One of the ways Ken Wilson pit early Augustine against later Augustine in regards to baptism was to claim Augustine changed his view of John 3:5 to make it about baptism later on in life.
Consider what he wrote in Augustine’s Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to “Non-free Free Will” in regards to later Augustine on John 3:5:
Page 167: “His argument reinterprets John 3:5 as water baptism instead of physical birth (“water breaking”) versus spiritual rebirth, contesting his accurate explanation of John 3:6 demonstrating flesh/flesh (physical) versus spirit/spirit birth (Gen. Litt.10.38).”
Page 174: “Augustine replies with his allegorized John 3:5, declaring water baptism as essential for salvation, even in sinless newborns. Therefore, Augustine must reverse his prior explanation of the thief’s salvation (Nat. orig.1.12). Faith no longer suffices; instead, baptism in blood (martyrdom) explains the thief’s salvation. When Vincentius points to the thief entering paradise without baptism, Augustine repeats his novel John 3:5 proof text.”
Page 187: “Objectively, the development of Augustine’s later theology in his treatises commences in 412 CE as he wrestles to explain the Church tradition of paeodobaptism (Pecc. merit. 1.67). He posits new doctrines based on his Stoic reinterpretation of the paedobaptismal tradition and his mistranslation of Rom. 5.12 with its corresponding inherited reatus, its index appearance in his massive corpus as a full scriptural citation. Water baptism now stands as essential for salvation through a reinterpreted John 3:5 when he previously denied it.”
Page 188: “He reverses his prior explanation of the thief’s exception (Nat. orig.1.12) and conjectures feral theories, after he alters John 3:5 from physical birth into water baptism.”
Page 244: “Augustine’s interpretation of John 2.23-25 exposes a developing preoccupation with John 3:5 as water baptism as he alters Jesus’ words.”
First off, zero church fathers, who commented on John 3:5, prior to Augustine denied that the text refers to baptismal requirement for salvation or rebirth. Wilson should know that since multiple sources, he referenced, such as Origen’s Romans 5.9 commentary and Ambrose’s On Abraham, 2.79 and On the Mysteries, all cite John 3:5 as baptismal requirement for rebirth (and both individuals held to it applies to infants as well). But we see nowhere is there any mention from Wilson in his book that prior fathers, who affirmed John 3:5, altered, reinterpreted, or gave allegorized view of John 3:5 from physical birth to baptism. We are left with the completely false impression that Augustine from 412 AD and afterwards made up the “novel” view of John 3:5 as baptism. It’s very deceptive.
Secondly, not only zero fathers did not hold to water in John 3:5 meant physical birth, but in fact, as pointed out in the article on the pre-Augustine fathers on John 3:5, it was the Docetist Gnostics who held to that view. As pointed out, in my earlier article, church father and martyr Hippolytus called them out on that. (Not to mention, multiple times in early church writings, such as Irenaeus’ Against Heresies, Book I, Chapter 21, Tertullian’s On Baptism Chapter 1, and Tertullian’s Against Marcion, Book I, Chapter 28, different Gnostic groups were called out for their denials of baptism is regeneration.) So when Wilson wants to play novelty and Gnostic/Stoic/Manichaean cards on Augustine on John 3:5, it is really ironic since he is blatantly guilty of what he accused Augustine (holding novel views of passages that only Gnostics held to early on).
Thirdly, early Augustine himself held to John 3:5 as baptismal salvation requirement. It was nothing something later Augustine made up or alter Jesus’ words or reinterpret it to mean baptism. It was not novel to him either when the later Augustine saw it as baptism since early Augustine affirmed the text meant baptism as well.
And this will be the central focus of this article. On page 120, Wilson wrote “In De baptismo, we find abundant proof of Augustine’s persistent traditional free choice theology.” Proof? He wrote next: “Salvation can occur without water baptism, demonstrating John 3:5 has not yet evolved into a proof text.”
Wilson claimed early Augustine’s On Baptism 2.19 denied John 3:5 was baptismal prooftext. Here’s what Augustine wrote in it:
“19. But which is the worse, not to be baptized at all, or to be twice baptized, it is difficult to decide. I see, indeed, which is more repugnant and abhorrent to men's feelings; but when I have recourse to that divine balance, in which the weight of things is determined, not by man's feelings, but by the authority of God, I find a statement by our Lord on either side. For He said to Peter, ‘He who is washed has no need of washing a second time;’ and to Nicodemus, "Unless a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." John 3:5 What is the purport of the more secret determination of God, it is perhaps difficult for men like us to learn; but as far as the mere words are concerned, any one may see what a difference there is between ‘has no need of washing,’ and ‘cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.’ The Church, lastly, herself holds as her tradition, that without baptism she cannot admit a man to her altar at all; but since it is allowed that one who has been rebaptized may be admitted after penance, surely this plainly proves that his baptism is considered valid. If, therefore, Cyprian thought that those whom he considered to be unbaptized yet had some share in pardon, in virtue of the bond of unity, the Lord has power to be reconciled even to the rebaptized by means of the simple bond of unity and peace, and by this same compensating power of peace to mitigate His displeasure against those by whom they were rebaptized, and to pardon all the errors which they had committed while in error, on their offering the sacrifice of charity, which covers the multitude of sins; so that He looks not to the number of those who have been wounded by their separation, but to the greater number who have been delivered from bondage by their return. For in the same bond of peace in which Cyprian conceived that, through the mercy of God, those whom he considered to have been admitted to the Church without baptism, were yet not severed from the gifts of the Church, we also believe that through the same mercy of God the rebaptized can earn their pardon at His hands.”
That’s actually Augustine was discussing John 3:5 in terms of baptismal requirement for salvation even back then. The fact he discussed Cyprian’s idea of those who were not validly baptized may still be saved via unity with the church does not change or alter that fact Augustine saw John 3:5 as baptism, not physical birth, then.
Then in On Baptism, Book IV, Augustine cited John 3:5 three times and saw as reference to baptismal rebirth requirement:
“29. With regard to the objection brought against Cyprian, that the catechumens who were seized in martyrdom, and slain for Christ's name's sake, received a crown even without baptism, I do not quite see what it has to do with the matter, unless, indeed, they urged that heretics could much more be admitted with baptism to Christ's kingdom, to which catechumens were admitted without it, since He Himself has said, ‘Unless a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.’ John 3:5 Now, in this matter I do not hesitate for a moment to place the Catholic catechumen, who is burning with love for God, before the baptized heretic; nor yet do we thereby do dishonor to the sacrament of baptism which the latter has already received, the former not as yet; nor do we consider that the sacrament of the catechumen is to be preferred to the sacrament of baptism, when we acknowledge that some catechumens are better and more faithful than some baptized persons. For the centurion Cornelius, before baptism, was better than Simon, who had been baptized. For Cornelius, even before his baptism, was filled with the Holy Spirit; Acts 10:44 Simon, even after baptism, was puffed up with an unclean spirit. Cornelius, however, would have been convicted of contempt for so holy a sacrament, if, even after he had received the Holy Ghost, he had refused to be baptized. But when he was baptized, he received in no wise a better sacrament than Simon; but the different merits of the men were made manifest under the equal holiness of the same sacrament — so true is it that the good or ill deserving of the recipient does not increase or diminish the holiness of baptism. But as baptism is wanting to a good catechumen to his receiving the kingdom of heaven, so true conversion is wanting to a bad man though baptized. For He who said, ‘Unless a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God,’ said also Himself, "unless your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 5:20 For that the righteousness of the catechumens might not feel secure, it is written, ‘Unless a man be born again of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.’ And again, that the unrighteousness of the baptized might not feel secure because they had received baptism, it is written, ‘Unless your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.’ The one were too little without the other; the two make perfect the heir of that inheritance. As, then, we ought not to depreciate a man's righteousness, which begins to exist before he is joined to the Church, as the righteousness of Cornelius began to exist before he was in the body of Christian men, — which righteousness was not thought worthless, or the angel would not have said to him, ‘Your prayers and your alms have come up as a memorial before God;’ nor did it yet suffice for his obtaining the kingdom of heaven, or he would not have been told to send to Peter, Acts 10:4-5 — so neither ought we to depreciate the sacrament of baptism, even though it has been received outside the Church. But since it is of no avail for salvation unless he who has baptism indeed in full perfection be incorporated into the Church, correcting also his own depravity, let us therefore correct the error of the heretics, that we may recognize what in them is not their own but Christ's.”
Wilson argued on page 120: “Had Augustine in ca. 401 believed in eternal damnation upon birth from Augustinian original sin he could not have written that an unbaptized person could win salvation through unity without baptism, or that a second baptism was bad as no baptism.”
Here, he offers no evidence that the later Augustine would entertained the idea of a second baptism being a valid baptism. The reason? He can’t. He manufactured that claim as “evidence” that Augustine denied baptismal salvation necessity and John 3:5 as prooftext to “prove” he held to “traditional free choice theology.” But as pointed out on one of my earlier articles, that would mean the entire early church before Augustine would be in denial of “traditional free choice theology” for affirming John 3:5 is prooftext of baptismal saving requirement.
And even the later Augustine allowed for salvation without baptism for those who desired it as adults through faith (baptism of desire). He wrote in his later writing, City of God, Book XIII Chapter 7: “For whatever unbaptized persons die confessing Christ, this confession is of the same efficacy for the remission of sins as if they were washed in the sacred font of baptism. For He who said, Unless a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God, John 3:5 made also an exception in their favor, in that other sentence where He no less absolutely said, Whosoever shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven; Matthew 10:32 and in another place, Whosoever will lose his life for my sake, shall find it. Matthew 16:25 And this explains the verse, Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. For what is more precious than a death by which a man's sins are all forgiven, and his merits increased an hundredfold? For those who have been baptized when they could no longer escape death, and have departed this life with all their sins blotted out have not equal merit with those who did not defer death, though it was in their power to do so, but preferred to end their life by confessing Christ, rather than by denying Him to secure an opportunity of baptism.”
That puts the lie to the claim Wilson made on page 121 that early Augustine could not written those who have faith without getting a chance to be baptized if he held to Augustinian original sin: “Could Augustine have written such a ‘panegyric to the thief’s resounding power of personal faith for salvation (Bapt. 4:30) had he already believed in Augustinian original sin? Probably not, since in Retract. 2.18 he changes his mind and attempts a post-mortem baptism for this thief (cf. Bapt. 4.31).”
Note, Wilson referenced On Baptism, Book IV, where Augustine referenced John 3:5 multiple times as baptismal requirement for salvation, so there is nowhere he did not know the church father saw the text as baptism then. Arguing that later Augustine changed his views on the thief does not change the fact that early Augustine did not hold to John 3:5 as physical birth and hence the later Augustine did not then alter and change or re-interpret such text to mean baptism. It was always his view, whether early on or later on in the faith.
Earlier in the article, Wilson claimed later Augustine changed his view on how the thief was saved only after he altered and reinterpreted John 3:5 from physical birth to baptism. Note that when Wilson referred to the early Augustine writing, it was in the very contexts of Augustine treating John 3:5 as baptism for salvation.
It is a wholesale revisionism and falsifying of church history to make it out like later Augustine was who altered and re-interpreted John 3:5 from physical birth to baptism when at no point did early Augustine or any fathers prior to him held to the text meant physical birth and not baptism, all to fit a narrative that free choice theology, that requires rejecting baptism was necessary to salvation view of John 3:5, was the view of the entire early church prior to Augustine. Contrary to Soteriology 101’s defense of Wilson by claiming baptism is not relevant issue to his thesis, Wilson made it about baptism as central to his arguments and claims.
As a side note, holding to baptism of martyrdom was not an invention Augustine made up to cover for his supposedly novelty of baptismal salvation necessity view of John 3:5. (An example prior to Augustine would be these words from Lecture 3 of Cyril of Jerusalem: “10. If any man receive not Baptism, he has not salvation; except only Martyrs, who even without the water receive the kingdom. For when the Saviour, in redeeming the world by His Cross, was pierced in the side, He shed forth blood and water; that men, living in times of peace, might be baptized in water, and, in times of persecution, in their own blood. For martyrdom also the Saviour is wont to call a baptism, saying, Can you drink the cup which I drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with Mark 10:38? And the Martyrs confess, by being made a spectacle unto the world, and to Angels, and to men 1 Corinthians 4:9; and you will soon confess:— but it is not yet the time for you to hear of this.”)
To close, let’s provide more quotes from early Augustine’s writings to show how he was baptismal salvation necessity advocate, including for infants, to the core:
Confessions, Book 9, Chapter 13:
“34. But — my heart being now healed of that wound, in so far as it could be convicted of a carnal Romans 8:7 affection — I pour out unto You, O our God, on behalf of that Your handmaid, tears of a far different sort, even that which flows from a spirit broken by the thoughts of the dangers of every soul that dies in Adam. And although she, having been made alive in Christ even before she was freed from the flesh had so lived as to praise Your name both by her faith and conversation, yet dare I not say that from the time You regenerated her by baptism, no word went forth from her mouth against Your precepts.”
Of the Morals of the Catholic Church, Chapter 35:
"78. Why do you reproach us by saying that men renewed in baptism ought no longer to beget children, or to possess fields, and houses, and money? Paul allows it. For, as cannot be denied, he wrote to believers, after recounting many kinds of evil-doers who shall not possess the kingdom of God: "And such were you," he says: "but you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." By the washed and sanctified, no one, assuredly, will venture to think any are meant but believers, and those who have renounced this world."
Letter 23:
“4. If, then, it be indeed the case that, under the promptings of a devout and pious mind, you abstain from dispensing a second baptism, and rather accept the baptism of the Catholic Church as the act of the one true Mother, who to all nations both offers a welcome to her bosom, that they may be regenerated, and gives a mother's nourishment to them when they are regenerated, and as the token of admission into Christ's one possession.”
Letter 44:
“For perfect cleansing is by the baptism, not of John, but of the Lord, if the person receiving it be worthy; if, however, he be unworthy, the sacraments abide in him, not to his salvation, but to his perdition. When I was about to put these questions, Fortunius himself saw that he ought not to have mooted the subject of the baptism of the disciples of the Lord.”
On the Catechising of the Uninstructed, Chapter 20
“Thus, then, just as the earth through the agency of the flood was cleansed by the waters from the wickedness of the sinners, who in those times were destroyed in their inundation, while the righteous escaped by means of the wood; so the people of God, when they went forth from Egypt, found a way through the waters by which their enemies were devoured. Nor was the sacrament of the wood wanting there. For Moses smote with his rod, in order that that miracle might be effected. Both these are signs of holy baptism, by which the faithful pass into the new life, while their sins are done away with like enemies, and perish."
Of the Good of Marriage, 21
“For in baptism all sins are put away.”
“34. But — my heart being now healed of that wound, in so far as it could be convicted of a carnal Romans 8:7 affection — I pour out unto You, O our God, on behalf of that Your handmaid, tears of a far different sort, even that which flows from a spirit broken by the thoughts of the dangers of every soul that dies in Adam. And although she, having been made alive in Christ even before she was freed from the flesh had so lived as to praise Your name both by her faith and conversation, yet dare I not say that from the time You regenerated her by baptism, no word went forth from her mouth against Your precepts.”
Of the Morals of the Catholic Church, Chapter 35:
"78. Why do you reproach us by saying that men renewed in baptism ought no longer to beget children, or to possess fields, and houses, and money? Paul allows it. For, as cannot be denied, he wrote to believers, after recounting many kinds of evil-doers who shall not possess the kingdom of God: "And such were you," he says: "but you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." By the washed and sanctified, no one, assuredly, will venture to think any are meant but believers, and those who have renounced this world."
Letter 23:
“4. If, then, it be indeed the case that, under the promptings of a devout and pious mind, you abstain from dispensing a second baptism, and rather accept the baptism of the Catholic Church as the act of the one true Mother, who to all nations both offers a welcome to her bosom, that they may be regenerated, and gives a mother's nourishment to them when they are regenerated, and as the token of admission into Christ's one possession.”
Letter 44:
“For perfect cleansing is by the baptism, not of John, but of the Lord, if the person receiving it be worthy; if, however, he be unworthy, the sacraments abide in him, not to his salvation, but to his perdition. When I was about to put these questions, Fortunius himself saw that he ought not to have mooted the subject of the baptism of the disciples of the Lord.”
On the Catechising of the Uninstructed, Chapter 20
“Thus, then, just as the earth through the agency of the flood was cleansed by the waters from the wickedness of the sinners, who in those times were destroyed in their inundation, while the righteous escaped by means of the wood; so the people of God, when they went forth from Egypt, found a way through the waters by which their enemies were devoured. Nor was the sacrament of the wood wanting there. For Moses smote with his rod, in order that that miracle might be effected. Both these are signs of holy baptism, by which the faithful pass into the new life, while their sins are done away with like enemies, and perish."
Of the Good of Marriage, 21
“For in baptism all sins are put away.”
Psalm 51.10 Exposition
“10. For, behold, in iniquities I was conceived Psalm 50:5. As though he were saying, They are conquered that have done what thou, David, hast done: for this is not a little evil and little sin, to wit, adultery and man-slaying. What of them that from the day that they were born of their mother's womb, have done no such thing? Even to them do you ascribe some sins, in order that He may conquer all men when He begins to be judged. David has taken upon him the person of mankind, and has heeded the bonds of all men, has considered the offspring of death, has adverted to the origin of iniquity, and he says, For, behold, in iniquities I was conceived. Was David born of adultery; being born of Jesse, 1 Samuel 16:18 a righteous man, and his own wife? What is it that he says himself to have been in iniquity conceived, except that iniquity is drawn from Adam? Even the very bond of death, with iniquity itself is engrained? No man is born without bringing punishment, bringing desert of punishment. A Prophet says also in another place, No one is clean in Your sight, not even an infant, whose life is of one day upon earth. For we know both by the Baptism of Christ that sins are loosed, and that the Baptism of Christ avails the remission of sins. If infants are every way innocent, why do mothers run with them when sick to the Church? What by that Baptism, what by that remission is put away? An innocent one I see that rather weeps than is angry. What does Baptism wash off? What does that Grace loose? There is loosed the offspring of sin. For if that infant could speak to you, it would say, and if it had the understanding which David had, it would answer you, Why do you heed me, an infant? Thou dost not indeed see my actions: but I in iniquity have been conceived, And in sins has my mother nourished me in the womb.”
Here we stand.
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