The last chapter of Waters’ book gives him an opportunity to wrap up. But although I will interact with some elements of this chapter, I am not going to wrap up, not just yet anyhow. Nossir. I am going to go through the footnotes too.
First, Waters charges me with a “misuse of logic.” Were it true, t’would be serious, for it might affect sales. He quotes me arguing the following: “Branches can lose their position on the tree. You can be on the tree, someone can be on the tree right next to you and he is as much on the tree as you, he’s as much a partaker of Christ as you are, he is as much a member of Christ as you are.” After saying this, I then respond to a criticism that says this cannot be reconciled with election. I say, “Well, first it is reconcilable, that is the first thing. Secondly, if you can’t reconcile it, it’s not your problem. What does the Bible say?” (pp. 268-269).
Waters then says, “In fairness to Wilson, he believes that his doctrines of election and apostasy can be reconciled. He argues, however, that there is no burden on the interpreter to reconcile what he perceives the Bible to teach. We are ‘just [to[ take the Bible at face value.’ Logical reconciliation is not necessary for the student of the Bible.” (p. 269).
Once again, is not accurate at all. No burden on the interpreter to reconcile disparate elements in the text? No. God gave us minds for a reason. I believe we should use them to harmonize various passages of Scripture, whenever possible. The temptation that comes with this, and the one I was addressing, was the temptation to do violence to the text for the sake of a “harmonized system.” Don’t be like the fellow who got the wrong box top on the wrong jig saw puzzle, and who wound up having to put some pieces in with a mallet. It is all consistent in the mind of God, and if we submit to the plain teaching of Scripture, at the end of the day we will have a much fuller (and harmonized) sense of what God has revealed to us. The alternative is to be like the guy who has a sailboat that was supposed to be a lighthouse.
Later he says that I have contributed with a vote of “no confidence” with regard to logic as a means of “assessing and attaining to the truth.” (p. 272). This is simply not true. But it is true that I would register a vote of no confidence in slipshod reasoning and dogmatic bluster masquerading as tough-minded orthodoxy. But the problem I have with it is that it is unreasonable . . . illogical. One of my complaints against Waters is that he is unwilling to follow certain arguments that proceed by good and necessary consequence. If baptism exhibits and confers a certain grace on those who use the sacrament rightly, it follows, by good and necessary consequence that baptism exhibits and confers a certain grace on those who use the sacrament rightly. I am using a straightforward example here. He who says A must say A.
A second criticism that Waters offers concerns the matter of curses in the new covenant. Water says of my handling of 1 Cor. 10:1-14 that I have a certain interpretive assumption, which is true enough.
“Observe now the interpretive assumption behind Wilson’s argument. It is that the national blessings and curses that pertained to Israel under the old covenant now pertain to the church under the new covenant. This speaks a much stronger conception of covenantal continuity than most nontheonomic Reformers interpreters have allowed” (p. 286).
Two problems here. Have allowed? Is St. Paul not allowed to say certain things? This leads to the second problem. Where did my interpretive assumption come from? How did I get the idea that the national blessings and curses pertaining to Israel under the old now pertain to the Church under the new? Who comes up with this stuff? Well, maybe it was because of what the apostle Paul expressly said. “Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted” (1 Cor. 10:6). I think it is plain enough on the surface, but I have also argued for this position in some detail. Some interaction with the arguments would be nice, and then Waters would not have to resort to saying that I have come up with a stronger covenant continuity than I was allowed to.
A third criticism in this last chapter returns to the question of differentiation in preaching to the covenant people.
“We have also seen Wilson’s concern that we not preached in a differentiated manner to the covenant community. We are to preach the promises and the warnings of the covenant and presume that most hypocrites, not tolerating such preaching, will leave the church” (p. 293).
I have a hard time figuring out what Waters means by undifferentiated preaching. If I preach that the covenant tree contains fruitful branches and fruitless branches, and I also preach the promises and warnings that apply to each, what else does he want? Egg in his beer? Is it undifferentiated preaching unless and until (from the pulpit) I nail Smith, three rows back, for being a shoddy tither, intermittent sabbath-breaker, and grumbler, all the result of his unconverted heart? “Yes, you, Smith! Don’t act surprised, you whitewashed tomb!”
Waters also returns to the question of what happens to the nominal Presbyterian, baptized as an infant, but who lived in a wild and unconverted way until his conversion. When he is converted, Waters describes my position this way:
“It is, we may note, to this man’s baptism that Wilson will ultimately attribute the man’s conversion, whatever proximate causes and means may have intervened between his baptism and his conversion” (pp. 293-4)
According to Waters, the “doctrine of saving faith” is already being “outshone by baptism” (p. 294). Now the Westminster Confession says that the efficacy of baptism is not tied to the moment of its administration. That means, good and necessary consequence again, that the efficacy of baptism is not tied to the moment of its administration. That means, in its turn, that when a baptized person is converted later in life, he is coming into true evangelical faith. He is becoming a worthy receiver, to use the description of the Standards. That being the case, what happens as a result of his newly-given “right use” of the sacrament later in life? The grace promised in it is not only offered (as it has been throughout his whole unconverted life), it is now exhibited and conferred. It can be conferred later in his life because the efficacy of baptism is not tied to the moment of its administration. This really is a tight argument, and I would be interested if someone like Waters interacted with it. I am not a doctrinal imperialist. All kinds of wonderful Christians don’t subscribe to the Westminster Confession, and that is fine. But I do subscribe to it, and I take my vows seriously. And at this point, like it or not, Waters is out of conformity with the Standards and I am not. This is not a cute debating ploy. I have advanced a serious argument here. There is a difference between believing that the efficacy of baptism is not limited to the time of administration and believing the impotence of baptism is not tied to the moment of its administration.
Waters concludes his book of failed criticism with this hope:
“It is my sincere hope that FV proponents will recognize this discord and return to their first love. Barring that, may the souls of believers be spared, to borrow Samuel Miller’s phrase, from the ‘poisonous exotic’ that the FV offers to the Reformed church” (p. 300).
In order to issue this kind of pastoral warning to the Church, there are a few prerequisites. One of them is that you have to do your homework. You have to know what you are talking about. The plant that Waters is pointing to is not a poisonous exotic at all. It is a tulip, right out of Calvin’s garden.