Here is one of the Arguments:
Matthew 19:13-14 13 Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, 14 but Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven."
P1: Believers should baptize members of the kingdom
P2: Children that believers have are members of the kingdom
C: Hence, believers should baptize the children they have
It seems valid and sound to me.
NPT
Children who can "come" are children capable of faith, indeed, "child-like faith" (which is the point). This has nothing to do with infants.
ReplyDelete(Nate, since I made the same mistake, I'd like to take this one)
ReplyDeleteKevin,
The verse clearly says that the children "were brought" to Jesus (i.e. the verse says nothing about them coming of their own power). Also, the Disciples rebuke "the people", not the children, which again shows that it was not the children themselves coming to Jesus (but likely their parents were bringing them).
do the parallel passages say "were brought" or that the children were "coming"?
ReplyDeleteThey were Brought in the parallel passages.
ReplyDeleteGod Bless,
NPT
Well it's formally valid of course. But whether it's sound rests on far more theological underpinnings than just thoughts about this passage deal with.
ReplyDeletei mean, c'mon, infant baptism from one three-line syllogism? that's a tad ambitious, don't you think?
No, it does not seem ambitious. It is just what the Bible teaches. Besides, I have no reason to doubt infant baptism, so I think this to be valid and sound. Why should I not?
ReplyDeleteGod Bless,
NPT
It just sounds kinda fishy to me. I think the problem I have is that Jesus seems to be more commending an aspect or an element of these youngster's response to Himself than identifying a category of persons who are included in the kingdom. I go with the "childlike faith" explanation of what Jesus is saying. Kind of like the Centurion:
ReplyDelete.......9For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I say to one, 'Go,' and he goes, and to another, 'Come,' and he comes, and to my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it." 10When Jesus heard this,(A) he marveled and said to those who followed him, "Truly, I tell you, with(B) no one in Israel have I found such faith. 11I tell you,(C) many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven,"
Was Jesus point that this man (presumably not an infant or child) was possessed of the most or the greatest, faith in all of Palestine? Probably not. But, Jesus was commending an aspect of this man's faith and holding it up as an example. Similarly, there is an element to a child's faith that we can emulate.
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteYour interpretation would only make sense if the children were "bringing themselves", so to speak. But as we have already established, the children were being brought by others (probably their parents) to see Jesus. So it doesn't make sense to suggest that he was making a point about their faith.
In the passage he does mention their faith. He just says unequivocally that little children are of the kingdom. I see no reason for thinking that Centurion did not have great faith as mentioned by Jesus.In conclusion, this explanation of the text seems to lack contextual exegesis and thus it does not present a defeater for my argument above and those who are paedobaptist are more reasonable than not concerning their beliefs about baptism.
ReplyDeleteGod Bless,
NPT
Let me specify: it's ambitious to think that this three-line syllogism will be *persuasive* to anyone who doesn't already agree with its conclusion. it may be valid and sound, but it's not convincing--i wouldn't use it as a tool to convert someone to belief in infant baptism.
ReplyDeletereborn1995,
ReplyDeleteWell, I would say that if someone were to admit that the argument is both valid and sound then they are required on pain of irrationality to believe the conclusion. I can understand someone not being convinced because they don't think it's a sound argument, but then they would need to provide reasons for thinking that it isn't sound. But if they think the argument is sound, it would be irrational to refuse to believe it.
David--
ReplyDeletei'm not sure. i see what you're saying. but it presupposes that everything i find convincing, i find convincing based on my commitment to rationality. i'm not sure all my beliefs are generated or justified in that way. i'm not about to tell you that i have any sort of sophisticated epistemology worked out. i'm just typically unsatisfied with a lot of epistemological theories because however neat and tidy and internally coherent they may sound and seem, they, at least in my view, never quite deal with how people actually come about believing and justifying beliefs.
but that's way farther afield than i meant to reach--sorry. let me regroup: i'm not telling you i think someone, like myself, who rejects infant baptism will look at this argument and say, "Yes, it is definitely sound, but it doesn't convince me." What i mean primarily is that it may be sound, though an opponent doesn't believe it, nevertheless, sound or not, it has no apparent persuasive force. In other words, in this case, it doesn't point out things already accepted by an opponent and draw inferences from those sorts of things. This argument in particular, strikes me as presupposing a lot of theological assumptions that i, myself, do not share. Thus it's not convincing to me, but it may be persuasive to someone already sharing those assumptions but who has yet to adhere to infant baptism.
Secondarily, though, i was thinking of another feature. Are you a math whiz? i am not. i've done fine in all my math classes both high school and college and understood the concepts just fine, but it's not my forte. Suppose then, you and i were debating about whether Farmer Joe down the road did, in fact, grow a half ton pumpkin as he claims. i tell you that i didn't weigh the pumpkin, i merely saw it, and just based on seeing its massive appearance, i believe his claim. You, however, begin writing math equations on a chalkboard. It's a long and elaborate and convoluted application of a very complicated equation the conclusion of which (you claim) is that Farmer Joe's pumpkin could not possibly have weighed a half ton. You finish, and say, "there you have it: QED." Well, not being a math whiz myself, i don't know what to say. For all i know all the math works out. For all i know, your lengthy demonstration actually does support your conclusion. In fact, i can't tell you a specific reason why i think your demonstration fails. Nevertheless, not a bit of it would convince me that Farmer Joe's pumpkin was not a half ton. Why? Best i can say is that i cannot identify with your evidence. There's nothing on your chalkboard that resembles the way i personally and typically come to believe something. There's nothing on the chalkboard that i connect with equally or more strongly than i do with my visual experience of Farmer Joe's pumpkin. There's nothing on your chalkboard that resembles the way i connect certain kinds of evidence or justification with certain kinds of beliefs.
i think theistic arguments (transcendental included) are generally like this for me. What if tomorrow i found out every theistic argument i've been exposed to is unsound or invalid? Would i stop believing in God? no. So it's not their soundness or validity that at base convinces me there's a God.
in the case of the sample argument in this blog, would you say this argument really represents why *you* believe in infant baptism? My secondary point is this: does it really grapple with *why* certain people reject infant baptism? not in my opinion.
pardon the length,
Guy
Nice post, and an interesting discussion.
ReplyDeleteBut, surely P2 is a bit ambiguous. Wouldn't it be beter to phrase it:
P2*: Some Children are members of the Kingdom.
This then throws up problems for the argument because the conclusion is:
C*: Hence, we should baptise some children.
Which Children? From the context of this argument, it seems like one should say, only the ones that belong to the Kingdom, but that is going to be difficult to work out.
In Baptism, do you err on the side of baptising too many or too few?
I think more needs to be said to justify the paedobaptist position. Of course, much more has been said on the subject.
Kyle,
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what Nate's response would be, but in light of your comments, P1 could easily be changed to "We should baptize potential members of the Kingdom." After all, even the credo-baptist can only baptize adults who are *potential* members of the kingdom (since we can never know for sure that an adult who professes faith is genuinely regenerate). Then P2 would be "children are potential members of the kingdom." Obviously more explanation would be required to make the syllogism air tight, but hopefully you see my point.
Of course, your comments may not even pose a problem, since the same would hold for adult baptism. Obviously only *some* adults are members of the kingdom, so we should only baptize *some* adults. Which ones you ask? Well, that seems pretty easy. The New Testament has provided us with at least one criteria, namely that they "repent and believe." Likewise, given the continuity between the covenants, it would seem that at least one criteria for baptizing children is that they are the children of a covenant family. Thus only believers should baptize their children (and we shouldn't go around sprinkling water on strangers' kids).
So Nate's syllogism may actually be just fine the way it is, with a bit of explanation of course.
Kyle,
ReplyDeleteI would say we would use the context and redemptive history to flush out a answer. The childern to which external kingdom of God involves the children of believers given the Old Testament back ground of the OT and the inherent Jewish character of Matthews Gospel. But you do have a good point Kyle it should be
P2: Some children are members of the kingdom
Thanks for your insights on the matter.
Thanks for the responses.
ReplyDeleteAs a presbyterian, I agree with much of what both of you have said here. However, I do not think that a baptist would find it hard to resist this argument.
All Christians can agree that baptism is for those who belong to the Kingdom of God, and that some children fall into that category.
This still leaves problems over who we should baptise, since none of us have perfect insight into who is a true believer. It seems inevitable that some are going to be baptised, who are not believers, and others who are believers and yet never get baptised.
I'm not sure that a discussion of the membership of the Kingdom is going to help us decide who and when to baptise.
Yeah no problem Kyle. Thanks for your questions.
ReplyDeleteThe difficulty with your previous response is that I have already responded to it and you are just repeating your old objection without interacting with my conditions I gave on who we should baptize into the kingdom. My answer was to believers and their children given the OT background of the NT and inherently Jewish character of Matthews Gospel. So saying that there is problem here when I have already addressed how to solve that problem does not add any weight to your claims in the dialectic. In other words: saying so does not make it so. But I do appreciate some of the deep, critical, and engaging questions you have asked about the problems in my argumentation.
God Bless,
NPT