Philosophical Theology

If a renegade Roman Catholic communion held to the Westminster standards, Roman Catholicism would still not be a Reformed communion. That’s because what defines Roman Catholicism is a blend of her official doctrine and practices the magisterium permits. So it is with The Communion of Reformed and Evangelical Churches (CREC). 

Although the CREC would like to identify with Reformed theology and claims to be shaped by that tradition, the communion is not Reformed in any sense of the word. Rather, the CREC is a hodgepodge of religious traditions and disciplines that even include non-Reformed elements of Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Federal Vision. Its leaders are at best muddled. 

Contrary to the NORTH AMERICAN PRESBYTERIAN AND REFORMED COUNCIL (NAPARC), the CREC allows its congregations to deny the practice of infant baptism while also allowing its congregations to practice infant and toddler communion. Consequently, the CREC affords doctrinal latitude for what the Reformed consider (i) the great sin of neglecting infant baptism while encouraging (ii) covenant children to eat and drink judgment to themselves at the communion table. Moreover, a CREC minister is free to differ with the Reformed tradition as it relates to (iii) images of Christ, (iv) Christian sabbath observance and (v) the regulative principle of worship. Furthermore, given that Federal Vision theology is accepted doctrine within the CREC, the Reformed distinction of (vi and vii) the visible and invisible church along with the doctrines of (viii – x) the communion of saints, perseverance of the saints, and the assurance of salvation may be obfuscated or implicitly denied by any CREC communion. Additionally, at least one CREC congregation has a minister with at least dubious ordination credentials. Such an unchecked occurrence would establish precedent for (xi) unordained servants in the CREC, which in principle would undermine the lawful administration of the sacraments in such cases. Lastly, given that the underdeveloped and minimally Reformed doctrine of the Thirty Nine Articles is an acceptable confession for a CREC communion, doctrinal exceptions can be taken to chapters 3, 5 and 8 of the Westminster standards with respect to (xii) the principle of the divine decree, (xiii) God’s meticulous providence and (xiv) limited atonement. Consequently, Molinism and hypothetical universalism are permissible doctrines for a CREC communion. 

It should be obvious that there is good reason the CREC cannot be associated with NAPARC. As just observed, the CREC affords room to deny many essential doctrines contained in the Westminster standards: 3:3; 5:2; 8:8; 17.1-2; 18:1-4; 21:1,8; 25:1-2; 26:1;  27:4; 28:2,4,5,7; 29:3,7 

(I have not bothered to list the associated references from the Westminster Larger and Shorter Catechisms. There are just too many.) 

The CREC is in no sense Reformed and it is far too eclectic to be considered catholic. Consequently, it is manifestly false that the “CREC seeks to uphold traditional Reformed distinctive” while trying “to recover a Reformed Catholic vision.” The CREC is simply a melange of teaching and practice that attracts many who are justifiably disgruntled within evangelicalism along with those who are rightly dissatisfied with the barren doctrinal traditions of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. Moreover, the degree to which wokeness and effeminate Christianity has crept into the church – even the Reformed church – has only grown the CREC’s market, which envelops conservative ideals and a return to male leadership that need not be gospel-centric or particularly rich theologically. Even high-church formalism can be tolerated within the CREC, especially if there is fellowship over the culture wars. In short, a CREC minister needn’t be theologically astute or well trained in Reformed doctrine as long as he checks certain less consequential boxes. l’ll go so far as to say that if a minister was theologically astute or well trained in Reformed thought, he wouldn’t be associated with the CREC!

What’s not the problem:

The issue with the CREC is not its allowance of an optimistic eschatology or its understanding of the timeless relevance of the general equity of Israel’s civil law. Consequently, arguing against the CREC on those terms is both baseless and ineffective. However, that’s not to say that the position of prominence that certain less essential doctrines find within the CREC is not concerning. Indeed, it is! Notwithstanding, the real issue with the CREC is its mongrel theology. Its doctrinal latitude under the guise of catholicity cashes out as not having any church doctrine at all! It’s all too reminiscent of the shell game the leaders of the Federal Vision used to play. It’s no wonder that many Federal Vision chameleons have found refuge in the CREC.

How might we warn against the CREC?

The CREC is a deception. It poses itself as one thing yet delivers another. However, this isn’t unique to the CREC. The Davenant Institute operates similarly, but at least they aren’t posturing as a communion of churches. 

Turning to paedo-communion:

With that as a backdrop, attention will be turned to the aberrant practice of paedo-communion, which is hostile to Reformed practice, yet, and not surprisingly, acceptable practice within the CREC.

What follows is not intended to be a thorough polemic for the Reformed denial of paedo-communion, but is intended to tease out some difficulties of the practice and the tensions that are associated with it. First some theological groundwork must be laid, which can present difficulty given that the requisite terms of art are in accordance with certain subtleties of Reformed theology, which adherents to the practice of paedo-communion aren’t usually well acquainted, other than superficially and not without equivocal language. (Federal Visionists are a prime example.) 

Covenant standing and promise:

1. The Covenant of Grace is established with the incarnate Christ and those chosen in him. Consequently, the promise of salvation is only to the elect in Christ. (Genesis 17; Romans 9; Galatians 3; WLC 31)

2. If an elect child dies in infancy, we can know the child, being one of promise, is regenerate and united to Christ upon death. (WCF 10.3)

3. From a Reformed perspective, although we cannot know whether any particular covenant child is elect, godly parents ought not to doubt the election and salvation of their children when God is pleased to take them home in infancy. (CoD, Of Divine Predestination, Article 17) In other words, godly parents should believe their deceased child is present with the Lord. 

4. From the standpoint of election, there’s no biblical precedent that infants stand a better chance of election if they die in infancy than if they live to years of discretion. Consequently, Christian parents ought not to doubt the election and eventual conversion of their children when God determines they live pass infancy and to an age of understanding. (To think otherwise is to operate according to an age of accountability paradigm, which implicitly denies that infants are born in sin and in need of the grace of salvation, no less than those with developed wills who can understand the gospel.)

5. Because covenant children are part of the visible church, they have an interest in the outward administration of the covenant and are to receive its mark of inclusion (i.e., baptism). We are to treat covenant children as disciples of Christ.

6. In conjunction with covenant baptism, a faithful parent’s proper expectation is that God by the Spirit will one day effectually call, regenerate and convert the child by the ministry of the Word. In other words, Reformed thought entails that elect children who do not die in infancy will one day undergo existential union (through faith) with Christ according to the Covenant of Grace.

7. Finally, the Reformed tradition, following biblical precept, teaches that it is ordinarily the case that children of the promise will be brought forth to life by the Spirit, through the ministry of the Word, as opposed to at the font or in the womb. (Romans 10:17; James 1:18; 1 Peter 1:23) Consequently, it may be considered normative that the elect become regenerate in conjunction with effectual calling, which is through the comprehended Word by the Spirit. In conversion minds are enlightened with spiritual understanding and wills are inclined to come to Christ most freely. (WCF 10:1)

Application: 

Although the principal acts of repentance and justifying faith are the immediate and reciprocal responses to effectual calling, it is indeed possible for an infant to be regenerated and granted the seed of faith (i.e., the divinely implanted propensity to believe) prior to being effectually called by the gospel. The reason being, regeneration is the monergistic work of God, whereas God’s outward and effectual call presupposes a revealed Word that must be understood and savingly believed. It is through the principal acts of receiving and resting in Christ that communion with the triune God actually begins.

Believing that one’s child is elect should always be accompanied by the godly intention to lead the anticipated child of promise to personal salvation. In accordance to biblical precept, a covenant child may be taught by parents who embrace particular redemption that God loves him and that Jesus lived, died and intercedes for him as one for whom Christ died. It’s actually no different for adult Christians. We must respond to the gospel all our days!

Although pious parents should believe their infant is elect and possibly regenerate, they should know that their infant child has not yet understood their sin in light of the gospel. Consequently, those who have not come to Christ in faith do not commune by faith with Lord and his body. Indeed they cannot!

In short, a parent’s belief that his child is elect is to be accompanied by a belief that the child must close with Christ by exercising the gifts of repentance and faith. At which point, the sacraments and prayer can first begin to strengthen cognizant faith. (WCF 14.1,2)

Particularly noteworthy in this present context is something that is necessarily lacking in the experience of one who is incapable of justifying faith. That something happens to be the conscious element of peace with God.

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Romans 5:1

In other words, full orbed peace with God presupposes having exercised the gift of faith that results in justification. This peace, which is established by God and foundationally objective, is accompanied by a subjective element that is based upon the objective middle ground of enmity having been removed at the cross, yet is experienced in the life of the believer through the instrumental cause of faith. For the believer, conscious peace comes through knowing whom has been trusted. Accordingly, cognizant faith yields the peaceable fruit of assurance and a good conscience toward God.

Moreover, the peace of God, which accompanies saving faith, guards the believer’s heart and mind (or thoughts).

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:7

In summing up this section we can observe that biblical redemption contemplates not just regeneration but a spiritual relationship of peace founded upon objective pardon (justification), which presupposes the removal of the middle ground of enmity (expiation) and all the other elements of redemption accomplished (e.g., propitiation and satisfaction). This peace cannot begin to blossom apart from acknowledging guilt, repenting from sin, and volitionally embracing the love of God in Christ. (In this context we may not separate the objective historia salutis from the subjective elements of the ordo salutis.)

Indeed, our covenant children must receive God’s reconciliation through faith, after which time the peace that accompanies pardon, assurance and a good conscience toward God can begin to be enjoyed. All of this strikes at the very heart of communion. After all, what is the Eucharist apart from cognizant thanksgiving for forgiveness of sins?! (eucharisteō) What paedo-communionists fail to grasp is communion isn’t just a sign of spiritual fellowship. Rather, communion is communion.

Communion:

Although infants may possibly be regenerate, it should not be considered normative, at least according to Scripture and Reformed thought. Rather, Scripture teaches that the rebirth is ordinarily wrought by the incorruptible word of God. So, although we may have confidence that the children of the faithful are elect, infant regeneration may not be presumed upon. Added to this is we can know that infants have not yet received and rested upon Christ in the gospel through the movement of faith (notitia, assensus, and fiducia). Consequently, apart from exercising the evangelical graces of repentance and faith, covenant infants are definitionally and theologically non-communing members of the assembly, even when they’re fed the communion elements!

Let’s speak frankly:

Unless understanding and belief are unintelligibly redefined, paedo-communion parents must wrongly affirm that understanding and believing are not requirements to partake of communion. Consequently, such parents do not distinguish the two sacraments aright.

The sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper differ, in that Baptism is to be administered but once, with water, to be a sign and seal of our regeneration and ingrafting into Christ, and that even to infants; whereas the Lord’s Supper is to be administered often, in the elements of bread and wine, to represent and exhibit Christ as spiritual nourishment to the soul, and to confirm our continuance and growth in him, and that only to such as are of years and ability to examine themselves.

WLC 177

Unlike baptism, holy communion is not a sign and seal that can be rightly administered to passive subjects who have not repented and believed. Rather, the Lord’s Supper is an actual and active participation in the body and blood of Christ by faith. Communion is a covenant renewal meal. Indeed, communion is communion. 

This side of glory – where there is blessing, there is also potential cursing:

Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.

1 Corinthians 11:27-32 

Paedo-communionists don’t see these warning applying to covenant infants or those incapable of understanding. Consequently, they don’t believe that a covenant infant can possibly participate in an unworthy manner. OK, let’s run with that. If such is true, then how can infants receive the blessing of the participation in the blood of Christ?

The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? 

1 Corinthians 10:16

On what theological basis can covenant blessings be obtained apart from the possibility of incurring covenant cursing? In other words, by what biblical precedent might an infant receive the blessing of the sacrament without also being subjected to the potential of an associated cursing tied to the same?

A possible solution:

Because baptism replaces circumcision, we can infer that witholding baptism from a covenant child is to cause the child to break covenant. (Gen. 17:14; Col. 2:11-12) Consequently, a paedo-communionist might argue in parallel fashion. By analogy, a paedo-communionist might reason that because withholding baptism from a covenant child is great sin that can incur spiritual consequences, then it stands to reason that withholding the Supper from a covenant child is what would incur covenant sanction upon him. In this way paedo-communionists can consistently maintain that where there is the potential for covenant blessing, there must also be the potential of covenant cursing. However, there’s a glaring problem with this line of defense. The covenant sanctions in view as they relate to table fellowship do not pertain to non-participation (i.e., withholding the sacrament), but instead pertain to self-examination and spiritual discernment, which aren’t reflections that are relevant to infants. In other words, apart from spiritual discernment one can only eat and drink in an unworthy manner.

Consequently, the paedo-communionist is left with two unhappy alternatives. They can affirm covenant blessing without the possibility of covenant sanction, or else give up on the communion blessing altogether. However, this will not do, at least from a Reformed perspective. The former notion leads to a species of transubstantiation whereby one necessarily receives Christ and his benefits by virtue of partaking of the elements; whereas the latter view reduces communion to a bare memorial, stripping it of the grace that is offered in the Eucharist. These two alternatives reduce the sacrament either to magic or a minimalist memorial respectively. Either way (real presence or real absence) we’d no longer be talking about the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, let alone Christ’s spiritual presence that is received only in faith with thanksgiving.

Last ditch effort:

By good and necessary inference drawn from Scripture, we can observe that covenant infants are to be baptized. Yet when we come to the question of who may participate at the communion table, we find explicit requirements for worthy recipients such as remember, examine and discern. Paedo-communionists simply dismiss these requirements out of hand, not by argumentation but by frothy assertion. These requirements can’t possibly apply to infants because infants obviously can’t do those things! Of course such reasoning begs the question and makes a special plea to ignore the regulative principle of worship, which teaches that unless a practice can be derived from Scripture it is forbidden. Moreover, it’s absurd to think that only drunkenness is in view in the restriction. Certainly there are degrees of unworthiness that can’t all apply to blood alcohol levels! Consequently, the paedo-communionist position rests largely on two informal fallacies – begging the question and special pleading. Accordingly, religious sects that promote this heterodoxy do a lot of rhetorical deflection and hand-waiving but don’t argue their position syllogistically, let alone engage seriously with arguments against the aberrant practice. Whether the sin of muddled thinking drives the spiritually fatal practice or whether the desire to practice paedo-communion gives way to its muddled “defense” is a curious thing. My guess is it’s a little of both.

Food for thought:

What immediately precedes invites a few questions.

1. From a paedo-communionist standpoint, at what point is a covenant child capable of eating and drinking in an unworthy manner? Are wiggly children who doodle in worship invincibly exempt from the warnings of not discerning the body of Christ? Or do they differ from an infant and, therefore, can be found culpable?

2. If an infant is considered to be in full communion with Christ and his body, how is it possible for the child to ever be converted in the future? In other words, because full communion presupposes effectual calling and actual union with Christ, what need is there for actual conversion? Can one be converted a second time, or are infants not yet converted and, therefore, not in communion with God? If the latter, then what are they doing at the communion table?!

3. If a child is not understanding the sermon or at least the words of institution (if there even are words of institution!), how (other than in a legalistic sense) is the participation in the Supper being functionally accompanied by the Word? Yet if the grace of the Supper can be received apart from understanding the Word, how have we not replaced the ordinance with sacramental superstition? Communion would be reduced to a non-communing sacrament! But it’s not only that infants aren’t able to commune, their partaking of the elements is of no spiritual use. We feast on the body and blood of Christ only by faith, with thanksgiving!

4. What is a parent to do when it occurs to him that his child has not yet trusted in Christ? Unfortunately, when there’s no category for non-communing members of Christ’s church, the paedo-communionist must seek either excommunication or else encourage his child to eat and drink in an unworthy manner. (This judgement that unworthy recipients incur is not only eschatological for the non-elect but is depicted as immediate, even for elect children, by words such as weak, sickly and death. Indeed, the stakes are high when pride keeps us from repenting of false ideas that run contrary to the settled teaching of the church.)

A very few words about John 6:

The bread of life discourse recorded in John 6 graphically depicts the spiritual reality set forth in holy communion. (This is confirmed even by the reference to Judas the betrayer both in Capernaum and in the upper room at the institution of the Supper.)

What is striking from the passage recorded in John 6 is the unmistakably close association between the intellect and will as they relate to eating and drinking. Hearing, being taught and learning from God along with willfully coming to Christ (verses 29, 35, 40, 44, 45, 47, and 65) are inexorably tied to partaking of Christ’s flesh and blood (verses 51, 53, 54, 56, and 57). In other words, we may not disassociate a worthy receiving of Christ in the Supper from receiving Christ by faith. In response to the the force of the Reformed position, paedo-communionists simply hand wave and fallaciously reason that the understanding and faith requirements put forth in John 6 cannot possibly apply to covenant children, yet the benefits of Christ that presuppose such understanding and faith somehow do! (Muddled or just obstinate?)

Closing:

I would find it odd that God granted a correct yet sectarian view of paedo-communion to some communions while leaving her in the dark on the gospel. Conversely, it would seem odd that God would blind the Reformed faith from the allegedly biblical practice of paedo-communion while illuminating her to 24-Carat theology of seemingly everything else. But what I find even more curious is how quickly evangelicals can turn away from the giants of the Reformed tradition without even a smidgeon of serious consideration, let alone a touch of fear and trembling.

Yet aside from those curiosities, the main point is that the theological underpinnings of paedo-communion undermine the need for a covenant child’s conversion. That’s because the need for conversion presupposes that one is not already in actual communion with Christ, which paedo-communion denies. Therefore, and in the final analysis, paedo-communion opposes evangelical Christianity because it’s at odds with the gospel. Yet, and understandably so, there’s something sinfully alluring about leaving one’s children to the bare sacraments as opposed to pursuing the rewarding labors of covenant nurturing.