I knew someone would take my question and basically say, "If you question that how can you have any understanding of baptism at all"?
If you “knew” it, did you post it to ‘set a trap?’ Also, that’s your interpretation of what I asked, but it’s not what I asked.
A weak effort at a clever "Uno reverse". I thought about ignoring this but I do think it benefits others to read why this post failed so spectaurlaly.
Is this kind of rhetoric really necessary? Does it edify? Does it provide clarity?
am now smugly asked: What's the difference between a redeemed baptized adult and a redeemed not-yet-baptized adult?
I wasn’t trying to be smug, I was asking. If it seemed smug… well I did just use your question and edit the words to ask my own question, so you’ll have to reckon with that.
Seems pretty basic and at a "Baptism 101" level but well ok here goes:
Depends on which antipeadobaptist you ask.
The difference between the redeemed not-yet-baptized adult and the redeemed already-baptized adult is nothing in terms of justification
Agreed.
They are both justified by God-given grace alone through evidence of faith alone in Christ alone. If the redeemed not-yet-baptized adult were to die before a chance to get baptized, he would that day be absent from his body and present with the Lord, being with him that day in Paradise
Yup
But, if the redeemed not-yet-baptized adult were to fail for a long period to get baptized with reasonable chances to do so, there might be a sin issue (pride, vanity, fear, a combo of these etc) that may need to be prayerfully worked through with concern as to the legitimacy of his profession of faith.
Okay, here we go, you’ve answered the question, thank you. Baptism, for you, has no efficacy. It is a profession of faith, but does nothing for the person. And like I said in my post, this has no bearing on the issue of infant baptism.
But, I should have said it differently. Not “baptism matters or it doesn’t” but rather “baptism does something or it doesn’t.” My bad. You can answer affirmatively to the former, but not the latter.
But this conversation (about what a child has or doesn’t have if thy are baptized or not) has no bearing on the validity or lack thereof of infant baptism, because you don’t think it does anything to the person anyway, adult or infant.
the non-controversial objective difference between the baptism of an infant and the baptism of a professing adult
Depends on what you mean. For the Reformed, the reason for baptism is different (born into the covenant vs. professing faith and entering), but the meaning/function of baptism is the same - a sign and a seal of 1) our ingrafting into Christ 2) partaking of the benefits of the covenant of grace 3)our engagement to the be the Lord's. Means the same thing for both, does the same thing for both, but the reason for receiving is different.
Are you unaware that no matter how many millions of processing abilities the child's mind has access to, that they are incapable of professing or evidencing faith?
See you say
professing or
evidencing faith. Sure, but does that mean they can't
possess faith? Maybe under some understandings, but not everyone's This comes back to the reason for baptism - the Reformed do not require a profession from someone who already has a right to the promises, from a Reformed perspective, children who are 'holy' by virtue of having at least one believing parent.
Are you also aware that my last question is not even controversial? That all sides - both paedobaptists and credobaptists - agree to that fact?
Right, but that is not core to the question, as I demonstrated with my last comment. It's about whether they can have it, and how we should raise the child in light of that
capacity, not based on what we can
see.
Let me put it this way: fundamentally, from the Baptist perspective, the raising of children is completely disassociated from their practice of the faith. They cannot raise them as Christians, they cannot teach them how to pray or pray the Lord's prayer with them, they cannot teach them the things of God, beyond the gospel (in the same way you wouldn't disciple a belligerent muslim, but would focus on gospel and apologetics). They are raising a pagan. Now, these are offensive words, but it gets the core of the difference in view here.
Earlier you mentioned raising a child in a "Christian home," but from a Reformed perspective the Baptist has no such thing as a "Christian home," but only a home that (by God's gracious election) has Christians in it. Inflammatory, I know, but I think it reveals just what is at stake, from a Reformed position.
Of course, Baptists do these things, praise the Lord, but without household inclusion in the covenant it is inconsistent. This I have come to see as the inescapable conclusion of the position. You may disagree, that's fine. But this is what this debate is about, concerning nurture.
In the future, please
1) pause and think first. Try to understand your interlocutor's position and where they are coming from.
2) know that as I do point to your post and call it unfair and unreasonable and less-than-helpful here, please know that there are more fingers back at me because I also am guilty of what you did here many many times.
If your post was guilty of being an unfair attempt at being clever at another's expense, I am the chief sinner of committing unfair attempts at being clever at others' expense.
Brother, with all due respect, you don't have to respond to people the way you do, including snarky comments ('weak effort,' 'failed spectacularly,' 'did you not think this through,') or assuming motives ('smug,' 'mic drop,' 'pulling a gotcha'). It's
unnecessarily inflammatory. Neither of us
has to be guilty of such behavior. I wasn't trying to do so in my last post nor this one. If it came across that way, I apologize. I'm trying to engage with the argument, get to the bottom of things.
