Garrett and Fuller

Garrett's original post: http://old-baptist-test.blogspot.com/2011/12/chpt-110-mediate-or-immediate.html

Stephen Garrett's latest post is, evidently, chapter 110 of his ongoing work against Primitive Baptists. I applaud some of the recent chapters of his work in that the presentation of the recent chapters have been, for the most part, far more logical and rational than some of the emotion-laden previous chapters. I would encourage him to continue in this style, and to re-write some of the previous chapters, as no matter what a person may believe, sensing an author's intense, personal feelings about a subject is a distraction to what should be a logical analysis that attempts to establish a rational basis for a thesis.

Too much of his writing bears the tone of abhorrence toward the Primitive Baptists that supplants what his rational objective is: to show the fallacy of Primitive Baptist doctrine. His name-calling, derogatory epithets, disparaging rhetoric, and sweeping generalizations will alienate readers from an honest appraisal of his arguments, even if they are not Primitive Baptists. His emotion alone alienates the logically-minded in a context in which reason and logic ought to be foremost.

Garrett stated:

""New Divinity distinction between regeneration and conversion."  The idea that there was a clear distinction, and separation, between "regeneration" and "conversion," in scripture, was part of the "New Divinity" among Calvinists, and was not the teaching of the old divinity.It is a misrepresentation of the view of Edwards to say that he taught that regeneration preceded faith and conversion and that it was accomplished strictly in an immediate fashion, apart from the instrumentality of the gospel truth."


Garrett (and Bob Ross) has been promoting the idea that later Calvinists, for, apparently, paedo-Baptist ulterior motives, began to distinguish regeneration and conversion from the creedal, Calvinistic view of the synonymy of these terms. There does seem to have been an evolution from seeing them as approximately synonymous in earlier theologians to the terms being sharply distinguished in later theologians. However, to claim that this was done to support paedo-Baptist views seems highly speculative, and injurious to the integrity of a great many Calvinist theologians. It seems far more plausible to suggest that a sharper contrast between these terms came about as a result of a more consistent opposition to Arminian doctrine.

Obviously, if an ordo salutis that places faith simultaneous to regeneration is embraced, it lends prima facie credibility to the Arminian doctrine of resistible grace. Garrett's view of soteriology seems to be that grace is both resistible and irresistible. It is irresistible to the elect, but resistible to the non-elect. Titus 2:11, according to Garrett, indicates that God's grace that brings salvation actually does come to every single man that has ever lived. This also means that salvation is actually offered to the non-elect, if they would simply accept it and repent. Christ's atonement was, therefore, limited and universal - unlimited in scope, but limited in application. Basically he advocates Fullerism.

Notice how Garrett begins his post linked above:

"Regeneration is both Mediate and Immediate, just like the whole of salvation is both conditional and unconditional. To argue that regeneration cannot be both mediate and immediate is invalid, for regeneration is in fact both."

Garrett lets slip his Fuller commitments in, "...just like the whole of salvation is both conditional and unconditional."

What exactly is the immediate aspect of Garrett's view of regeneration? Garrett's view is that God's spirit regenerates men through the gospel. Immediate regeneration, by definition, is a regeneration that is executed by God's Spirit alone without mediation of any thing natural. If Garrett admits that this occurs, the presence of the gospel is an unmediated presence; if Garrett admits that God's regenerating Spirit is mediated through the Word, God regenerates by use of a medium. How can it logically be both at the same time and in the same relationship?

Garrett must be advocating what appears to be nonsense because he defines 'mediate' and 'immediate' in the generally understood usage of these terms. How can the act of regeneration be both? It is either through some means or it is not.

As for Garrett's comparison of regeneration to general salvation, which is supposedly conditional and unconditional, it shares the same contradiction - it either is ultimately conditional or it is not. Garrett seems to understand the distinction between first and secondary causes as the same as between the conditional and unconditional. This is a stretch, to say the least. This distinction in the London Confession is made in terms of God's unconditional decrees, as it explicitly states that God decreed nothing by foreknowledge. God employs secondary causation to achieve His ends as well as directly causing events, but it is all in an unconditional context of the counsel of His own will. It is a poor choice of words to say that eternal salvation is "conditional" in any sense, as the LCF's view of secondary causation certainly did not extend to the realm of contingency in salvation. He cannot defend Fuller in that document.