# Historicity of Baptismal Regeneration



## psycheives (Feb 24, 2018)

Hi all, I'm asking this on behalf of a friend who is very interested in the church fathers and maintaining the historicity of the Reformed faith. Will you please do your best to answer his concerns below?

1) Is there any pre-Reformation evidence that anyone is recorded either denying baptismal regeneration, or denying that the efficacy of baptism is tied to the moment of administration?

2) Is there anyone before the Reformation that held that ecclesiastical holidays were sinful? (I want to note here that the Nicene Council specifically references Lent, as if there was nothing wrong with it.)

3) If the answers to each of the above questions are "no" then how does this not force us to choose either between solo scriptura, and abandoning those positions of ours?

I guess I'm not seeing how we can have it both ways here. Disagreeing with the WCF is nothing compared to disagreeing with an ecunemical council, or the universal (known) consent of the Fathers, and yet we regularly get on people for that. Saying you have to interpret scripture by post-Reformation subordinate authorities without similarly saying we have to do so by pre-Reformation subordinate authorities isn't making sense to me.​

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## arapahoepark (Feb 24, 2018)

Psyche,
I'll have to recheck tomorrow and research but:
1).Gottschalk? Thomas Bradwardine?
2.) People of similar conviction
There is no patristic concensus, not to mention that most references come from the equivalent timeline from between the American Revolution until now with even shorter generations. The second law of thermodynamics in action in historical theology.

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## psycheives (Feb 25, 2018)

arapahoepark said:


> Psyche,
> I'll have to recheck tomorrow and research but:
> 1).Gottschalk? Thomas Bradwardine?



Thanks for anything you can find, Trent. The baptismal regeneration question is especially interesting. I haven't come across a really good Reformed historical analysis on this topic.


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## Alan D. Strange (Feb 25, 2018)

Very short answer (it's all I have time for right now!): this question has to do not simply with baptism but sacramental theology broadly.

Sacramental theology developed in the Middle Ages without proper reference to the work of the Holy Spirit, which remained underdeveloped (as did, say, the doctrine of the atonement until Anselm and following). It is not until the Reformation that you have the proper development of the doctrine of the work of the Holy Spirit, in which it is understood that the means of grace (Rome sees them as ends not means) are efficacious only by the power of the Holy Spirit. Thus they need not be understood as Lombard, Lateran IV, and Aquinas did: as _ex opere operato. 
_
This is merely suggestive here, I realize, in a few sentences, but it has to do with an underdeveloped doctrine of the Holy Spirit and what Calvin (as the theologian of the Holy Spirit) and the Reformation achieves in coming to understand the true role of the Holy Spirit in applying all the merits and mediation of Christ to us, of bringing us to Christ and Christ to us. 

When this is rightly understood, the grace bestowed need not be inextricably tied to the time of administration. Without such a developed doctrine of the work of the Holy Spirit, it must be, as there is no proper understanding of what makes all of this efficacious.

Peace,
Alan

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## greenbaggins (Feb 25, 2018)

I agree with Trent above that there is no consensus of the fathers. They disagreed on most things. Even if there were no testimony in the ECF to a particular doctrine, that does not make a particular doctrine wrong. Similarly, testimony in the ECF to a particular teaching does not make it right. Rome itself has canonized teachings that have no witness in the ECF whatsoever (the assumption of Mary, the infallibility of the Pope when speaking ex cathedra), so not even Rome would follow that rule. The ECF were fallible, as are any other period of theologians. Why would the absence of testimony in the ECF mean that espousal of a certain unattested doctrine be equal to solo scriptura? If we have to have ECF attestation for a particular doctrine, then we are giving too much privilege to one period of church history. Such a position would also fail to reckon with the refinement of doctrinal _areas_ over time. 

The main concerns of the ECF were the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of the two natures of Christ in one person. Doctrine of salvation (and sacraments) was on the backburner at best. The ECF (eventually) got the Trinity and Christology correct. Doctrine of salvation did not become the major debate ground until the Reformation. So, in this regard, the Reformation IS the ECF for the doctrine of salvation and sacraments, just as the last two centuries are the ECF, if you will, for eschatology. Even Rome's position on justification was not set in stone until the council of Trent. Rome on the sacraments was a bit more set than the doctrine of justification, but it had not really been seriously challenged until the Reformation, for reasons Dr. Strange gave above.

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## arapahoepark (Feb 25, 2018)

https://doctrine.org/the-history-of...ss-from-the-first-to-the-fourteenth-century-2
That is only the first book. 
https://archive.org/details/primitivedoctri00fabegoog
Might help.

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## arapahoepark (Feb 25, 2018)

http://resources.thegospelcoalition.org/library/baptismal-regeneration-in-church-history
Maybe,
https://www.monergism.com/historical-theology-william-cunningham

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## ZackF (Feb 25, 2018)

greenbaggins said:


> Doctrine of salvation (and sacraments) was on the backburner at best. The ECF (eventually) got the Trinity and Christology correct. Doctrine of salvation did not become the major debate ground until the Reformation. So, in this regard, the Reformation IS the ECF for the doctrine of salvation....



I'm careful how I position that because Rome claims to have a doctrine of salvation 'once delivered.' That is the dime store apologetic claim against Protestantism which if were true, means there was no salvation before the 16th century. I know because I fell for it for a decade.

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## RamistThomist (Feb 25, 2018)

psycheives said:


> 2) Is there anyone before the Reformation that held that ecclesiastical holidays were sinful? (I want to note here that the Nicene Council specifically references Lent, as if there was nothing wrong with it.)



That's more or less church practice. Sure, one can find statements from Barsapaphanuphius to the contrary, but we have to be careful of Trail of Blood historiography.


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## RamistThomist (Feb 25, 2018)

Another thing to realize is that for the Greek-speaking fathers, they didn't live in categories of grace as a quasi-created substance that you find in Rome and Thomas Aquinas. It was closer to (if not always identical) to the life-giving energies of Christ.

That's not to say we would automatically approve of what the Greek fathers said on the sacraments, but nor is it exactly that which we fear in Rome.


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## Ryan&Amber2013 (Feb 25, 2018)

ZackF said:


> I'm careful how I position that because Rome claims to have a doctrine of salvation 'once delivered.' That is the dime store apologetic claim against Protestantism which if were true, means there was no salvation before the 16th century. I know because I fell for it for a decade.


Zack, what is it you're saying here? That the RCC would say there view of salvation is right, or else no one would have been saved until the reformation? 

Grace and peace.


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## NaphtaliPress (Feb 25, 2018)

The fellow is simply too close to looking for historic justification as the RCC tries to do. The church can err, and so Scripture is the first and last word. On the holy day question, no holy days are prescribed in Scripture. They crept in as private and then varying regional observances as Gillespie notes in this extract from the 2013 edition of English Popish Ceremonies (see attached pdf). They then became superstitious and idolatrous at the height of the corruption of the RCC, at which point you had some jettison the calendar in mass as a monument of idolatry (e.g. Scotland and on and off and on again, Geneva) and some Reformed churches retained a few, generally due to influences outside what the churches would have done otherwise. Note that Zanchius cited at length in translation and Latin in the notes in the attached (see specifically p. 66 and note 1), concedes that those that have no holy days are following the practice of the early church in only observing the Lord's Day.

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## ZackF (Feb 25, 2018)

Ryan&Amber2013 said:


> Zack, what is it you're saying here? That the RCC would say there view of salvation is right, or else no one would have been saved until the reformation?
> 
> Grace and peace.


 
I'm sorry I wasn't very clear and hope this attempt is better. Lane compared the Reformation's clarity on salvation to ECFs work hammering out other Christian doctrines like the Incarnation and Trinity. My response was a concern not to play into RCC hands. RCC apologists will say that if Protestantism is true on salvation then there was no salvation before the Reformation because such teaching didn't exist before the 16th century.


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## Ryan&Amber2013 (Feb 25, 2018)

ZackF said:


> I'm sorry I wasn't very clear and hope this attempt is better. Lane compared the Reformation's clarity on salvation to ECFs work hammering out other Christian doctrines like the Incarnation and Trinity. My response was a concern not to play into RCC hands. RCC apologists will say that if Protestantism is true on salvation then there was no salvation before the Reformation because such teaching didn't exist before the 16th century.


Is there any validity to this? I haven't really studied those prior to the reformation.


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## DTK (Feb 26, 2018)

Yep, according to Roman apologists (if you're of a mind to believe them) will, on this basis, consign all the OT saints to the flames. lol


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## ZackF (Feb 26, 2018)

Ryan&Amber2013 said:


> Is there any validity to this? I haven't really studied those prior to the reformation.



Well, I left Rome.  Seriously. I've only read excerpts and don't have the work but Thomas Oden wrote The Justification Reader. This was not too popular in RC apologetic circles when it came out. There was indeed justification between 100 and 1500.

Ryan, my undergrad major was originally engineering even though I ended up choosing history. I imagined myself a scientist or engineer throughout most of my childhood. If you told my 16 or even 19 year old self that I was going to get my degree in history I'd have just snorted and walked on. Even after getting a degree, for years I had a very clunky way of looking historically at events and ideas including the development of doctrine. That is why I spent so long in Rome. Rome seemed so systematic and put together. She's not. She's a house of straw with some very good lumber strewn about the living room. You will find the Trinity, Incarnation and some solid thinking about bioethics. You'll even find elect persons in her. However, you have to do mental gymnastic to even come up with an illusion of pulling the Tridentine doctrine of justification out of the Scriptures. It's utterly impossible. You can't read Romans and Galatians with a shred of honesty and find yourself nodding at the Session 6 of the Trent where the Gospel was anathematized.

CANON XII.-If any one saith, that justifying faith is nothing else but confidence in the divine mercy which remits sins for Christ's sake; or, that this confidence alone is that whereby we are justified; let him be anathema.

CANON XXIV.-If any one saith, that the justice received is not preserved and also increased before God through good works; but that the said works are merely the fruits and signs of Justification obtained, but not a cause of the increase thereof; let him be anathema.

Reformed theology _is_ the historical Christian faith as it is regulated by God's Word.

I kinda hijacked your thread psyche going from baptism to justification but Rome screws that up badly especially connecting the two.

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## greenbaggins (Feb 26, 2018)

I have read Oden's Justification Reader. It is evident that justification by faith alone through imputation even was around before Luther. At the very least, many ECF's had doctrines that were fully compatible with Luther's formulations. Oden proves this without any real difficulty. The real question is whether the historical line of true biblical teaching goes through the ages of the church leading to the Reformers, or leading to Rome. I argue the former.


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## arapahoepark (Feb 26, 2018)

While a noble goal to search for it in the church fathers, Jean Daille wrote a book warning against relying on them too much. I have it in ebook format in a few copies if anyone would like one.

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## TylerRay (Feb 26, 2018)

psycheives said:


> 3) If the answers to each of the above questions are "no" then how does this not force us to choose either between solo scriptura, and abandoning those positions of ours?


It's clear from your friend's third question that he has misunderstood the doctrine of _Sola Scriptura. _He's implying that either we have Scripture and Tradition (or whatever you want to call it) as mutually authoritative, or that we dispense with tradition altogether and only have the Scriptures as our authority. Neither is the Protestant view.

Instead, the Scriptures are the only _final authority_ in matters of doctrine and practice. The teaching of the church has its place as an authority. However, it is always held up to the standard of the Scriptures as the final court of appeal.

I'm afraid that your friend has already capitulated to a Roman Catholic way of thinking about authority. He doesn't understand that the authorities that God has established have _graded levels of authority_.

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## DTK (Feb 26, 2018)

> While a noble goal to search for it in the church fathers, Jean Daille wrote a book warning against relying on them too much. .


Agreed, I have a copy of his book in hardback and have read it thoroughly. Below is an example of how he cautions us against the early church writers...*

John Daillé:* Even in the very Scriptures themselves, which they [i.e., the fathers] were both better acquainted with, and which they also had in greater veneration than any other books whatever, they often mistake themselves in citing them. As, for example, when *Justin Martyr *adduces a passage out of the prophet Zephaniah, which is not found anywhere but in Zechariah; and in another place where he names Jeremiah instead of Daniel. Thus likewise when *Hilary* tells us that Paul, in the thirteenth chapter of the Acts, adduces a certain passage out of the first Psalm, which yet is found only in the second; whereas Paul in that place speaks not one syllable of the first Psalm, but expressly names the second. So also when *Epiphanius* says, out of the twenty-seventh chapter, verse thirty-seven, of the Acts of the Apostles, that the number of those who were in the ship with Paul, when he suffered shipwreck, was one while seventy, and by and by eighty souls; whereas the text says expressly, that they were in all two hundred and seventy-six. Thus likewise ‘when in another place he affirms, out of the Gospel, that our Saviour Christ said to his mother, “Touch me not;”— οὕτω καὶ ὁ κύριος διέταξεν ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ, ἀπὸ μιᾶς τὸ ὑπόδειγμα ἡμῖν κηρύττων, φήσας τῇ μητρὶ αὐτοῦ «μή μου ἅπτου·» whereas it appears plainly out of the text, that these words were spoken only to Mary Magdalene. So where *Jerome* takes great pains to reconcile a certain passage alleged by him out of Habakkuk, with the original, telling us that Paul had cited it in these words, “the just shall live by my faith:” whereas it is most evident that the Apostle, both in the first chapter of the epistle to the Romans, and in the epistle to the Galatians, has it only thus: “the just shall live by faith,” and not “the just shall live by my faith.”
*Athanasius* in his Synopsis, (or whoever else was the author of that piece) reckoning up the several books of Scriptures, evidently takes the third book of Esdras, which has been always accounted apocryphal by the consent of all Christendom, for the first, which is received by all Christians and Jews into the canon of the Scriptures. We might class in this number (if at least so foolish a piece deserves to have any place among the writings of the Fathers) that gross mistake which we meet with in an epistle of *Pope Gregory II*., who rails fiercely against Uzziah for breaking the brazen serpent; calling him, for this act, “the brother of the Emperor Leo the Iconoclast:” which, as he thought, was the same as to reckon him among the most mischievous and wretched princes that ever had been; and yet all this while the Scripture tells us, that this was the act, not of Uzziah, but of the good king Hezekiah; and that he deserved to be rather commended for the same than blamed. John Daillé, _A Treatise on the Right Use of the Fathers in the Decision of Controversies Existing at this Day in Religion_, 2nd American ed., rev. (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Education, 1856), pp. 260-261.

Below I offer the chapter headings for *Daillé's *work...

Contents

BOOK I.

Chapter I. On the Difficulty of ascertaining the Opinions of the Fathers in reference to the present Controversies in Religion, deduced from the fact that there is very little of their Writings extant of the first three Centuries.

Chapter II. Those Writings which we have of the Fathers of the first Centuries, treat of matters far different from the present Controversies in Religion.

Chapter III. Those Writings which bear the names of the ancient fathers, are not all really such; but a great portion of them supposititious and forged, either long since or at later periods.

Chapter IV. The Writings of the Fathers, which are considered legitimate, have been in many places corrupted by time, ignorance and fraud, pious and malicious, both in the early and later Ages.

Chapter V. The Writings of the Fathers are difficult to be understood, on account of the Languages and Idioms in which they wrote, and the manner of their Writing, which is encumbered with rhetorical flourishes, and logical subtleties, and with terms used in a sense far different from what they now bear.

Chapter VI. The Fathers frequently conceal their own private Opinions, and say what they did not believe; either in reporting the Opinion of others, without naming them, as in their Commentaries; or disputing against an Adversary, where they make use of whatever they are able; or accommodating themselves to their Auditory, as may be observed in their Homilies.

Chapter VII. The Fathers have not always held the same doctrine; but have changed some of their Opinions, according to their judgment has become matured by study or age.

Chapter VIII. It is necessary, but nevertheless difficult, to discover how the Fathers held all their several Opinions; whether as necessary, or as probable only; and in what degree of necessity or probability.

Chapter IX. We ought to know what were the opinions, not of one or more of the Fathers, but of the whole ancient Church; which is a very difficult matter to discover.

Chapter X. It is very difficult to ascertain whether the Opinions of the Fathers, as to the Controversies of the present day, were received by the Church Universal, or only by some portion of it; this being necessary to be known, before their sentiments can be adopted.

Chapter XI. It is impossible to know exactly what was the belief of the ancient Church, either Universal or Particular, as to any of those points which are at this day controverted amongst us.

BOOK II.

The Fathers Are Not of Sufficient Authority for Deciding Controversies in Religion.

Chapter I. The Testimonies given by the Fathers, on the Doctrines of the Church, are not always true and certain.

Chapter II. The Fathers testify themselves, that they are not to be believed absolutely, and upon their own bare Assertion, in what they declare in matters of Religion.

Chapter III. The Fathers have written in such a manner, as to make it clear that when they wrote they had no intention of being our authorities in matters of Religion; as evinced by examples of their mistakes and oversights.

Chapter IV. The Fathers have erred in divers points of Religion; not only singly, but also many of them together.

Chapter V. The Fathers have strongly contradicted one another, and have maintained different Opinions in matters of very great importance.

Chapter VI. Neither the Church of Rome nor the Protestants acknowledge the Fathers for their Judges in points of Religion; both of them rejecting such of their Opinions and Practices as are not suited to their taste; being an answer to two Objections that may be made against what is delivered in this Discourse.

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## RamistThomist (Feb 26, 2018)

We also need to be careful of seeing the church fathers as one Platonic category. It's better to think of different "schools" within the Fathers. So if you can produce a contradiction between Macarius the Spirit-Bearer of Egypt and Leo the Great, that might not bother too many people. 

I don't want to overplay the East vs. West divide, since some Western fathers like Hilary were closer to the East than to Augustine on points. Nonetheless, there were differences in metaphysics and triadology the more time went along.

And while the Fathers may have misspoke on chapter and verse, many had the entire NT memorized and most could recite the psalter (quite commonplace for monks).

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## RamistThomist (Feb 26, 2018)

And not all Fathers are equal. While there is no official hierarchy, and since I am more familiar with the East, the following have priority (and even as a Protestant I would agree these are the most important)

1. Gregory of Nazianzus (the Theologian)
2. Basil of Caesarea
3. John Chrysostom (these are the three holy hierarchs)
4. John of Damascus
5. Maximus the Confessor.
6. Symeon the New Theologian

And throw in Athanasius somewhere.

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## ZackF (Feb 26, 2018)

BayouHuguenot said:


> And not all Fathers are equal. While there is no official hierarchy, and since I am more familiar with the East, the following have priority (and even as a Protestant I would agree these are the most important)
> 
> 1. Gregory of Nazianzus (the Theologian)
> 2. Basil of Caesarea
> ...



Nyssa maybe too.

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## greenbaggins (Feb 28, 2018)

BayouHuguenot said:


> And not all Fathers are equal. While there is no official hierarchy, and since I am more familiar with the East, the following have priority (and even as a Protestant I would agree these are the most important)
> 
> 1. Gregory of Nazianzus (the Theologian)
> 2. Basil of Caesarea
> ...



Augustine doesn't make the cut? If not, why not?


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## RamistThomist (Feb 28, 2018)

greenbaggins said:


> Augustine doesn't make the cut? If not, why not?



Augustine is sort of the unspoken background of Western thought. I didn't include him because I didn't think I needed to. And while Augustine was considered a father and a saint at the 5th Ecumenical Council, they only had access to his anti-Pelagian writings. Aside from that, Augustine never figured much in the Eastern worldview.

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## greenbaggins (Feb 28, 2018)

Ah, it wasn't perfectly clear from your previous post that you were going to give what you thought were the best _Eastern_ theologians in the ECF.

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## RamistThomist (Feb 28, 2018)

greenbaggins said:


> Ah, it wasn't perfectly clear from your previous post that you were going to give what you thought were the best _Eastern_ theologians in the ECF.



My mistake. Top Western theologians:

1. Augustine.
2. Jerome
3. Ambrose
4. Gregory the Great.


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