Garrett on Holmes and Clark

Last Sunday, Garrett posted this: http://old-baptist-test.blogspot.com/2011/12/clark-holmes-on-predestination.html

It was in response to a post here: http://baptistsearch.blogspot.com/2011/12/clarke-and-holmes-on-decree-of-god.html

The above is a blog of R.L. Vaughn's, but the substance of his posting was a quote from Obadiah Holmes and John Clark. There are several things objectionable in Garrett's comments.

Garrett stated:

"John Clark and Obadiah Holmes were pastors of the first Baptist church in America.  Notice that the first Baptists in America were not of the modern Hardshell type, for they say that "all things that come to pass in time" are the result of God's decree and determination.  Yet, they also said that God was not the "cause" of "any sin."  Surely by"cause" they meant the immediate or direct cause of sin, that he was not the culpable cause.  They certainly could not be said to be rejecting the idea that God is no "cause" in any sense without contradicting themselves.  God decrees and determines a thing but does not cause it in any sense?  Doubtless the denial that God is the "cause" of sin simply meant that God is not the "author of sin," and doubtless Clark and Holmes believed that all things are predestined.  They also differentiate between special and general predestination."

Garrett claims that Holmes and Clark were not of the "Hardshell type" because they said that all things come to pass in time as a result of God's decree and determination. This is erroneous. Are there some present Primitive Baptists that deny that sin and evil come to pass by God's determination? Yes there are some, but Garrett presumes that these represent the majority. Present Primitive Baptists have no formal creed that summarizes their doctrine. You have independent ministers that hold different views that can be broadly characterized, but to presume that there is an objective standard of Primitive Baptist doctrine is to misunderstand the autonomous, congregational nature of the Primitive Baptists.

Of course, PB's claim that only the Scripture is a doctrinal standard. However, interpretation renders even this standard somewhat subjective. Historical interpretation of the Scripture is an objective standard, and I agree with Garrett that some present Primitive Baptists are in disagreement with their forefathers on the idea that God has decreed whatsoever comes to pass. However, no learned Primitive Baptist has ever denied this truth.

There is a lot of ignorance among Primitive Baptists that I will not deny. The learned Primitive Baptist objection to some adherents of Absolute Predestination is that they refute any difference between the permissive and fiat decree of God in relation to sin, making God the cause of sin the same way in which God is the cause of grace and holiness. It appears, however, that some Absolute Predestinarians reject this view as well, and to them there ought not to be a lack of fellowship. However, the objection is also made that predestination is defined in the Scripture as a specific decree of God, not a synonym for God's general decrees. I do not believe this semantic difference alone (of the previous sentence) should be a test of fellowship, but it could be argued that redefining God's providence as predestination is in the same spirit of dissolving God's permissive decree. Those that seem to insist on using predestination instead of providence also tend to insist that God wills nothing by "bare permission".

Both of these qualifications of supralapsarian Calvinism are present in the quotation of Clark and Holmes. The Fulton brethren would have been in complete agreement with this quotation. Some present PB's ignorantly claim that the men at Fulton, Kentucky were "absoluters" as well, but this is a silly claim. The cause of this is that some present PB's, feeling the weight of the supralapsarian argument that God decrees nothing by "bare permission", have abandoned the Biblical emphasis on God's permissive decree of sin, and instead chosen to claim that sin and evil happen outside the will of God. These brethren flirt with blasphemy, but do not appear to see the implications of this for God's omnipotence and omniscience.