Jack Cottrell's Defense of Baptism as the Occasional Condition: Examining an Underlying Defeater of Traditional Objections

Due to a desire to preserve the doctrines of sole gratia and fide, many credobaptists have been uncomfortable with the NT teaching on water baptism. This discomfort has produced interpretations of key texts that seem to avoid the plain meaning. Yet, because these irregular readings result from underlying theological and philosophical convictions, their revision requires more than literary illumination. This paper examines one of these provincial presuppositions, a non sequitur uncovered by Stone-Campbell theologian Jack Cottrell.