Eat My Flesh? Baptize My Baby? Dr. Craig Responds to Fr. Mike Schmitz, John Piper, and Kevin DeYoung

Kevin Harris: Bill, we explored baptism and the Eucharist in a podcast not long ago, and today we’d like to revisit those topics in light of some popular YouTube comments. Writing the ecclesiology section of your Systematic Philosophical Theology required you to intensely study the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. In those podcasts, you talked about the two main views of baptism, the figuralist view and the realist view. And the primary concern regarding the Eucharist is what is meant by “real presence.” That seemed to be what it all funneled down to, what it came down to. I want to encourage everyone to listen to those podcasts. But, if you would, Bill, review the figuralist versus the realist view of baptism and maybe comment on the real presence controversy as we get going.

Dr. Craig: Okay. With regard to baptism, the figuralist view is contrasted with a realist view of baptism. The figuralist view holds baptism to be a purely symbolic act. It is a symbolic representation of our dying with Christ and being united with him in his death, and then rising again to new life. It is also a symbolic representation of our being cleansed of our sins. This is a rite that is rich in its imagery and symbolic meaning.

The realist view of baptism, by contrast, thinks that in water baptism, Spirit baptism takes place, and we are born again to new life. It is in water baptism that we experience spiritual regeneration. So you’re not truly born again or forgiven of your sins until you are water-baptized.

There are at least three different realist views of water baptism. One is what I call occasionalism. On occasionalism, water baptism is the occasion on which the Holy Spirit baptizes you into the Holy Spirit, forgives your sin, and regenerates you to new life. The water isn’t in any way the means of your regeneration. It’s just that these events happen coincidentally.

An analogy would be: if at the very moment that a person is water-baptized he happens to inherit a million dollars. Those events would be coincident, but they’re not causally connected. On the occasionalist view, water baptism is the occasion on which our spiritual regeneration takes place.

A stronger view would be the instrumentalist view. This would be the view that the water is actually an instrumental cause of our regeneration. It is through the water, or being washed with the water, that the Holy Spirit regenerates us.

An analogy to instrumental causation would be someone being baptized, say, in a lake, and lightning strikes the lake, and the electricity is conducted by the water and shocks the baptizand. In that case, the water actually is an instrumental cause of the effect. The instrumentalist would say that the water is the means that the Holy Spirit uses to regenerate us.

The final and strongest realist view would be what I call the proximate causal account. On this view, the water actually is the cause of our regeneration. It’s not simply the instrument. Rather, in the same way that water has the ability to dissolve certain substances or to make somebody wet, the water also has the power to regenerate you due to God’s giving it that power.

Those would be the three realist views of baptism, and all of these are represented in the Christian church.

Now, with respect to the Lord’s Supper, again, we have figuralist views and realist views. The figuralist view would see the Lord’s Supper, again, as a purely symbolic rite. It symbolizes our union with Christ in his death on our behalf, and as we celebrate it, we look forward to his coming again. It is a figurative, representational fellowship with Christ in his death for our sins.

On the realist view, by contrast, realists think that in taking the Lord’s Supper, we actually eat the flesh and drink the blood of the historical Jesus. We actually ingest human flesh and blood in taking the Lord’s Supper.

Again, there’s a variety of realist views on offer. Roughly speaking, these views could be categorized as either consubstantial views or transubstantial views. On consubstantial views, we eat and drink both the bread and the wine and the flesh and the blood of Jesus. There are two different orders of substances there. There’s the physical bread and wine, and then there is the physical body and blood of Jesus, and we consume both.

On transubstantial views, however, we do not consume the bread and wine. Rather, the bread and wine are changed, transformed into the flesh and blood of Christ, so that you’re actually eating flesh and drinking blood, even though it looks like bread and wine, but that’s mere appearance. In fact, the substance is human flesh and blood.

Those would be the two broad categorizations of realist views under which there can be subdivisions.

Kevin Harris: Not only would it look like bread and wine, but it would also taste like bread and wine.

Dr. Craig: That’s right. It would have the texture of bread and wine and the density and weight of bread and wine—all of these properties of bread and wine—but it’s not bread and wine!

Kevin Harris: Let’s start with that. Let’s start with the Eucharist. This is a video that got our attention. Here are some video clips from Father Mike Schmitz defending the Catholic view.

Mike Schmitz: I have not met one person who loves Christ as a Christian but not as a Catholic who, when they heard this, didn’t end up becoming Catholic. Let’s do a little Bible study quick, right? Gospel of John, chapter 6. Jesus says in verse 51, he says, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever.” And here’s the kicker. Here’s the slam dunk. He says, “And the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”

Now remember in verse 41, the Jews murmured. In verse 52, it says, “The Jews now quarreled among themselves.” So there’s brawls breaking out. What the heck is going on? Who’s this guy? The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So that’s the question. Does it sound like they think Jesus is speaking symbolically or like he’s speaking literally?

Kevin Harris: By the way, just so you know, I have not converted yet after hearing that clip, but I think you can guess where he’s going and what he’ll defend. So far, the passage depicts a real clash between Jesus and his hearers. Bill?

Dr. Craig: Yes. I think that Mike Schmitz is being rather disingenuous in saying that anyone who contemplates this will become Catholic because there are many different confessions and denominations besides Catholics that affirm the real presence in the Eucharist. For example, Eastern Orthodox churches, like Russian Orthodoxy or Greek Orthodoxy, also affirm the real presence. Lutheran and Reformed Protestants affirm the real presence. So I think it’s disingenuous to say that if you believe that in this passage Jesus is talking literally that therefore you’ll be a Catholic.

What he’s referring to here is the bread of life discourse that Jesus gives in John, chapter 6. Jesus in this discourse repeatedly speaks of himself as the bread of life. He calls himself metaphorically the true bread from heaven, the bread of God, the bread of life, the living bread which came down from heaven. All of these are used to describe his person. These metaphors have no clear connection with the bread of the Lord’s Supper. Jesus doesn’t connect the bread from heaven with the bread of the Lord’s Supper. Rather, in context, he connects it with the manna that was given to the Israelites in the desert. He does that by way of contrast. He’s saying, in contrast to the manna that God provided in the desert, I am myself the true bread from heaven.

So when he says that “the bread that I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh,” what he’s talking about is his death. He’s saying, “I’m going to give my life for the life of the world.” But the Jews who are listening to him take him literally and think that he’s going to give them his physical flesh to eat.

Kevin Harris: But the plot thickens. Here’s what Father Schmitz says next.

Mike Schmitz: Literally, right? If they thought he was speaking symbolically, because Jesus does that, right? In other parts of John’s Gospel, Jesus speaks symbolically. He says things like, “I am the gate. I’m the vine. You’re the branches. I’m the good shepherd.” But you didn’t have people saying, “Jesus, you’re not a gate. Dude, you look nothing like a tree. Try again.” They’re taking him literally. They say, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

Now, if Jesus was only speaking symbolically, this is the perfect moment for him to say, “Hold on, freak shows. Like that’s disgusting.”

Kevin Harris: So when Jesus says, “I am the door,” no one says, “I don’t see any hinges on you.” But Father Schmitz says that, in this case, he’s starting to indicate that they were taking him literally. Bill?

Dr. Craig: Right. He’s going to say that Jesus doesn’t correct the crowd’s misunderstanding. Rather, Jesus will double down on the necessity of eating his flesh and drinking his blood.

The question is, how do you interpret these sayings? Considered in their original historical setting, Jesus’ dramatic assertions could not have had reference to the Last Supper that Jesus would celebrate over a year later with his disciples in Jerusalem, for that event was still too far removed from this incident that took place in the synagogue in Capernaum. It was over a year away and in another city. Since Jesus had not yet celebrated the Last Supper where he invested the bread and the wine of the Passover meal with their new theological significance, such a reference at this point in his life to the elements of the Last Supper would have been meaningless.

Now, one might say, “Well, but wait a minute. John, the author of this Gospel, is writing ex post facto. He was there at the Last Supper in Jerusalem. So he knows that Jesus did ascribe to the bread and wine a new meaning during the disciples’ final meal with him. Maybe John is intending that his readers should be reminded of the Lord’s Supper when they read this passage.”

Well, that’s not implausible. But even if John has used Eucharistic language in relating this section of the bread of life discourse, we still have to answer two questions. Number one, whether John is actually referring to the bread and the wine of the Lord’s Supper. And secondly, whether he takes eating Jesus’ body and drinking his blood literally rather than figuratively. Those two questions remain to be addressed.

Kevin Harris: Here’s the doubling down. Father Schmitz continues.

Mike Schmitz: But instead of clarifying, what he does is he emphasizes and ramps it up. Five times Jesus says this, “Amen, amen, I say to you.” Or maybe your Bible says, “Verily I say unto thee,” or, “Truly, truly I say to you.” What that means is this: what’s coming after this is a solemn oath. What I’m about to say, I stake my life on the next thing I’m going to say. This is pretty serious.

One: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.”

Two: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, has eternal life, and I’ll raise him on the last day.”

Three: “For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.”

Four: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.”

And five: “Just as the living Father sent me, and I have life because of the Father, it’s also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.”

So when they think Jesus is speaking literally, he doesn’t clarify, “I’m not speaking literally.” He ratifies, “Absolutely, that’s what I mean.” Times five.

Kevin Harris: OK. Well, is this a fair exegesis of this verse, Bill? His case seems to be that Jesus and John’s Gospel are doubling down rather than giving them a theological explanation of what he meant by eating my flesh and drinking my blood.

Dr. Craig: Well, it’s really interesting that in John’s Gospel, people habitually misinterpret Jesus’ words literalistically, and Jesus does not always bother to correct their misunderstandings.

Take, for example, his conversation with Nicodemus. He tells Nicodemus, “You must be born again to see the kingdom of heaven.” Nicodemus says, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Now, Nicodemus was a sincere seeker. He had come to Jesus at night to speak to him. So Jesus does correct Nicodemus’ misunderstanding by explaining that which is born of the flesh is flesh, but that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

But, by contrast, when Jesus confronts the unbelieving Jews, he does not correct their misunderstandings. He knows their insincerity. For example, in John 2, Jesus boldly says, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” How do the people respond? “It’s taken 46 years to build this temple. Will you raise it up in three days?” Notice Jesus says nothing to correct their misimpression, even though John explains to his readers that he was talking about his body, not about the physical temple.

Even more significantly, with respect to the living bread that Jesus offers, when Jesus tells the Samaritan woman at the well about the living water that he will give, she thinks that he’s talking about literal water. She says, “Sir, give me this water that I may not thirst nor come here to draw.” And Jesus issues no corrective at all. Then, following that passage, is the discourse on the living bread that, like the living water, holds the prospect for eternal life.

I think that the author Steven Nemes is plausibly correct when he takes Jesus’ doubling down on the metaphor of eating his flesh and drinking his blood to be a deliberate provocation of the Jews – the unbelieving crowd whose insincerity Jesus had already discerned. Back in verse 26, Jesus says to them, “Truly, truly I say to you, you seek me not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” He knew they weren’t sincere spiritual seekers. They had just had their bellies filled when Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes and fed them. Jesus’ words were a veritable slap in the face of those who had twisted his words. I don’t think it’s a proof that Jesus was speaking literally, advocating cannibalism.

Kevin Harris: Let’s do one more clip from Father Schmitz. Here it is.

Mike Schmitz: Now, many of his disciples who were listening said, “This saying is hard. Who can accept it?” Question again: Is a symbolic statement hard to accept? Answer: No. The literal statement is absolutely hard to accept. Many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.

Do you realize this is the only time in the entire Bible where someone leaves Jesus over one of his teachings? He doesn’t say, “Hey, guys, guys, guys, come back. Come back. Come back. Okay, I’ll change it. I’ll change it. I’ll change it, guys. I’m going to soften it.” He doesn’t go after them. He looks at them. I love this. He looks at them and he says, “Do you also want to leave?”

Kevin Harris: Yeah. Apparently, Jesus’ disciples are also disturbed by this teaching on his flesh and blood. Comment, if you would, Bill. I sometimes wonder if Jesus is finding out who really wants to follow him. I’m thinking, if I were there, if I were one of the disciples, I would probably say, “I’m still going to follow you, Lord, but you’re going to have to explain this to me before I go to bed tonight.”

Dr. Craig: I think it’s misleading to say that Jesus does not correct the crowd’s literalism. Actually, he does correct it, but just not before the crowd. He corrects it privately to his disciples.

The key to correctly understanding Jesus’ teaching is the clarification that he gives privately to his disciples in verse 63: “It is the spirit that gives life. The flesh is of no avail. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”

This clarification, which is so reminiscent of Jesus’ corrective to Nicodemus—that it is the Spirit that gives life, not the flesh—shows, I think, that he did not intend the literalistic interpretation. He saw no need to correct this insincere, unbelieving crowd. Plausibly, I think, eating and drinking Jesus’ flesh and blood is a metaphor for receiving Christ or appropriating Christ, which in John’s Gospel is done through believing in him.

Kevin Harris: Let’s switch to baptism and get your thoughts on a couple of clips from John Piper and Kevin DeYoung. They’re in front of an audience, and they’re asked about infant baptism. Here’s the first clip. Piper talks about studying in Germany surrounded by Lutherans.

John Piper: So here I am in Germany, in a class on the Spirit and First Peter, and I go away on a retreat with 12 Lutherans and a Lutheran professor, and I’m the lone Baptist. I can hardly speak German, and they turn to me and say, “So what’s with this adult baptism?” Because nobody in Germany does this except sects called Baptists.

I said, “Colossians 2:12: ‘Having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God.'”

I think that little phrase, “through faith,” kept me a Baptist through three years of Lutheran education in Germany. What happens in baptism is that we die and we rise with him through faith. My faith, not the pastor’s faith, not my parents’ faith, but my faith.

I said that out loud, and the students kind of said, “Hmm.” The professor, without missing a beat—Professor Gulpold, godly man, loved him—said, “That text works for you because it’s designed for evangelistic settings, not family settings. That text does not deal with your kids.”

I said, “Well, as long as it doesn’t exclude kids, I’m taking it for kids. The kids don’t have faith like that, and therefore I don’t baptize them.”

That verse has been helpful for me. There were lots of other arguments, but just existentially, at that moment when I had to deal with that situation where I was kind of all by myself, it helped me.

Kevin Harris: Bill, you might be able to relate to some of that when you and Jan lived in Germany. Go ahead and answer the question, but you also might relate to what it was like for you, too.

Dr. Craig: Yes. I really enjoyed his personal anecdote because Piper and I both studied at the University of Munich in the same department of Protestant theology. I do not think that our tenures overlapped. We were successive, but it was the same professors, the same department, and a similar experience. I really enjoyed that, and I think that here he is absolutely correct in pointing to the necessity of faith in baptism.

The benefits of baptism are attributed to faith throughout the New Testament. There is no benefit ascribed to baptism that is not also ascribed to faith. The problem here is that infants can’t have faith. You shouldn’t baptize infants because faith is a necessary condition of baptism. This is called believers’ baptism.

Now, Piper’s professor, I believe he said it was Professor Gulpold, tried to avoid the problem by saying that Colossians is written in an evangelistic context and so it has nothing to do with little children. But the principle of the necessity of faith for salvation is throughout the New Testament. This is the heart of Lutheran orthodoxy: salvation by grace through faith. Faith is a necessary condition of salvation and, therefore, a necessary condition of a realist view of baptism.

That’s precisely why Lutherans typically posit some sort of substitute faith of the parents or the godparents who are bringing the baby to the baptismal font. They know that there has to be faith for baptism to be valid. The infant can’t have faith, and so very typically you have this sort of substitute faith.

But it hardly needs to be said, the New Testament knows nothing of such a substitute faith. You must believe yourself in order to be saved.

Kevin Harris: Now Kevin DeYoung, a Reformed theologian who teaches the practice of infant baptism, answers the question. He makes his case.

Kevin DeYoung: So, you just read Colossians 2:12. Colossians 2:11: “In him you were circumcised with circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism.” The rest of verse 12 says “through faith.” True. The connection there in a single sentence is, in the same breath, Paul is comparing the spiritual import of circumcision with the spiritual import of baptism.

Paul says in Romans 4:11 that Abraham received the sign of circumcision, which is a seal of the righteousness that comes by faith. I think everything a Baptist wants to say about baptism representing faith, justification, union with Christ, and forgiveness, I agree that baptism signifies all of those things. I believe Romans 4:11 says circumcision signified all of those things.

The question is not what baptism signifies, but whether that sign can be applied prior to the known exercise of faith. We certainly know, if circumcision—Paul says circumcision meant that, that’s what it meant. For Abraham, he was then told, “Your sons, go circumcise them on the eighth day,” with that spiritual significance. Yet they were to receive that sign pointing to that reality.

Kevin Harris: Okay. What do you think of this comparison of Old Covenant circumcision and New Covenant baptism, Bill?

Dr. Craig: I don’t think this is a convincing argument. The idea here is that since circumcision was administered to babies, baptism, which is parallel to circumcision, can also be administered to babies. I think that inference fails because the Old Testament practice of circumcision is not parallel to baptism. Baptism is not the parallel to circumcision. Rather, it is spiritual circumcision of the heart that Paul says is the analog to physical circumcision, not baptism. It is the spiritual circumcision of the heart that takes place through faith in Christ that is the analog to physical circumcision.

Moreover, the New Testament commentator G. R. Beasley-Murray makes the very telling observation that the rite of circumcision continued to be practiced by Jewish Christians along with water baptism, so that water baptism did not replace circumcision.

Beasley-Murray, in his book Baptism in the New Testament, says, and I quote, “In an environment wherein circumcision was so firmly rooted, there was no possibility for baptism to be regarded as its fulfillment or for the two rites to be viewed as possessing the same meaning.”

Baptism was not a replacement of circumcision. The New Testament church practiced them both.

Moreover, with regard to the seal of circumcision, again, it’s not baptism that is the seal of the New Covenant. It’s the Holy Spirit. Paul says that you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit, and that is the seal of the New Covenant.

Finally, third, in any case, not all aspects of these rites are parallel. For example, circumcision is applicable only to male babies. Baptism is applicable only to those who have faith. Even if they were parallel, that doesn’t mean that they are parallel in all their aspects, because they differ.

So I don’t think this is a convincing argument.

Kevin Harris: Yeah, I was wondering that, too, about the women.

Well, as we wrap up today, Bill, anecdotally, I’ve noticed that both baptism and the Eucharist are hot topics in the apologetics and philosophy community online right now. I’m not sure what sparked all this social media discussion on the issues, but it is kind of hot right now. Talk about volume five of your Systematic Philosophical Theology and what those who are going deeper will find in the ecclesiology section.

Dr. Craig: My volume five is on the locus ecclesiology, on the church, and then on eschatology, the doctrine of the last things.

In the section on ecclesiology, I lay out this categorization of figuralist and realist views and then give historical examples of both types. For example, Huldrych Zwingli, the Swiss reformer, was a figuralist. Martin Luther was a realist and consubstantialist with regard to the Lord’s Supper. John Calvin similarly, I think, had a doctrine of consubstantialism. Thomas Aquinas was a realist about the Lord’s Supper as well as baptism. He held to baptismal regeneration as well as to the real presence of the flesh and blood of Christ through transubstantiation.

All of these are discussed with respect to the biblical material, historical examples of figures who held to these views, and then, finally, philosophical and theological assessment of these competing views.