The last matter to be addressed in this review is Zaspel’s treatment of Warfield’s understanding and defense of infant baptism (515-526).  On this point, Dr. Zaspel is to be commended for striving mightily to get Warfield right, even though he personally disagrees with Warfield’s conclusion.  Zaspel points out that Warfield rejected baptismal regeneration (516), and affirms that the Princetonian saw baptism as a “visible monument of the covenant.”  In baptism, the benefits of the covenant are sealed unto believers and their children (517).

Zaspel, however, finds what he considers to be an inconsistency in Warfield’s various assertions about baptism–in one place Warfield affirms that the children of Christians are presumably saved, while in another place, he affirms that children still still need to be saved, and finally, in another place that many baptized Christian children may actually be lost and not be saved (529). While I would love to take up this matter and reply, this is not the place nor the point. I say this because even after noting the perceived inconsistency he sees in Warfield’s work, Dr. Zaspel charitably strives to give Warfield the benefit of the doubt, noting “because of the covenant promise” children of believers are presumed to be Christians (530).

I do have one brief quibble with Dr. Zaspel’s treatment of Warfield on infant baptism. When setting forth the key points in Warfield’ essay “The Polemics of Infant Baptism,” I find it rather interesting that Dr. Zaspel does not mention what is perhaps Dr. Warfield’s most salient point in his polemic–one which comes at the beginning of that essay, namely contention that all Christians, even Baptists, must baptize on the presumption that a person’s profession of faith is genuine. According to Warfield,

All baptism is inevitably administered on the basis not of knowledge but of presumption. And if we must baptize on presumption, the whole principle is yielded; and it would seem that we must baptize all whom we may fairly presume to be members of Christ’s body. In this state of the case, it is surely impracticable to assert that there can be but one ground on which a fair presumption of inclusion in Christ’s body can be erected, namely, personal profession of faith. Assuredly a human profession is no more solid basis to build upon than a divine promise. So soon, therefore, as it is fairly apprehended that we baptize on presumption and not on knowledge, it is inevitable that we shall baptize all those for whom we may, on any grounds, fairly cherish a good presumption that they belong to God’s people—and this surely includes the infant children of believers, concerning the favor of God to whom there exist many precious promises on which pious parents, Baptists as fully as others, rest in devout faith [B. B. Warfield, “The Polemics of Infant Baptism,” in Studies in Theology, 390].

I would have liked to see this point included in Zaspel’s discussion, but alas, I digress.

via Westminster Seminary California.

Of course, if everyone baptizes on “presumption,”–including adult professing believers–then all pastoral work and church ministry is also on presumption. One might ask what is left that isn’t “presumption.” In which case maybe we can move on and use a more serviceable and perhaps even Biblical word.

Like covenant.