Garrett and "Old Divinity"

I read with interest Garrett's recent blog posts - chapters 111-113 in his ongoing work against the "Hardshell", Primitive Baptists: http://old-baptist-test.blogspot.com/2012/01/chpt-111-mediate-or-immediate.html

Garrett quoted approvingly from Archibald Alexander:

"Curious inquiries respecting the way in which the word [regeneration - JB] is instrumental in the production of this change are not for edification. Sometimes regeneration is considered distinctly from the acts and exercises of the mind which proceed from it, but in the Holy Scriptures the cause and effect are included; and we shall therefore treat the subject in this practical and popular form. The instrumentality of the word can never derogate from the efficient agency of the Spirit in this work. The Spirit operates by and through the word. The word derives all its power and penetrating energy from the Spirit. Without the omnipotence of God the word would be as inefficient as clay and spittle, to restore sight to the blind."

Obviously this view of regeneration is dependent on it being true that the Holy Scriptures always include cause and effect. If there are Scriptures that distinguish cause and effect in the context of being "born again" or "regenerated", one cannot object to interpreting this word as a reference to the Divine cause. If there is any Scriptural merit to such views that define "regeneration" narrowly to refer to Divine causation, any at all, there is absolutely no logical reason to insist that this term only be used to encompass acts of repentance and faith. Obviously, an appeal to texts that refer to obedience and repentance in terms of conversion or regeneration would not disprove the legitimacy of narrowly defining the term as it is defined in other texts of Scripture.

Garrett writes negatively of the later Calvinistic theologians like Kuyper "hair-splitting" regeneration. John Owen's paradigm of "preparatory regeneration" and regeneration proper, could this not be objected to similarly? Why the logical need to separate out from regeneration gracious acts of God that are all part of the same experience? Yet Garrett does not object to Owens' arbitrary semantics in this. Garrett seems inconsistent. Theologians, at one time or another in systematic works seem guilty of "hair-splitting". What Garrett really objects to is the idea of separating conversion out of regeneration like modern Primitive Baptists do - some to radical extremes. But, as Garrett has stated, no reputed Divine supports the radical extreme of this distinction.

Even if Garrett is correct in his depiction of the contrast of Calvinist theologians of the Old and New Divinity, it hardly follows that the evolution of the terms "regeneration" and "conversion" was illegitimate. No less a scholar that Dr. John Gill was aware of the differences among Calvinists on the definition of the term "regeneration", as he writes (Book 6, Chapter 11 of A Body of Doctrinal Divinity):

"Regeneration may be considered either more largely, and then it includes with it effectual calling, conversion, and sanctification: or more strictly, and then it designs the first principle of grace infused into the soul; which makes it a fit object of the effectual calling, a proper subject of conversion, and is the source and spring of that holiness which is gradually carried on in sanctification, and perfected in heaven."

 Notice that Gill does not argue against a strict definition of regeneration, which excludes conversion, but, rather, incorporates it as he exegetes 1 John 3:9 a little later:

"It is also signified by "seed" (1 John 3:9). "Whosoever is born of God—his seed remaineth in him"; which is the principle of grace infused in regeneration; and as seed contains in it virtually, all that after proceeds from it, the blade, stalk, ear, and full corn in the ear; so the first principle of grace implanted in the heart, seminally contains all the grace which afterwards appears, and all the fruits, effects, acts, and exercises of it."

The idea that Garrett and Bob Ross have espoused that Calvinists began to distinguish regeneration from conversion for paedo-Baptist ulterior motives does not explain why John Gill allowed for the legitimacy of defining regeneration "strictly" as the creative act of God in forming the new man within the reprobate. Gill was certainly a Baptist. John Gill, credited with "exterminating Arminianism from every text of scripture", no doubt saw the value of distinguishing the concepts of the terms "regeneration" and "conversion" in the context of the error of Arminian doctrine in regard to it's view of regeneration.

The Biblical emphasis of the necessary condition for "seeing" the Kingdom of God and exercising faith (John 3:3), is the scriptural depiction of the natural man being dead in trespasses and in sins - in need of something far more decisive and radical than prevenient grace would allow. Notice that John 3:3 markedly makes intellectual "sight" - the sight Nicodemus claims to have in his declaration that he knows Jesus is a teacher sent from God - quite beside the point of spiritual rebirth. Nicodemus' claims - as if they qualified for true spiritual knowledge - are struck down by Christ.

Man is either dead from all spiritual things before being quickened by God's spirit alone (1 Cor. 2:14, Rom. 8:7), or he is not completely dead to spiritual things. The latter makes Paul guilty of at least careless, theological imprecision. If an Arminian view of  "deadness" is the Biblical view, the Apostle Paul has certainly misled in Ephesians 2:1-10. Paul seems to leave no doubt that those truly quickened are created unto good works in which God has foreordained them. However, the Arminian notion of prevenient grace would not ensure this destiny to the quickened.

It is not only God that has quickened, according to an Arminian view of regeneration, but man himself. The elect were only quickened because they cooperated with God's prevenient grace. If Paul only means "deadness" in the sense that God's grace had to initialize regeneration, Paul misleads to speak of this process, which entails the good works that follow this process, as being a creation of God all the way through.

Now, all of this is quite relevant. The foremost problem of Garrett is that he does not recognize the confusion inherent in a view of regeneration that does not firmly root the works of man as an effect of the Divine. Whether the works are included in the definition of "regeneration" is immaterial to the real point: that God alone is the efficient cause of regeneration. Any view of regeneration that places the emphasis on man's activity as respecting the efficient cause is in error, and cannot be reconciled to God actually being the efficient cause.