and thus the impossibility of judging someone's faith with any accuracy.
The Reformed position seems to be, baptise 'em all, God knows his own, and the grace for which baptism is a vehicle is lifelong or even eternal. That's not far from what I'd say myself.
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
Well, for someone who doesn't believe it, Cheesy has done an excellent job of explaining the Calvinist position.
And has also pointed out my own problem with Psyduck's argument - which is that in infant baptism it is not God who chooses at all, nor the individual, but puts the power of salvation somewhere between the child's parents and the church.
To me this - salvation through baptism through the church ignorant of your own choice later in life was, as the Reformers saw, (along with eucharistic theology, indulgences etc.) a way of bulwarking the church's power. And removing people's personal responsbility for where they stand with God.
The legacy of that is, IME, hordes of "I'm all right Jack" nominal Christians who assume rightness with God because of a a ritual they have no understanding of, and which has no effect on their every day life, but have certainty that "the church" has magically blessed them at some point.
Now obviously this is not true of everyone who baptises infants or who was baptised as an infant by a long shot, nevertheless, I don't think it can be denied that it is something of a reality.
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He hath loved us, He hath loved us, because he would love
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
So, as an infant, we don't have the power to reject the gift. As an adult, as we become increasingly self-possessed, we gain the power to refuse grace and also the power to refuse baptism by refusing to turn up. There's a difference here - it's not that a child can't give consent, but rather that an adult can refuse by turning away from God, if you like.
Is there anyone around who believes in the position that Cheesy presented earlier? That we should be careful not to baptise non-believers since it's a response to faith? Because if that's true then I'd be grateful for an answer to my argument about people falling away from faith in later life, and thus the impossibility of judging someone's faith with any accuracy.
The Reformed position seems to be, baptise 'em all, God knows his own, and the grace for which baptism is a vehicle is lifelong or even eternal. That's not far from what I'd say myself.
I don't think that is a fair reflection of much of the Reformed beliefs I have come into contact with.
If you knowingly baptise or distribute communion to unbelievers, you heap judgement upon yourself.
Quite what happens to people who fall away is anyone's guess - but lets be clear, you bend over backwards to ensure 1) you baptise believers and 2) you teach and nurture them in the faith.
If they then fall away you suggest they deceived you and/or ask God to forgive your ignorant and wicked behaviour.
These things are so important that if you do it wrong, there are eternal consequences for the church as well as the individual.
C
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arse
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
Just had a thought, and that being such a rare occurence I thought I'd share it with everyone reading this thread.
Does anyone here think that we can baptise ourselves? If so, you can stop reading now.
Okay, those of you who're still with me - doesn't this shoot down in flames the idea that baptism is primarily our response to the gift of faith? It's about something done for us by God through the Church, surely.
Not really, if baptism is about you identifying yourself with the visible people of God. You can't do that for yourself, yet it is still your choice to seek that public recognition.
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
Leprechaun: quote:
Well, for someone who doesn't believe it, Cheesy has done an excellent job of explaining the Calvinist position.
Not really, alas. It crashes and burns with the second proposition. quote:
2. One becomes aware in this life that God has elected you.
It's perfectly possible for this not to happen. And it's perfectly possible for people to spend a devout lifetime going to church, and not know whether they're elect or not. Going to church, getting your child baptized, being baptized yourself if you weren't as a child - none of these things guarantee anything. Although oddly enough, they do make you a ChristianBelieve me, I'm not blind to the awfulness at the heart of much Calvinist thought.
And that's the point. For a Calvinist position, especially a rigorist one, baptism could only be about our response if it were nothing to do with grace. Because otherwise it would tie God's grace and our response together in such a way that there was a two-way dependence.
quote:
And has also pointed out my own problem with Psyduck's argument - which is that in infant baptism it is not God who chooses at all, nor the individual, but puts the power of salvation somewhere between the child's parents and the church.
Not at all. That just doesn't hold water. That's like saying that the saving power of the crucifixion lies somewhere between the arresting party and the soldiers at the foot of the cross.
That's why I quoted the Westminster Confession so fully above - which I forbear to do again for the sake of bandwidth. In baptism, as in everything else, all is grace. Baptism does two things: it confers a Christian identity, full stop - an identity which can of course be repudiated later; and it conveys the grace that God intends to be received to the soul intended to receive it.
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The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty.
"Lle rhyfedd i falchedd fod/Yw teiau ar y tywod." (Ieuan Brydydd Hir)
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Psyduck:
In baptism, as in everything else, all is grace. Baptism does two things: it confers a Christian identity, full stop - an identity which can of course be repudiated later; and it conveys the grace that God intends to be received to the soul intended to receive it.
But Psyduck - no one can confer this grace except the church. If baptism=saving grace, then how is this not the church conferring salvation regardless of the faith of the individual? This is the opposite of reformed thought, ISTM.
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Psyduck:
It's perfectly possible for this not to happen. And it's perfectly possible for people to spend a devout lifetime going to church, and not know whether they're elect or not. Going to church, getting your child baptized, being baptized yourself if you weren't as a child - none of these things guarantee anything. Although oddly enough, they do make you a ChristianBelieve me, I'm not blind to the awfulness at the heart of much Calvinist thought.
Actually, I think they would argue that it is not possible to go through this life unaware that you are part of the elect.
quote:
And that's the point. For a Calvinist position, especially a rigorist one, baptism could only be about our response if it were nothing to do with grace. Because otherwise it would tie God's grace and our response together in such a way that there was a two-way dependence.
To be clear - I don't know that they would say that it is about grace (or at least not in the way you would perhaps understand it). It is symbolic of something that has already occurred in the life of the individual - ie whilst we were still sinners, Christ died for us. In response we are to die to ourselves, and this is a public profession of those two things.
Grace is not something that is expressed widely, in this instance, but is something that has directly happened to me.
quote:
Not at all. That just doesn't hold water. That's like saying that the saving power of the crucifixion lies somewhere between the arresting party and the soldiers at the foot of the cross.
I don't understand, can you rephrase?
quote:
That's why I quoted the Westminster Confession so fully above - which I forbear to do again for the sake of bandwidth. In baptism, as in everything else, all is grace. Baptism does two things: it confers a Christian identity, full stop - an identity which can of course be repudiated later; and it conveys the grace that God intends to be received to the soul intended to receive it.
Here lies the fundamental difference in understanding. Baptism does not confer identity in itself. I am a christian therefore I am baptised. You cannot baptise children simply because they do not have the capacity to aknowledge their status as members of the elect.
Calvinist baptists would argue that you cannot repudiate it. God is overwealming.
When refering to the Westminister confession, it appears that we are actually discussing two different things, see my link above.
To summarise - the thinking is that because people who are baptised as infants clearly and demonstratably do not grow up to be Christians (and you will know them by their fruit) then you must be baptising a fair number of people who are not members of the elect. The biblical model is to baptise people who have shown themselves to be members of the elect in word and deed.
[just to make the point that I don't believe in this stuff and am struggling to put their views forward]
C
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arse
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cheesy*:
[just to make the point that I don't believe in this stuff and am struggling to put their views forward]
C
Cheese - what do you believe on the issue?
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
If baptism=saving grace, then how is this not the church conferring salvation regardless of the faith of the individual? This is the opposite of reformed thought, ISTM.
Psyduck, could you explain how being baptised, or not being baptised, is viewed in Reformed thought? Does it make any difference? This is the big problem for me with any form of Calvinism - nothing anybody does actually matters ultimately.
Now, Leprechaun has argued earlier that whether one is baptised or not doesn't matter, but it would be strange for someone who believed that to actively argue against infant baptism, as said infant baptism couldn't make the slightest bit of difference to - well, anything.
Is it the case that the grace conferred by the sacraments is viewed by the Reformed, as sanctifying but not saving? The Catholic side of me doesn't see a difference but my understanding is that evangelicals definitely would.
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Halo
Shipmate
# 6933
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Posted
Surely baptism of a baby is a different matter to baptism as an adult? A baby has no clue what is going on and is incapable of making a decision for themself, whereas an adult chooses to be baptised. What happens if the baby grows up and rejects God? Are they still 'baptised'? My understanding was that only believers should be baptised. Answers anyone?
Posts: 625 | From: The Land of the Long White Cloud | Registered: May 2004
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Psyduck
Ship's vacant look
# 2270
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Posted
Leprechaun: quote:
But Psyduck - no one can confer this grace except the church.
I'm not sure in what sense you mean this, but I don't think it's correct in the sense you seem to find objectionable. Could you explain your difficulty with this, please?
Cheesy: quote:
Actually, I think they [sc. Calvinist Baptists] would argue that it is not possible to go through this life unaware that you are part of the elect.
My point is that they wouold have to say this, otherwise their position on believers' baptism would make no sense at all. But it is a very major departure from traditional Calvinism, which asserts the contrary. (That's why the more liberal Calvinist traditions all very quickly arrived at the conclusion that the saved may very conceivably greatly outnumber the visible church.) Actually, by trying to tie the human act of consciously accepting immersion in water in a particular (church) context to a Calvinist theology, what Calvinist baptists do is to tie God's grace to an act of human willing - then say that that act of human willing is willed by God. It's an attempt to supply a guarantee that only Christians, i.e. the Elect, get baptized. And it winds up by making baptism a guarantee of election to the extent that it's limited to the elect. Either that, or, if baptism is not so stringently connected to a sense of election, and the possibility is kept open that people may be baptized who are not of the elect, which I suspect is the practical position such folk adopt - then why bother restricting baptism to adults anyway? It basically means what it means for infant-baptizing Calvinists, a sign of God's grace which is effective for those people who have that grace, and who in that case are really given it by the sacrament. In which case, again, why restrict it to adults?
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The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty.
"Lle rhyfedd i falchedd fod/Yw teiau ar y tywod." (Ieuan Brydydd Hir)
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Matrix
Shipmate
# 3452
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
quote:
Originally posted by Matrix:
Believer's baptism is the oldest form of Christian baptism, with the baptism of infants coming many centuries later.
Evidence?
My apologies for returning to this thread late. I have had a number of pressing engagements in the last few days.
Well, the biblical evidence is compelling. Beginning in Acts 2:41 with the baptism of those who accepted the message about Jesus, Acts 8 and Phillip in samaria "those who belived were baptised", Acts 9, Saul's conversion, followed by baptism, Acts 10 - Peter at the home of Cornelius, those who respond to the gospel are baptised. Acts 16 - Paul and Silas doing porridge in Phillipi - the jailers household are gather to hear the gospel, and they are all baptised, "The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them, he was filled with joy becuase he had come to believe in God - he and his whole family." (Acts 16:34)
The Bible knows nothing of infant baptism (if anyone can show me otherwise, then please do). It is a practice that devloped later (no-one knows for sure, but the evidence seems to indicate the practice began more than 200 years later) probably in response to a more devloped theology of original sin.
Regards
M
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Maybe that's all a family really is; a group of people who miss the same imaginary place. - Garden State
Posts: 3847 | From: The courts of the King | Registered: Oct 2002
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Matrix
Shipmate
# 3452
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Carys:
As others have asked where is the evidence that the baptism of infants came centuries later? The whole households in Acts point towards infant baptism IMO. Even if, as I have heard some evangelicals claim, there were no infants in those households,*
I'm genuinely struggling to think of other examples of households being baptised then the two i mention - Cornelius and the Phillipian Jailer. It's not a case of evangelicals claiming, but the bible being clear in these two instances, that it is those who responded to the gospel who were baptised.
If there are other examples in Acts that clearly indicate differently, and i have forgotten them, please fogive me a genuine mistake.
Warm regards
M
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Maybe that's all a family really is; a group of people who miss the same imaginary place. - Garden State
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
Matrix, your evidence shifts the goalposts, by arguing that because believers were baptised, believer's baptism is true.
Much as Zwinglians, in my opinion, respond to the texts implying Real Presence with those implying that the Eucharist is a memorial.
A prooftext that shows someone believed and was baptised, is useless as a prooftext to preclude infant baptism unless you believe that we're saying only infants can be baptised.
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Halo:
Surely baptism of a baby is a different matter to baptism as an adult? A baby has no clue what is going on and is incapable of making a decision for themself, whereas an adult chooses to be baptised. What happens if the baby grows up and rejects God? Are they still 'baptised'? My understanding was that only believers should be baptised. Answers anyone?
I have a question instead. Are you an Arminian?
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
I have a question instead. Are you an Arminian?
and me...do you believe repentance is a choice?
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He hath loved us, He hath loved us, because he would love
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
and me...do you believe repentance is a choice?
Me? Yes, and a lifelong process, and a failure to do so is also a choice. Otherwise we're puppets and have no culpability for our actions.
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Trisagion
Shipmate
# 5235
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Halo:
My understanding was that only believers should be baptised. Answers anyone?
Perhaps you should first answer, for yourself, why your understanding is that and on the basis of what evidence.
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ceterum autem censeo tabula delenda esse
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
Sorry wrote a post but lost it whilst on the phone.
Basically I think that baptism is a nailing of your flag to the mast and is saying that yes, I believe this stuff.
Baptising infants makes no sense in my opinion.
But then, I'm not worried about giving communion and/or baptism to the wrong people - cos that is something between the individual and God and only they know if they have done it for the wrong reasons.
I hold no truck with calvinism, which I believe is divisive nonsense. If there are an elect there are some whose lives are ultimately pointless and were always destined for destruction. I don't believe in a God who makes crap.
C
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arse
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daisymay
St Elmo's Fire
# 1480
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
Just had a thought, and that being such a rare occurence I thought I'd share it with everyone reading this thread.
Does anyone here think that we can baptise ourselves? If so, you can stop reading now.
Okay, those of you who're still with me - doesn't this shoot down in flames the idea that baptism is primarily our response to the gift of faith? It's about something done for us by God through the Church, surely.
Actually, I do think we could baptise ourselves. If there was a problem of, maybe, having no church, no believers near us then why not baptise ourself?
When I was young, I waited till I came of age till I was baptised, because my family were totally against it. If there had been greater problems and I hadn't done that, maybe been shut up at home, I think I'd have done it myself, probably ina bath or even a shower.
Why would it not be valid? the only problem would be the public bit of baptism, and that might be a baptism that a church would ask to repeat. I can imagine a church doing that and affirming the original stance of the believer, but saying they were giving them the chance to do it publicly.
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London
Flickr fotos
Posts: 11224 | From: London - originally Dundee, Blairgowrie etc... | Registered: Oct 2001
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daisymay
St Elmo's Fire
# 1480
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
Is there anyone around who believes in the position that Cheesy presented earlier? That we should be careful not to baptise non-believers since it's a response to faith?
Churches I belonged to always had that stance. Before you were baptised, you had to go through a teaching course, then be interviewd by senior members of the congregation, who then reported back to the members' meeting, who then voted on whether to accept the person/s wanting baptism, who would then normally be admitted also to full membership in a service at the end of the baptism, which also had communion as well as the right hand of fellowship. There would have to be a testimony at your baptism service.
I once belonged to a church that practised that position toughly. Only once, a young woman was refused. That felt horrible. She joined another local church who were fully willing to accept her.
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London
Flickr fotos
Posts: 11224 | From: London - originally Dundee, Blairgowrie etc... | Registered: Oct 2001
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daisymay
St Elmo's Fire
# 1480
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Posted
I'm going to have the record for triple posting ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif)
Greyface:
quote:
Now, Leprechaun has argued earlier that whether one is baptised or not doesn't matter, but it would be strange for someone who believed that to actively argue against infant baptism, as said infant baptism couldn't make the slightest bit of difference to - well, anything.
It causes problems if you want to get baptised as an adult ina church that regards an infant baptism as a proper baptism. You either have to pretend it never happened or get "conditional" baptism.
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London
Flickr fotos
Posts: 11224 | From: London - originally Dundee, Blairgowrie etc... | Registered: Oct 2001
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Matrix
Shipmate
# 3452
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
Matrix, your evidence shifts the goalposts, by arguing that because believers were baptised, believer's baptism is true.
Not at all, i originally argued that believers' baptism is the oldest form. I then show that it is the only form that scripture knows. My argument that infant baptism came later is based on its absence from scripture and that it isn't referred to until a few centuries later.
Warm regards
M
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Maybe that's all a family really is; a group of people who miss the same imaginary place. - Garden State
Posts: 3847 | From: The courts of the King | Registered: Oct 2002
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
Now, Leprechaun has argued earlier that whether one is baptised or not doesn't matter, but it would be strange for someone who believed that to actively argue against infant baptism, as said infant baptism couldn't make the slightest bit of difference to - well, anything.
Well yes, which is why I go to a church which doesn't make either form a precondition of membership. MY ideal is that someone uses their baptism as a profession of their own faith, but I'm more than willing to accept otherwise.
Psyduck - what I mean is this: who ACTUALLY makes the decision that the child is dunked in water? The church. And you say that ritual imparts grace. So the church imparts saving grace to people - rather than God. Unless I am misunderstanding completely.
This is, incidentally, the abuse of baptism that I actually see day by day with some of my lapsed Catholic workmates - with the priest who hold the threat of the child missing out on grace as a way to manipulate parents back to church, or to make sure they have "proper" Catholic godparents.
Now this isn't against infant baptism per se - as I have no problem with those who see it as nothing more than a covenant sign - but I think it is a real danger when it comes to accepting baptismal regneration, and I actually think, from when I worked for an Anglican church that the whole infant baptismal set up encourages this tye of "I/my child has been done, so I/they are ok." which is a false assurance offered by a church which is unable to, in reality, offer such assurance.
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matrix:
Not at all, i originally argued that believers' baptism is the oldest form.
No, you didn't. Your logic is faulty.
You showed that believers were baptised. You did not show that infants were not baptised, and so you did not show that the believer's baptism doctrine (which is that only those capable of an adult confession of faith should be baptised) is the oldest form.
Posts: 5748 | From: North East England | Registered: Jul 2003
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
Psyduck - what I mean is this: who ACTUALLY makes the decision that the child is dunked in water? The church. And you say that ritual imparts grace. So the church imparts saving grace to people - rather than God. Unless I am misunderstanding completely.
Do you think that God does not act through the Church? That the only vehicle of grace is a direct channel to the soul, or something?
What about when the Church tells someone the Gospel and that person responds? Do you have a problem with that?
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Matrix
Shipmate
# 3452
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
quote:
Originally posted by Matrix:
Not at all, i originally argued that believers' baptism is the oldest form.
No, you didn't. Your logic is faulty.
You showed that believers were baptised. You did not show that infants were not baptised, and so you did not show that the believer's baptism doctrine (which is that only those capable of an adult confession of faith should be baptised) is the oldest form.
The please forgive my illogical argument and correct me by showing me an earlier example of infant baptism. Thanks.
Regards
M
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Maybe that's all a family really is; a group of people who miss the same imaginary place. - Garden State
Posts: 3847 | From: The courts of the King | Registered: Oct 2002
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matrix:
The please forgive my illogical argument and correct me by showing me an earlier example of infant baptism. Thanks.
I don't have to. I'm not asserting that infant baptism is demonstrably the oldest form.
Am I not explaining this very well? I'm saying that your arguments for believer's baptism prove nothing because the sacramental view of baptism includes the baptism of believers.
The doctrine of believer's baptism precludes the baptism of infants, so if you manage to deny that the household of Cornelius et al included infants, then you still have to provide some other biblical evidence of a refusal to baptise an infant, in order to prove your assertion.
Does that makes sense yet?
[ 23. March 2005, 14:42: Message edited by: GreyFace ]
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
quote:
Originally posted by Matrix:
The please forgive my illogical argument and correct me by showing me an earlier example of infant baptism. Thanks.
I don't have to. I'm not asserting that infant baptism is demonstrably the oldest form.
Am I not explaining this very well? I'm saying that your arguments for believer's baptism prove nothing because the sacramental view of baptism includes the baptism of believers.
The doctrine of believer's baptism precludes the baptism of infants, so if you manage to deny that the household of Cornelius et al included infants, then you still have to provide some other biblical evidence of a refusal to baptise an infant, in order to prove your assertion.
Does that makes sense yet?
How about the statement - believe and be baptised?
Returning to the OP, I think the last two pages illustrate perfectly what I have been trying to say about a different mindset.
C
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arse
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
Psyduck - what I mean is this: who ACTUALLY makes the decision that the child is dunked in water? The church. And you say that ritual imparts grace. So the church imparts saving grace to people - rather than God. Unless I am misunderstanding completely.
Do you think that God does not act through the Church? That the only vehicle of grace is a direct channel to the soul, or something?
I believe the only vehicle of saving grace is the message of the Gospel whether heard at church, read in the Bible, picked up froma street person handing out tracts - whatever. No church structure, IMO, holds the copyright to the formula of saving grace, neither does any church ritual.
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He hath loved us, He hath loved us, because he would love
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
I believe the only vehicle of saving grace is the message of the Gospel
Then those who don't hear the Gospel are off to warmer climes, in your opinion?
I didn't say saving grace, either. I don't make the distinction between saving grace and sanctifying grace to be honest, but I think you do.
Do you not believe in sanctification by the power of the Holy Spirit, for example? Or only by an individual's response to the Gospel after saving grace has been imparted by God allowing (some of) us to hear it clearly? As a kind of working towards holiness in which God is not involved other than as originator?
Posts: 5748 | From: North East England | Registered: Jul 2003
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Gracie
Shipmate
# 3870
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Psyduck:
...I'm reinforced in my own conviction that you can't be a Calvinist and an evangelical, or a Calvinist and a Baptist, without the kinds of contradictions that mean that you are only the one when you stop being the other momentarily. Specifically, I don't believe that the doctrine of grace implicit in believers' baptism is compatible with a Reformed position.
...But I do stand by what I meant. I simply can't understand how someone whose view of baptism is that it is the public profession and embracing of Christian faith, in an act we freely undertake, can simultaneously believe that the whole of salvation is God's work from beginning to end. The Reformed tradition baptises infants for a variety of convergent reasons; the Church/Israel Baptism/Circumcision one is one, but another is that, following Paul, baptism is connected with the death of Christ, which took place for us when we were powerless to accept or reject it. Salvation, in this tradition, is always something done for us which we could never have accomplished for ourselves, but it seems to me that there's nothing more Arminian (and not necessarily the worse for that) than believers' baptism as all its advocates on this thread have expounded it. Surely, believers' baptism is all about the cruciality of our response. That's why I just can't get my head round the fusion of BB with any sort of Calvinism.
Or rather - I can. And it really worries me. On the one hand you have a tradition which on its right wing emphasizes relentlessly election, predestination, the inscrutability of the Divine Decrees. On the other, you have a tradition which emphasizes a decisive, life-changing experience. What really worries me is that if you fuse them, you wind up with a hybrid theology that sees a particular kind of conversion experience as the guarantee of election. It's then terribly hard to avoid the temptation of saying that people who haven't had the same kind of experience as me aren't saved.
At least as bad - and maybe far worse - I've come across many people who have come to doubt their own conversion experiences within this kind of hybrid framework, sometimes because others have made them doubt if the experience they have had really is the Real Thing. In this framework you seem to have the danger (which doesn't seem to occur in an Arminian framework to the same degree, or in the same way) of people coming to be insecure about their own conversion experiences, and the theoretical possibility is there - which doesn't obtain in the same way in an Arminian setting - that this could all be some sort of terrible delusion, part not of election but of reprobation. And I've also come across one or two instances of this insecurity being exploited destructively by people who seem to want to erode the faith of others.
Calvin himself was so terribly circumspect about the conclusions that you could draw from subjective experience. You could, perhaps, know your own election, but never anyone else's. Which is basically the same as saying that you could know God's love, and trust it. The traditional Calvinist piety is a trusting in God's promises, and the traditional Calvinist sacramental piety is to take them in simple trust as means of grace. The heart of them is what God offers, not what we bring. Faith is what lets us see what God means by these great things...
Psyduck, I'll take it that what you posted here and subsequently was also replying to my earlier questions which you said you would come back to.
I think the difference basically is (and this probably concurs with a lot of what Cheesy had posted since) that evangelicals or baptist evangelicals who consider themselves to be Calvinists would not be of the opinion that baptism did anything to change one's status before God.
I think it's possible to believe that God is the initiator of our salvation in Christ, and that it is all his work, and still have room to an individual response to that. If we believe that it is in God's nature to reveal himself, surely it is not impossible to believe that he would reveal himself to his elect, and that his elect would have the desire to identify with him, whilst recognising that their very desire to identify with him, is a gift from God?
The problem I see with infant baptism from a Calvinistic point of view (though of course, I realise that Calvin himself taught infant baptism) is that if baptism itself changes one's status before God, it is no longer God who is at work for our salvation.
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When someone is convinced he’s an Old Testament prophet there’s not a lot you can do with him rationally. - Sine
Posts: 1090 | From: En lieu sûr | Registered: Dec 2002
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Matrix
Shipmate
# 3452
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
quote:
Originally posted by Matrix:
The please forgive my illogical argument and correct me by showing me an earlier example of infant baptism. Thanks.
I don't have to. I'm not asserting that infant baptism is demonstrably the oldest form.
Am I not explaining this very well? I'm saying that your arguments for believer's baptism prove nothing because the sacramental view of baptism includes the baptism of believers.
The doctrine of believer's baptism precludes the baptism of infants, so if you manage to deny that the household of Cornelius et al included infants, then you still have to provide some other biblical evidence of a refusal to baptise an infant, in order to prove your assertion.
Does that makes sense yet?
Oh, it makes perfect sense.
What i am saying, and perhaps you are struggling to understand, is that the oldest form of Christian baptism is in fact believers' baptism. I prove this by showing from the earliest records that the only people baptised were believers. If you can show me that there are accounts that are earlier that demonstrate the baptism of infants (who cannot be believers) then please do. Otherwise i think the evidence is clear, and i'd thank you for not casting aspersions on my ability to understand an argument.
Warm regards
M
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Maybe that's all a family really is; a group of people who miss the same imaginary place. - Garden State
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matrix:
What i am saying, and perhaps you are struggling to understand, is that the oldest form of Christian baptism is in fact believers' baptism. I prove this by showing from the earliest records that the only people baptised were believers.
![[brick wall]](graemlins/brick_wall.gif) This does not prove it, because the other forms of baptism baptise believers too.
I'm not casting aspersions on your ability to understand my argument. I'm explicitly stating that you don't understand it, or you would not be able to write what you just wrote.
This is most likely because of my inability to explain myself - please don't take offence. I can't see how to do a better job of it though, so I'll give up.
I would however, want to ask you why you're so certain that the various households that were baptised had no young children.
Posts: 5748 | From: North East England | Registered: Jul 2003
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
Do you not believe in sanctification by the power of the Holy Spirit, for example? Or only by an individual's response to the Gospel after saving grace has been imparted by God allowing (some of) us to hear it clearly? As a kind of working towards holiness in which God is not involved other than as originator?
All through the Gospel GF. That's why I need to hear it as much after I am a Christian as before.
ETA Gracie ![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif) exactly what I meant to say.
[ 23. March 2005, 15:19: Message edited by: Leprechaun ]
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
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Matrix
Shipmate
# 3452
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
[ This does not prove it, because the other forms of baptism baptise believers too.
Perhaps we are constantly misunderstadning each other, in which case we may have to abandon this in avoidance of ulcers and migraines, but are you suggesting that in the practice of infant baptism, the infant is a believer?
Regards
M
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Maybe that's all a family really is; a group of people who miss the same imaginary place. - Garden State
Posts: 3847 | From: The courts of the King | Registered: Oct 2002
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matrix:
Perhaps we are constantly misunderstadning each other, in which case we may have to abandon this in avoidance of ulcers and migraines, but are you suggesting that in the practice of infant baptism, the infant is a believer?
A potential one, but that's not my point.
Say you had a group of twenty people, ten men and ten women. Say then that you had a news report of five of them doing something newsworthy, like perhaps getting drunk and assaulting a policeman. The news report describes in detail three noteworthy contributions to the incident, attributed to Thomas, Richard and Harold. It further says that a family was involved at one point.
What could you conclude? You could definitely conclude that some men were assaulting the police. You could not definitely conclude that none of the women were involved, and the mention of the family implies that some of the women were sticking the boot in too, though does not conclusively prove it.
Likewise, believers being baptised does not prove that infants were not being baptised, and the households mentioned in the Bible suggest to me that infants probably were but this evidence is not conclusive.
Am I doing any better?
Posts: 5748 | From: North East England | Registered: Jul 2003
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Matrix
Shipmate
# 3452
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
quote:
Originally posted by Matrix:
Perhaps we are constantly misunderstadning each other, in which case we may have to abandon this in avoidance of ulcers and migraines, but are you suggesting that in the practice of infant baptism, the infant is a believer?
A potential one, but that's not my point.
Say you had a group of twenty people, ten men and ten women. Say then that you had a news report of five of them doing something newsworthy, like perhaps getting drunk and assaulting a policeman. The news report describes in detail three noteworthy contributions to the incident, attributed to Thomas, Richard and Harold. It further says that a family was involved at one point.
What could you conclude? You could definitely conclude that some men were assaulting the police. You could not definitely conclude that none of the women were involved, and the mention of the family implies that some of the women were sticking the boot in too, though does not conclusively prove it.
Likewise, believers being baptised does not prove that infants were not being baptised, and the households mentioned in the Bible suggest to me that infants probably were but this evidence is not conclusive.
Am I doing any better?
You are, but the problem with your argument now is that the scripture passages specifically state that it was those who believed that were baptised. They are not as vague as you seem to want to make them out to be.
Yes, in another place, unrecorded, they may have baptised infants - we don't know. I concede that. But, one could argue that because the bible doesn't say whether or not they baptised their cattle we may as well do that too.
Really, if you have an early example of infant baptism that can show me i'm wrong then please share it and i'll happily re-evaluate my theology of baptism.
Kind regards
M
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Maybe that's all a family really is; a group of people who miss the same imaginary place. - Garden State
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matrix:
but the problem with your argument now is that the scripture passages specifically state that it was those who believed that were baptised. They are not as vague as you seem to want to make them out to be.
No, but the statement that those who believed were baptised, is not an exclusive one. It's like saying
Oranges are fruit
Apples are not oranges
Therefore apples are not fruit
Believers were baptised
Infants are too young to believe
The children of believers were not baptised
quote:
Yes, in another place, unrecorded, they may have baptised infants - we don't know. I concede that. But, one could argue that because the bible doesn't say whether or not they baptised their cattle we may as well do that too.
Quite right, but I'm not arguing from silence alone. You haven't addressed the argument about households, have you? Nothing suggests to me that a cow would be considered a member of the household. I don't know whether children were for certain, but if I had to guess I'd say they were.
[fixed code]
[ 23. March 2005, 17:24: Message edited by: John Holding ]
Posts: 5748 | From: North East England | Registered: Jul 2003
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Matrix
Shipmate
# 3452
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
You haven't addressed the argument about households, have you? Nothing suggests to me that a cow would be considered a member of the household. I don't know whether children were for certain, but if I had to guess I'd say they were.
Yes i have.
There are two that i remember recorded in Acts (if i've missed some others, then please someone let us know). The households of Cornelius and the Phillipian jailer. In the accounts of both of these it is explicit that it is the believers who are baptised. If you want to suggest that infants were too then you are arguing against the record.
Regards
M
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Maybe that's all a family really is; a group of people who miss the same imaginary place. - Garden State
Posts: 3847 | From: The courts of the King | Registered: Oct 2002
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Trisagion
Shipmate
# 5235
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
You haven't addressed the argument about households, have you?
Neither has there been any attempt to answer the argument from Tradition. Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Origen and Cyprian of Carthage all attest to this practice as part of normal practice. They were all writing before the Canon of Scripture was fixed and at a time when the Church was extremely fractious. If infant baptism had been an issue when Irenaeus was writing (c190AD), we'd certainly know about it. It may be inconvenient for those who espouse BOB (Believers Only Baptism), but it is the immemorial practice of the Christian Community to baptise infants, whereas their own practice is an post-medieval innovation.
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ceterum autem censeo tabula delenda esse
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