Why I Baptized a 94 year old Church Member:

Pete Grundy has been a blessing of a church member.  He has been a part of Harvey Baptist Church for several years and served in our AWANA ministry until 2 years ago.  Pete was baptized this past Lord’s Day.  He just turned 94.  I know that it seems odd to some people that I would baptize a 94 year old church member so in the midst of my tears of rejoicing I thought I would explain. 

First, some may think Pete was confused, after all he is 94.  There could not have been more lucidity and more clarity about his desire to be baptized.  He came to me during the invitation a few weeks prior and explained to me that he had been dunked in a creek 82 years ago.  Herbert Hoover was president and the Great Depression was in its early years.  Church membership had been continual for Pete since that day in the cold water of that creek but he had not actually understood the gospel until years after that day.  Pete was raised attending church although the Christian practice of prayer and Bible reading were not a regular part of his home life as a child.  For years the thoughts of obedience to Christ’s command for baptism upon believers of the gospel had been persistent in his mind and for the past few months he said with each sermon I preached he felt as though Jesus was calling him to be obedient to what he had missed so many years ago.  I decided to give my friend a test to make sure there was not dementia driving this decision so I told him to call me during the week and set up a time to talk and to be baptized.  I do this often with people to verify the seriousness of their decision to profess Christ publicly through baptism.  You might be surprised how many people never follow through and their mental clarity is not in question.  Pete called promptly at the time prescribed and told me exactly when he wanted to be baptized.  We spoke and I was encouraged by my friend’s desire to be obedient to Christ.

Second, some may think we Baptists are overly concerned about the timing and/or the amount of water used for baptism.  These concerns are important to us not because of our stubbornness to a particular tradition in which we were raised but because of our desire to obey God’s word.  The issue for Pete (and others) is not obedience to a denominational tradition but obedience to the clear teaching of Scripture.  The new covenant is clearly signified through the practice of believer’s baptism by immersion exclusively recorded in the New Testament.  Although there are various traditions that have developed involving other modes and practiced at a time previous to being born again, those practices lean primarily on arguments of silence only sometimes involving the New Testament.  The Baptist position of baptism for believer’s only by immersion only after one receives God’s saving grace is not a traditional preference about baptism, it is a deeply cherished conviction that God’s word is prescriptive and authoritative.

Pete asked if he could address the congregation from the baptistry.  I gave him the microphone, he has earned it.  He told the church family that he knew exactly what he was doing and had been convicted about this decision for many years.  His encouragement to all was to be obedient to Christ and to “be certain that when you meet the Lord you don’t hear the words ‘depart from me I never knew you’ but ‘well done good and faithful servant’”.  I wept as I laid him “buried in the likeness of Christ’s death and raised again to walk in newness of life”.  In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

The Incoherence of Classical Foundationalism

In "Warranted Christian Belief" Alvin Plantinga sets forth the parameters of classical foundationalism as "believing one proposition on the evidential basis of others." The deontological link to this type of foundationalism requires evidence for the believing Christian in order to justify his basic beliefs.  Rene Descartes presented the foundation for his beliefs upon the certainty of his existence as determined by his ability to doubt that existence.  John Locke proposed the foundation for his beliefs upon his experience.  Here we find the two primary articulations of classical foundationalism as that which presents basic beliefs built upon the foundations of rational thought and sensory experience.  Descartes sought to start over and "rid myself of all the opinions which I formerly accepted, and commence to build anew from the foundation."  One must consider the absurdity of such a claim.  As noble a task as it may seem Descartes was only using his existing opinion(s) to replace and/or increase his basic beliefs.  Locke set forth the elevation of empiricism with his rule that I should "proportion my degree of assent to the probability of the proposition in question."  We find in these two highly influential thinkers the foundational thoughts for classical foundationalism.  

Plantinga and others have pointed out the self-refuting nature of classical foundationalism.  He states, "classical foundationalism appears to be self-referentially incoherent: it lays down a standard for jsutified belief that it doesn't itself meet."  I do believe Plantinga has accurately diagnosed the failure of classical foundationalism and its epistemological presuppositional basis.  As Joseph Wooddell states, "the knowledge claim that for knowledge claims to be valid one must hold the claim based on self-evident, incorrigible, or empirically verifiable propositions is not itself self-evident, incorrigible, or evident to the senses, and it is not grounded on any propositions that are."  In this modernistic approach to philosophical thought we find the use of senses to prove what is supposed to be already basic to the senses.  As Plantinga states, "if the classical picture is true, those who are within their rights in believing (CP) must believe it on the evidential basis of other propositions -- propositions that are properly basic and that evidentially support it." (pg. 95)  The classic foundationalist refutes himself because his statements of what is an evidentially basic belief require dependence upon other basic beliefs, those which he is not willing to admit are basic.

The problem for the modernistic thinker lies in the reliance upon the epistemological question.  There is a fundamental flaw in first asking, "how do we know this?" because it is a question that depends itself to answer itself.  To avoid much confusion and difficulty it is more functionally beneficial to join such premodern thinkers as Augustine who recognized presuppositions are at play in every person's worldview because "before humans can know anything, they must believe something."  Some metaphysical presuppositions are appropriate, which has also been called "expanded foundationalism" and includes properly basic beliefs such as "God exists" and "murder is wrong".  These beliefs begin with what we know about reality although they may or may not be self-evident, incorrigible, or empirically verifiable according to epistemological expectations.  The self-referential incoherence of classical foundationalism is not found in the self-evidential nature of a proposition but in the seeking to prove it is self-evident.  The moment one seeks to prove it is self-evident then one is depending upon rationalism or empiricism to attempt to prove its self-evidential nature.   If something is self-evident, it just is.  It does not require an epistemological basis (how do we know this) but it is a metaphysical (what we know) presupposition and therefore a properly basic belief.  The incoherence of classical foundationalism is the epistemological desire to prove something as self-evident, incorrigible, or evident to the senses.  A broader foundationalism proposes there are certain things that just are...and I don't need to prove they are.