No Baptism, No Justification -- Thoughts on article?

If you read my entire post again, I think you might find that I accounted for this.

 

I understand what you are saying, but the church (i.e., tradition) should be utilized to help interpret scripture when it is unclear, and not to override what is already made clear by scripture. It seems clear enough that salvation comes by God's grace through faith, and infants are incapable of having faith. It seems incongruous with the N.T. to suppose that a baby might be spiritually regenerated through the outward acts of other people (parents). It isn't as if I am alone in this understanding of the Bible, either. Thus I interpret Jesus' words in John 3 in such a way as to harmonize with the whole of the N.T.

 

We aren't saying the same thing. A psychological state is not limited to emotions. Some of you may not have put it in terms of "psychological states", but that is ultimately what it amounts to. You and others are saying, very clearly, that faith is something 'inner' in contrast to 'outer' things that cannot save us. I am saying this is wrong.

This is simply one (internal) mental state contrasted with others. Not assenting to the gospel then becomes a thought crime, and Christianity cast in those terms then looks like an awful lot like a religious version of North Korea.

Framing the doctrine of salvation this way completely misses the point. I would encourage everyone here to carefully re-read the Sermon on the Mount, or the Olivet Discourse. Jesus' message was every bit as much about 'obedience' as it was about 'belief', with neither prioritized over the other. Abraham's faith was not merely that he believed God would provide a substitute for Isaac, but included the fact that he actually did something about it. The belief and the action are not opposed realities; the action is what made it a true act of faith. The offering of Isaac was not a result of Abraham's faith; it was Abraham's faith.

The socially conditioned need to divide the perceived world exclusively into 'inner' and 'outer' zones is a legacy of the 'ghost-in-the-machine' anthropology of the early Enlightenment. It is being illegitimately read back into statements in the Bible, the Fathers, the Creeds and Confessions, etc., without any textual basis. And it is warping what the Gospel message actually is, with observable, practical consequences.

Really? Evangelical and charismatic congregations are filled with such people. But that isn't the specific position I'm arguing against here. What we're talking about is broader than that.

 

That was me. And to be clear, I only said it for the things in which Burnet departed from historic orthodoxy. He was one of the founders of Latitudinarianism, ie. theological liberalism, do doctrines where this was manifested he cannot be followed. But where he follows orthodox teaching, yeah, he’s as good a teacher as any other.

With all due respect, it does NOT seem clear. It only has the appearance of obviousness, once one has surrounded himself with a stack of 12-15 books, all which agree with each other, and together create the illusion of inevitability. I guarantee you that Roman Catholics read those same passages, surrounded with their own 12-15 books, and RC doctrine seems “very clearly” taught there to them. Whom we surround ourselves by makes all the difference.

Faith as faithfulness.

 

I disagree with that characterization, though, and I'll explain why:

• 'Latitudinarianism' wasn't a specific set of doctrines; it meant different things in different times and circumstances.
• The reason Burnet was sometimes described as a 'Latitudinarian' was because he was an avowed Arminian at a time when the Church of England clergy was dominated by Calvinists.
• He was not a 'Latitudinarian' in the sense of either
  • eschewing doctrinal precision, or
  • tolerating Unitarianism, or
  • prioritizing 'the light of Reason' over everything else, as the Cambridge Platonists did.

I have read Burnet, and I have read Schleiermacher, and plenty of other theologians between, before, and after. If there is a line of logical development (though not necessarily historical dependence) leading from Burnet - who clearly favored strict "original meaning" construction of confessional statements, even when they seemed to disagree with his preferences - to Schleiermacher - who allowed for 'broadness' by redefining practically every word of the traditional Confessions, I don't see it. But we need not quarrel over such things here, as I think we agree that at least regarding the topic at hand, Burnet was a faithful witness to historic orthodoxy.

Exactly.

 

The problem with your concept is that it dips into (or at least perilously close to) the error of the Galatians and the error of the Roman Catholics. It elevates one's actions to the same justifying status as faith. By what measuring stick would one measure the point at which a man's deeds are sufficient vs. insufficient? One can never have any sense of assurance of one's right standing with God by grace, because one always doubts whether he has performed enough.

Every Christian is in a constant state of partial obedience and partial (if not mostly) disobedience. We do all sorts of things we shouldn't. We fail to do things we should do. It's the same every day, maybe every hour! If you were to define faith as belief plus deeds, you would make the deeds a part of the "justification by faith." This would be heresy.

'Salvation by grace through beliefs plus actions' is just another name for 'salvation through works.' But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace (Romans 11:6).

 

Genuine faith produces faithfulness, and (as a general proposition) we might say, 'the greater the faith, the greater the faithfulness.' But faith does not equal faithfulness (i.e., they are not identical) and should not be conflated.

 

There's that inner/outer dichotomy again. The error of the Galatians was in requiring that converts to Christianity first become Jews, i.e., entering one covenant before entering the other. Faith is action; nothing in the actual text of Galatians says otherwise.

No one is trying to earn anything, and in any case Anglicans do not believe it possible to have complete 'assurance of salvation' in the way that Baptists do. God elected the Israelites before they had done anything, or were even aware of it. The Israelites did not keep the Mosaic commandments in order to earn God's favor; they kept the commandments in order to stay in God's favor (e.g., remain in the land, rule themselves, etc.). Those promises were not made to Gentiles, therefore there is no reason for them to become Jews in order to follow the Jewish Messiah, whose kingdom "is not of this world", and whose promises do not concern a particular people, place, or time, but concern all people, everywhere, at all times. The prescribed means of entering that covenant are accordingly different than those required to become Jews. By using Galatians in their polemical exchanges with loyalists to Rome, what the Reformers were in effect saying was that Rome had invented a different covenant, i.e., a different set of promises and responsibilities, than that required by Jesus and proclaimed by the apostles. We are not justified in taking those 16th century polemics and then reading them back into 1st century Judaism. No one in first century Judaism believed the purpose of the Mosaic Law was for individual Jews to "earn salvation", and the very concept would probably have been entirely novel to them. Neither Jesus nor Paul said "belief alone is sufficient"; an understanding of these things that excludes any role for the body and the physical world is tantamount to Gnosticism. Mainstream American Christianity is basically Gnostic in its orientation, and one doesn't have to look that hard or that far to recognize it.

Correct. It is grace - better rendered 'favor' - not 'faith', that is contrasted with 'works', and not just any works, but 'the works of the law'. Also, the Pauline epistles are occasional letters, not dense works of philosophy, or systematic theology, or biblical commentaries. We cannot read Paul the way we would read Plato, Aristotle, or Philo of Alexandria. Look at all the different ways Paul speaks just in Romans 5:

• "we are justified by faith" (5:1)
  
• "we have now been justified by his blood" (5:9)
  
• "we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son" (5:10)
  
• "one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all" (5:18)
• "through the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous" (5:19)

One cannot take isolated statements in Paul and then use them to create a whole metaphysical system in which inner spiritual acts are inherently opposed to outward physical ones. That kind of separation is alien to the Torah and to Paul.

Again, that is either a distinction without a difference, or it is a reading into the Scriptures of a dichotomy that is not actually found there and cannot be derived from them. If faith is something you do in order to 'receive' grace, then by your terminology it is a 'work', and it matters not if it is totally confined within the solitude of one's own mind or not. That is not what Paul taught; rather, faith "is not your own doing, it is the gift of God" (Eph. 2:8). So, it is not our faith at all, whether defined as "belief" (Gr. pistis) or "trust" (Lt: fides) or "the whole system of Christianity" (cf. Burnet), that effects grace in us, but the faith of Christ, which included his obedience (cf. Romans 5:19). If the Scriptures, and not American revivalism, are going to set the parameters for the terminology we use to describe the work of God in us, there is no escaping this conclusion.

 

But it wouldn't, I suppose, be the first time you along with many others may be misunderstanding the basis upon which infants are baptised. Baptists and those influenced by Baptist a priori misconceptions are most prone to this delusion.

salvation does not come through aquiring faith, even for adults. Salvation comes directly from God freely through grace. It is a gift. WE do not aquire it. It is only heard about and believed to be true, ( through faith ). That grace of God existed and is set aside, for each individual before even the foundation of the earth.

Temporily speaking there comes a time in many people's lives when faith opens a path to understanding how Gracious God has been and is to them, a sinner. But before they ever believed and had faith in God's grace toward them, "Christ died for them, while yet they were still unbelieving sinners" God's grace is not withheld from anyone in the human race through lack of faith in it. Only the knowledge of it and the appreciation of its value is missing from that nonbelieving soul which is ignorant of its spiritual inheritance. They simply have not yet found that 'pearl of Great Price' for which selling EVERYTHING one has, is an infinitely wise investment.

The 'treasure' in the field existed before the man ever found it. Discovering it made him WANT to own it. Only by buying the field could he legitimately claim it for himself. Only by letting go of everything else he owned could the merchant posess that priceless pearl. Both are illustrations of the nature of The Kingdom and entry to the Kingdom is what baptism both adult and infant, facilitates. It allows us to walk on God's property, even go treasure hunting on it, even buy whole parcels of it for ourselves (in a spiritual sense).

It's just that infants have a lot more to learn than adults about who owns the field, where the estate agent lives to buy the land from and where the actual treaure buried for them is hidden. God has that adventure all planned for them like a dungeon and dragons game. All the possibilities are there for them to find what God wanted them to find all along.

After baptism they have a licence from God to dig, and an 'atonement' metal detector supplied by Jesus Christ nigh 2000 years ago. If they dont hit pay dirt its because THEY haven't searched diligently enough. God's even given them a map. A personal assurance of salvation by God's grace is 'finding the treasure' or 'buying the pearl'. It is only very indirectly to do with 'belief' or 'faith' and neither are anyting to be boasted about or require effort, because both are gifts of God, not of our own making. If a parent keeps their side of the covenant bargain with God, their offspring cannot fail to find that treasure sometime in their life. Result = Assurance of Salvation.
.

 

I would also like to point out that "the works of the law" are not the individual's own works. What are "the works of the law" (non-exhaustively)?:

• Circumcision
• Dietary Laws
• Keeping the Feasts
• Observing the Sabbath

If a Judaizing convert received circumcision, who was doing the circumcising? Obviously not the convert himself, but rather someone within the Jewish community - perhaps a priest or a Levite - who was authorized to perform it in the prescribed manner. What about the dietary laws? The convert himself wouldn't be the one sacrificing the meat: only a priest could do that. The same goes for keeping the Feasts, which included specific sacrifices. The Sabbath, too, is not a mere individual obligation, but something that is meant to be observed in community. So "the works of the law" were not the sort of thing the convert could do on his own but rather were the things that would be done by the community as a whole, with different portions participated in different ways by different parts of the community. Without such a community, performing "the works of the law" would be impossible for a convert. So the contrast is not between what the convert does/thinks/feels inwardly vs. what the convert does outwardly, but rather signifies that set of arrangements to which the convert has submitted. To be "saved by grace through faith which is not from ourselves, and not by works" = "to be saved by the favor of God, through the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Christ, for which we can take no credit, and not by entrance into the covenant that is specific to the Jews."

 

Perhaps you would like to expound upon (and try to "explain away" the following?
Rom 3:21 But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;
Rom 3:22 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:
Rom 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
Rom 3:24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:
Rom 3:25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;
Rom 3:26 To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
Rom 3:27 Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.
Rom 3:28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.

Scripture equates faith with believing (v. 22). Scripture says God justifies (bestows His righteousness upon) all who believe in Jesus. Not of works, but by faith. Scripture says "a man is justified by faith (i.e., belief in Jesus) without (apart from) "deeds of the law." What was the law? It was a set of commandments that said, you must do this, and, you must not do that. And here I am being told by Christians (? --more on this in my next response to @Tiffy ) that in order to have faith one must do this and that. Judaizers! Judaizers, I say!!

 

So, everyone gets saving grace whether they have faith or not, eh? Semi-Universalism, if not Universalism outright. And @Invictus gave it a "like"? What a bunch of unorthodox wackiness!

 

Latitudinarianism in its original form, why it has that name, is that it sought to give latitude to all kinds of expressions of Christianity. It is contrasted with narrow or strict Christianity, which sees religion as a specific set of views and beliefs, such as creedal and confessional expressions of historic Christianity. This is why I say that it was the first instance of liberalism which would later found another expression in religious relativism and existentialism of Schleimacher. The Latitudinarians were the first to say that Christian boundaries should be downplayed. It was the first expression of the ecumenical movement as we see it in our time, where liberal religious leaders seek to blur their own lines. Episcopalians are trying to merge with Methodists. Roman Catholics are trying to merge with (liberal) Lutherans. Etc.

This desire to give latitude and to blur boundary lines is why Burnet expressed such extreme expressions of ecumenism and eirenicism towards continental Protestants. Other latitudinarians gave just as much latitude to Roman Catholics; there was an effort in the 18th century to merge the Church of England with the Church of France, under the efforts of Bishop Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet. This is why the ecumenism of Burnet cannot be admitted. For one, it is incompatible with the Anglican formularies; for two, it is at odds with the Anglican historic practices and views.

The Church of England was never dominated by Calvinists. I'm afraid that's another invention of 19th century Evangelicals, like the "five solas" sacret unit, and the "TULIP" monicker. Our Articles teach doctrines like prevenient grace, single predestination, and our Prayerbooks teach baptismal regeneration and real eucharistic presence. Calvinism was mostly found among the Puritan movement, which the orthodox divines strongly challenged, and eventually fought a bloody civil war over. Morever, "Calvinism" isn't even a stable category, since nobody knows what's really in it. And "Arminianism" is not a stable category; while some of our divines opposed "Arminianism", our articles teach prevenient grace which is supposedly the very cornerstone of Arminianism.

The truth is, both Calvinism and Arminianism are dumb unintelligent categories made up by 19th century Evangelicals. For example it is well known that Thomas Aquinas taught double predestination; so even if our church taught that, we would just be Thomist, not Calvinist. Our Church is ancient and predates the emergence of both of these irrelevant newly-minted categories.

Let's discuss via DMs further if you wish.

 

Yes, as I’ve already said, faith may include ‘belief’; it is not limited to belief in the teaching of Jesus or Paul (e.g., the sacrifice of Isaac).

You are insisting on only paying attention to the passages that say the former and ignoring all the ones that say the latter. Read the Sermon on the Mount, or the Olivet Discourse. It’s not just about belief: that is neither what the Scriptures and the Fathers actually said, nor is it Anglican teaching.

 

Unorthodox by what standard? I have already cited evidence that it is, in fact, orthodox. So it’s just your opinion, then.

 

I'm sorry you can't perceive the difference, because it's there, and I see it.

As for Ephesians 2:
Eph 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Eph 2:9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.
I read verse 8 to mean that the grace is not of ourselves, it is the gift of God. You interpret it as, faith is not of ourselves. This makes zero sense in light of Jesus' and the Apostles' numerous exhortations to believe. Belief comes out of the human intellect and one must choose to accept or reject. If you were correct in surmising that belief is "not of ourselves," then everyone would believe in Jesus.

And note verse 9: "Not of works..." Why? So no one can boast, "I earned my way into heaven by all my good works and acts of obedience." Our own works are nothing more than attempts to self-justify, which God views as "filthy rags."

Construing "works" so narrowly as to make the word mean nothing more than 'obeying the 10 Commandments,' or that plus the 'ceremonial laws,' doesn't fly. The alms we give, the kindnesses we show, the good deeds... none of that can contribute to our justification, and therefore it makes no sense to wrap our deeds up with belief and put a pretty bow on it and say, "faith = belief + deeds" and deny that we have succumbed to self-justification. Our acts of goodness are done by the enablement and leading of the indwelling Holy Spirit and in obedience to God's will; and when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do (Luke 17:10).

 

You didn't read well what I wrote, did you. You thought you had understood what I had written but didn't, obviously. It seems that Invictus probably understood though.

You seem to think Grace is a reward for having faith and only those who exercise their faith deserve and get the reward. That's not very orthodox and also quite whacky. But then perhaps it's me not understanding what you wrote. God's grace is extended to ALL before they are capable of responding to it. The reason they don't experience it is often because they have never heard of it, hence the need for preachers. God's grace does not come into existence for any individual ONLY when they hear the gospel and positiively respond to it. God's Grace is as eternal as God is, God does not turn it on and off like a faucet. God's grace is permanently in the pipes, it is faith of the individual which merely turns the tap and so the salvation grace gets to the thirsty sinner, if they drink.
.

 

deleted

 

You know that people can reject God's grace, right? I'm not supporting whatever Tiffy said. But yes it is possible for everyone to get saving grace; it is possible for all baptized to be "saved" when they are baptized; but is also possible to totally step on God's gift, and reject it later on.

 

That is a gross mischaracterization. NO, grace is not a "reward". NO, nobody can "deserve" grace.

Why do I even bother?