Reference: http://baptistgadfly.blogspot.com/2010/05/hardshell-david-pyles.html
Brother Garrett stated on his "BaptistGadfly" blog in which he critiqued David Pyles' "Extent of the Gospel":
"This question - "will all the elect hear and believe the gospel?" - Is similar to another question being debated, once again, by today's Hardshells - "Is there any truth knowledge given in the new birth?"
These questions are tough nuts for Hardshells. They do not believe that gospel truth, or knowledge about Christ, is part of that "revelation" given in the new birth. So, what knowledge is given when one is born again, according to Hardshellism? Most will affirm that it is a knowledge of sin andguilt before God. But, there is a problem here for them. Ask them "what God?" Sin against Allah? Against the Hindu elephant god? Against Brahma, Vishnu, or Shiva? Also, if conviction knowledge is part of the new birth,does the infant in the womb become convicted of sin, and penitent, when it is supposedly regenerated? If "revelation" is part of the new birth, then does the infant possess this revelation?"
There is no difficulty for Primitive Baptists on the question of the content of the faith or the principle of grace imparted at regeneration.
The difficulty Brother Garrett foresees is in terms of propositional knowledge. Brother Garrett seems to presuppose here and in many of his blogs that saving faith requires complex, propositional knowledge to be considered knowledge. It is understandable that he would presume such, as the Westminster Confession of faith (which heavily influenced the LCF), is couched in Enlightenment, Lockean standards of knowledge.
There is no reason to think that the faith given in regeneration is non-cognitive simply because it does not embrace propositions.
Alvin Plantinga states in, "Warrant and Proper Function" (pg. 95), "According to the classical foundationalist, my perceptual belief has warrant only if it is accepted on the basis of beliefs about my experience, and only if those beliefs support it - deductively (as Descartes thought) or, more moderately, inductively (with Locke) or, still more moderately, abductively, with Peirce and others. But (Thomas-JB) Reid's claim here - correct as I see it - is that the belief can perfectly well have warrant even if it is not accepted on the basis of other beliefs at all; it can have warrant even if it is taken in the basic way. Furthermore, this belief can have warrant for me - even very high degrees of warrant - whether or not it is evidentially supported by propositions about my immediate experience."
Plantinga argues that perceptual beliefs count as knowledge. Infants and the mentally handicapped certainly can be thought to possess petite perceptions, no matter how rudimentary. When they are regenerated and the effects of sin repaired, there is no reason to suppose that they do not perceive the spirit of God and exercise some form of petite faith, according to the principle of grace implanted.
Certainly they could hardly be said to embrace the knowledge of God in the same way that a mentally competent person embraces the knowledge of God in the gospel. However, the way I have explained here illustrates where Garrett errs in considering that John the Baptist embraced the full content of the New Testament gospel. John the Baptist's reaction in leaping for joy in the womb was a rudimentary, petite, and perceptual faith formed in the event of coming "womb to womb" with the Son of God.
There is no indication in the text that John the Baptist understood the propositional knowledge contained in the gospel; indeed such a view is absurd. But it is also not the case that John the Baptist's infantile faith had no knowledge as it's object because the perception of the being of Christ was the object of his faith - the Holy Spirit bearing witness.
Brother Garrett's objection above to the knowledge of God theorized by PB's in the regenerate heathen is a non sequitur. If such heathen were regenerate, their proper functioning faculties regenerated from the ill effects of sin would not spiritually perceive God in the worship of idols. In fact, Paul proves in Romans 1 that unregenerate pagan people know enough about the Godhead from nature to know that God is not a four-footed beast or creeping thing. How much less would regenerate but unevangelized people engage in gross idolatry and homosexuality?
There is no certain reason that is not some degree of conjecture, however, to suppose that the unevangelized are regenerate any more than that they are damned, just as there is no compelling, logical reason to suppose that all infants are elect. I believe that it is the will of God that the gospel be preached to every new creature, and since we do not know who the elect are, the gospel should be preached anywhere and everywhere there is opportunity.
On the most basic level, there is no reason to view the faith exercised immediately in regeneration to be anything other than a spiritual, perceptual trust in God according to the sensus divinitatis. After the noetic effects of sin have been repaired, faith immediately embraces man's innate knowledge of God and all natural revelation, as that knowledge is the most proximate to man. This knowledge is then expanded by any special revelation available by the power of the Spirit. Even if men are under the sound of the preached gospel, logically this transition would take place.
I am not saying by this that Paul should in any way be read in Romans chapter 1 as teaching that men outside of special revelation are regenerated. What I am saying is that when regeneration does occur, Paul proves in Romans 1:20 that there is a fundamental knowledge of God that all men have by virtue of being created in His image, and that that which is known of God by nature is embraced immediately in faith. The innate sensus divinitatis is the content of the principle of grace given to all in regeneration.
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