Brother Kevin Fralick wrote (here) on the Primitive Baptist accusation that Calvinism is legalism equal to the legalism of the Pharisees.
Brother Fralick quotes Elder Hulan Bass and Conrad Jarrell.
First, I want to concede to Brother Fralick that Calvinists affirm that gospel belief is a faith effected by the Spirit and is the gift of God. To the Calvinist, the will of man in exercising faith in regeneration is fully effected by the Spirit to do so irresistibly, so that it is not a work of man alone.
The accusation that this is legalism (legalism being the idea that eternal salvation is earned by works apart from grace) is false because it is God by the Spirit that effects the faith of man, not man alone. The accusation by Elders Jarrell and Bass seems to be that to admit that the faith effected by the Spirit is a faith exercised by man, though it is effected by God alone, is tantamount to a merited salvation apart from grace.
The Elders, themselves, however, cannot escape their own objection in regard to their own view of the effectual call. The effectual call, even to any Primitive Baptist, effects some kind of faith in the regenerate. This faith is some kind of volitional trust in God, on some necessary level (John 17:3), which is exercised in man whether it is sub-conscious or not, and would be as equally objectionable as a "work of man" by their own standard as faith in the gospel.
The salient objection to Calvinism is not whether faith is exercised in the regenerate, which, plainly, all Primitive Baptists must agree that faith is exercised immediately upon regeneration (however different the Primitive Baptist view of the faith exercised is), but the standard of faith knowledge or what is the object of faith in regeneration.
Where I believe the Elders considered are correct in their accusation of legalism in Calvinism is upon the emphasis and indefensible standard of the regenerate's works. If works were emphasized by Calvinists on the basis of their epistemic value of evidencing the eternal salvation decreed by God, there should be no problem. However, when an unbiblical standard of works is made the condition for eternal salvation, legalism is the result.
To speak of works as conditions for salvation rather than the evidences of salvation obscures that eternal salvation was unconditionally purposed by God. What was purposed by God cannot be conditional, save in a relative sense to the assurance of the believer. An absence of works removes epistemic warrant for belief that one was redeemed by Christ, it does not dictate the objective fact of whether they were redeemed or not, though it may evidence the objective fact that they are unregenerate.
Eternal salvation effects some degree of good works in those set apart by the Spirit of God, but the crucial emphasis must be on Christ as the author of all spiritual blessings. It is the universal tendency of man to flee to himself for trust; the Calvinist has the tendency to temper the accusations against him that he suggests that the unrighteousness of man commends the righteousness of God by giving place to a legalistic standard of a "true" state of grace beyond confession of Christ and love of the brethren.
When only those who maintain perfect and strict discipleship are true children of God, the Calvinist has imposed works on grace by imposing burdens grievous to be borne. The message of the gospel is, "Come unto me all ye that are heavy laden, and I shall give you rest." Many Calvinists relieve their burdens in Christ only to take them up again. Was this not Paul's view of Christian Jews who believed in Christ, but still lived under the yolk of the law? Paul even, for their sake, acted as a Jew under command of James to show the Christian Jews that Paul walked orderly according to the law (Acts 21:20-26).
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Fralick on "Two Faith Caricature"
Brother Kevin Fralick wrote (here):
"The duplication of Christian virtues is the inevitable result of what happens when one follows a system which attempts to preserve God fulfilling his purpose concerning His elect in time, but will not allow Him to do so through gospel means. For each evangelical blessing that is to be conveyed to the children of God, a non-evangelical version must be created of which they are said to receive, where the former is left uncertain."
My point in opposing the representation of some modern Primitive Baptists as believing in "two faiths" or "two salvations" is not to claim that some modern PB's are fully correct or accurate in their views. I acknowledged in my last post that some PB's do indeed lend themselves to the criticism of Brother Fralick. My point is that there is an element of truth in their emphasis, but it is often, among some, poorly expressed, and that Brother Fralick does not really address the truth of a distinction between sonship and discipleship or between regeneration and conversion by an attack on the confused expressions of some Primitive Baptists over the last century.
To claim that it is false to distinguish sonship from discipleship or eternal salvation from the temporal manifestation of eternal salvation on the basis of specific writings of specific ministers among the PB's of the last century would only disprove the failings of the argumentation of those ministers. Kevin Fralick has not addressed my specific writing on these matters (though he makes a few snipes in this post), which, I think, establishes the truth of the emphases of much of modern PB's without falling into the error of antinomianism or a hollow-log view of regeneration.
It doesn't matter if he can poke holes and overthrow the silliest versions of soteriology of some modern PB's, it still does not disprove some degree of truth in their emphasis.
Brother Fralick wrote:
"If the terminology of “two faiths” is a caricature, it would stand to reason that the charge of "two kinds" of other virtues (listed above) are a caricature as well. What of "two salvations"? Is that a caricature? If evangelical faith is an extension of seed faith in regeneration, then is gospel conversion (i.e. time salvation) also an extension of regeneration? It would seem that way. For if evangelical faith is not really a separate faith from that received in regeneration, then the "two salvations" which are said to bring seed and evangelical faith, respectively, should be considered a single unit as well. Otherwise we are left with the strange conclusion that time salvation conveys and imparts a blessing which is actually part of the first salvation! Thus, the verbage of “two salvations” should henceforth be discarded. Starting today, it should be declared that there really are not two salvations taught in scripture. Rather, there is one salvation taught in the Bible, in which regeneration and the future gospel conversion are the components."
I agree with Elder Walter Cash in a post I made on the Sculptor's Hammer. God saves His people, whether it be in matters pertaining to their redemption in Jesus Christ or the extension of this redemption by a providential care of them in time. Certainly, it can hardly be denied that children of God can damage their fellowship with God through disobedience, and, consequently, fail to enjoy the blessings that are obtained through obedience. This truth is abused by some modern Primitive Baptists to give comfort to those who fully reject Jesus Christ and live lives given over to gross immorality, and to justify a judgment of the eternal security of the unrepentant. This hardly follows as a legitimate extension of the truth that God's children can be disobedient, but is imposed to justify a virtual universalism.
Though it is true that there is a difference between being saved and having the full assurance and knowledge of being saved, some modern Primitive Baptists extend this distinction unbiblically to the point that there is no effective temporal distinction between those set apart and the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction. When "two salvations" or "two faiths" is applied to make regenerate people out of the reprobate among those that openly blaspheme and reject Jesus Christ, one can clearly perceive universalism gone to seed.
Brother Fralick stated:
"The main point, though, is that even if I were to go back and rewrite my posting, and change my verbage of "two faiths" to one faith with two aspects, the substance remains the same. Passages yoking faith with salvation must still be given an interpretation. So I express it differently. What is that stage or aspect of the ONE faith which unites us to Christ, as in Gal. 3:26? Is it:
1) faith below the consciousness through the preaching of Jesus?
2) cognitive faith through the preaching of Jesus?
3) cognitive faith through the preaching of men?
Or some other permutation? This is not a haphazard handling of a subject, but a legitimate question based on the various aspects of faith as defined by the very inventors of this regeneration-conversion divorcement."
The essential misunderstanding here is that faith through the gospel as preached by man must be distinct in substance from the faith wrought in the heart by the Spirit of God alone. They are the same, or fundamentally the same, save in the degree of intellectual knowledge about the gospel that may be given through the preaching of man. One cannot separate out the faith of Christ wrought immediately by the Spirit from the propositional truth of the gospel as preached by man to those effectually called under the sound of the gospel. I have said this in multiple posts. The faith in Christ, wrought by the Spirit alone, assents, at the very least inwardly, to gospel propositions to some degree; the faith effected by the Spirit is an immediate revelation of the person of Christ, the gospel propositions corroborate this revelation, which is a spiritual reality. The sufficient condition of Biblical faith is not propositions of language but a spiritual revelation of the person of Christ wherein true sons cry Abba, Father (Gal. 4:6).
Gal. 3:23-26 seems to be more fully explained by Galatians 4:1-9. Gal. 4:5 does not make receiving the adoption of sons contingent on a mere intellectual apprehension and assent to propositions, though this text is fully consistent with such apprehension in mentally competent adults under the sound of the man-preached gospel, but the adoption is effected in time by an intrusive, effectual work of God through the Spirit of Christ by which sons cry, 'Abba Father', in a spiritual, vital faith in the person of Christ. This root groaning that "cannot be uttered" under girds and is the basis of all true, evangelical faith in the gospel as preached by man. It need not be fully separated exegetically from the gospel as preached by man, especially in plain contexts of evangelical faith in the New Testament, but is fully associated so that no text in the N.T. that states the necessity of faith for salvation should be absent this fundamental sense of it. Galatians 4:6 explains the basic nature of faith in Christ of 3:26.
Brother Fralick stated:
"The scriptures annihilate the idea of a time gap between regeneration and conversion, and thus the position that says that one receives seed faith in regeneration, and then evangelical faith one week, one year, or twenty years later. It does so by specific proof texts in which evangelical faith as preached by MAN is included as part of the transition in which one goes from death in sins to life in Christ."
The scripture plainly indicates that a regenerate person can be united to Christ without a full, intellectual apprehension of gospel truth. A fair examination of Galatians 4:9-11 proves that it is possible that truly regenerate persons, known of God in the covenant of grace, can be in error in regard to how they are apprehended of in Christ Jesus, as Paul also concedes in Philippians 3.
Paul considers, in Galatians 4:11, that the Galatians are either false professors or truly regenerate persons in error. He does not assert the fact of either, but plainly states his fear of the former by the possibility of the latter; conversely, he states his concern of the latter by the possibility of the former.
The preclusion by brother Fralick that there are not degrees of conversion among the regenerate controverts what is evidently possible from this passage, and from much of Hebrews. Paul could not write the Hebrew audience if he thought it was a forgone conclusion that those in error were and are false professors. The exhortation of Paul to the visible, community of believers establishes that children of God can be in error from the gospel and in need of temporal deliverance, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh (Jude 23). Gospel conversion obviously admits of degrees in terms of the full stature of Christ, and the regenerate may either live stunted spiritual lives in the kingdom or enjoy fuller, spiritual blessings through obedience. As Sonny Pyles puts it, the elect will either grow in grace or groan in disgrace.
Specific texts which include evangelical faith as a part of the transition from spiritual death to life establish that Christ is the object of true faith. The fact that the Spirit effects faith in the person of Christ under the sound of the gospel, including some degree of assent to gospel propositions, does not establish that faith is created by the rational hearing of the audible gospel. When a man hears the audible gospel and faith is effected by the Spirit, the faith effected is not fundamentally in the gospel propositions but in the person of Christ, which is the content of the gospel. This is the crucial point. Christ is not known savingly through propositions of language, even if these propositions mediate the Spirit (the meaningful mediation to man would be after faith in Christ is immediately effected by the Spirit), but by direct and immediate revelation of God, as Gal. 4:6 depicts. It is the Spirit of Christ, sent from God, wherein true sons respond in faith, not first in gospel propositions, though that surely follows to some degree in those under the sound of the gospel.
As Vincent points out in his word studies, Romans 10:17 does not refer by 'and hearing by the word of God' to the notion of gospel instrumentality to hearing, but, as the oldest manuscripts known have 'rhematos Xristou', to the idea that it is from the commission of Christ to the Apostles to preach the gospel indicated by Romans 10:15. The 'hearing' is the same word as 'report' in 10:16, so that Paul is clearly referring to the authority of Christ's command in the Commission of the Apostles to preach to all nations. The hearing under consideration does not carry with it a meaning of the individual's hearing of faith, but that belief of the individual is the intended effect of the divine command of Christ for the Apostles to report the gospel to all nations.
This passage should be evaluated in context and by word study before it is recklessly applied, as Paul then argues in 10:18,19 that the Gentile world had been preached to the point of satisfaction of Christ's commission to Paul.
"The duplication of Christian virtues is the inevitable result of what happens when one follows a system which attempts to preserve God fulfilling his purpose concerning His elect in time, but will not allow Him to do so through gospel means. For each evangelical blessing that is to be conveyed to the children of God, a non-evangelical version must be created of which they are said to receive, where the former is left uncertain."
My point in opposing the representation of some modern Primitive Baptists as believing in "two faiths" or "two salvations" is not to claim that some modern PB's are fully correct or accurate in their views. I acknowledged in my last post that some PB's do indeed lend themselves to the criticism of Brother Fralick. My point is that there is an element of truth in their emphasis, but it is often, among some, poorly expressed, and that Brother Fralick does not really address the truth of a distinction between sonship and discipleship or between regeneration and conversion by an attack on the confused expressions of some Primitive Baptists over the last century.
To claim that it is false to distinguish sonship from discipleship or eternal salvation from the temporal manifestation of eternal salvation on the basis of specific writings of specific ministers among the PB's of the last century would only disprove the failings of the argumentation of those ministers. Kevin Fralick has not addressed my specific writing on these matters (though he makes a few snipes in this post), which, I think, establishes the truth of the emphases of much of modern PB's without falling into the error of antinomianism or a hollow-log view of regeneration.
It doesn't matter if he can poke holes and overthrow the silliest versions of soteriology of some modern PB's, it still does not disprove some degree of truth in their emphasis.
Brother Fralick wrote:
"If the terminology of “two faiths” is a caricature, it would stand to reason that the charge of "two kinds" of other virtues (listed above) are a caricature as well. What of "two salvations"? Is that a caricature? If evangelical faith is an extension of seed faith in regeneration, then is gospel conversion (i.e. time salvation) also an extension of regeneration? It would seem that way. For if evangelical faith is not really a separate faith from that received in regeneration, then the "two salvations" which are said to bring seed and evangelical faith, respectively, should be considered a single unit as well. Otherwise we are left with the strange conclusion that time salvation conveys and imparts a blessing which is actually part of the first salvation! Thus, the verbage of “two salvations” should henceforth be discarded. Starting today, it should be declared that there really are not two salvations taught in scripture. Rather, there is one salvation taught in the Bible, in which regeneration and the future gospel conversion are the components."
I agree with Elder Walter Cash in a post I made on the Sculptor's Hammer. God saves His people, whether it be in matters pertaining to their redemption in Jesus Christ or the extension of this redemption by a providential care of them in time. Certainly, it can hardly be denied that children of God can damage their fellowship with God through disobedience, and, consequently, fail to enjoy the blessings that are obtained through obedience. This truth is abused by some modern Primitive Baptists to give comfort to those who fully reject Jesus Christ and live lives given over to gross immorality, and to justify a judgment of the eternal security of the unrepentant. This hardly follows as a legitimate extension of the truth that God's children can be disobedient, but is imposed to justify a virtual universalism.
Though it is true that there is a difference between being saved and having the full assurance and knowledge of being saved, some modern Primitive Baptists extend this distinction unbiblically to the point that there is no effective temporal distinction between those set apart and the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction. When "two salvations" or "two faiths" is applied to make regenerate people out of the reprobate among those that openly blaspheme and reject Jesus Christ, one can clearly perceive universalism gone to seed.
Brother Fralick stated:
"The main point, though, is that even if I were to go back and rewrite my posting, and change my verbage of "two faiths" to one faith with two aspects, the substance remains the same. Passages yoking faith with salvation must still be given an interpretation. So I express it differently. What is that stage or aspect of the ONE faith which unites us to Christ, as in Gal. 3:26? Is it:
1) faith below the consciousness through the preaching of Jesus?
2) cognitive faith through the preaching of Jesus?
3) cognitive faith through the preaching of men?
Or some other permutation? This is not a haphazard handling of a subject, but a legitimate question based on the various aspects of faith as defined by the very inventors of this regeneration-conversion divorcement."
The essential misunderstanding here is that faith through the gospel as preached by man must be distinct in substance from the faith wrought in the heart by the Spirit of God alone. They are the same, or fundamentally the same, save in the degree of intellectual knowledge about the gospel that may be given through the preaching of man. One cannot separate out the faith of Christ wrought immediately by the Spirit from the propositional truth of the gospel as preached by man to those effectually called under the sound of the gospel. I have said this in multiple posts. The faith in Christ, wrought by the Spirit alone, assents, at the very least inwardly, to gospel propositions to some degree; the faith effected by the Spirit is an immediate revelation of the person of Christ, the gospel propositions corroborate this revelation, which is a spiritual reality. The sufficient condition of Biblical faith is not propositions of language but a spiritual revelation of the person of Christ wherein true sons cry Abba, Father (Gal. 4:6).
Gal. 3:23-26 seems to be more fully explained by Galatians 4:1-9. Gal. 4:5 does not make receiving the adoption of sons contingent on a mere intellectual apprehension and assent to propositions, though this text is fully consistent with such apprehension in mentally competent adults under the sound of the man-preached gospel, but the adoption is effected in time by an intrusive, effectual work of God through the Spirit of Christ by which sons cry, 'Abba Father', in a spiritual, vital faith in the person of Christ. This root groaning that "cannot be uttered" under girds and is the basis of all true, evangelical faith in the gospel as preached by man. It need not be fully separated exegetically from the gospel as preached by man, especially in plain contexts of evangelical faith in the New Testament, but is fully associated so that no text in the N.T. that states the necessity of faith for salvation should be absent this fundamental sense of it. Galatians 4:6 explains the basic nature of faith in Christ of 3:26.
Brother Fralick stated:
"The scriptures annihilate the idea of a time gap between regeneration and conversion, and thus the position that says that one receives seed faith in regeneration, and then evangelical faith one week, one year, or twenty years later. It does so by specific proof texts in which evangelical faith as preached by MAN is included as part of the transition in which one goes from death in sins to life in Christ."
The scripture plainly indicates that a regenerate person can be united to Christ without a full, intellectual apprehension of gospel truth. A fair examination of Galatians 4:9-11 proves that it is possible that truly regenerate persons, known of God in the covenant of grace, can be in error in regard to how they are apprehended of in Christ Jesus, as Paul also concedes in Philippians 3.
Paul considers, in Galatians 4:11, that the Galatians are either false professors or truly regenerate persons in error. He does not assert the fact of either, but plainly states his fear of the former by the possibility of the latter; conversely, he states his concern of the latter by the possibility of the former.
The preclusion by brother Fralick that there are not degrees of conversion among the regenerate controverts what is evidently possible from this passage, and from much of Hebrews. Paul could not write the Hebrew audience if he thought it was a forgone conclusion that those in error were and are false professors. The exhortation of Paul to the visible, community of believers establishes that children of God can be in error from the gospel and in need of temporal deliverance, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh (Jude 23). Gospel conversion obviously admits of degrees in terms of the full stature of Christ, and the regenerate may either live stunted spiritual lives in the kingdom or enjoy fuller, spiritual blessings through obedience. As Sonny Pyles puts it, the elect will either grow in grace or groan in disgrace.
Specific texts which include evangelical faith as a part of the transition from spiritual death to life establish that Christ is the object of true faith. The fact that the Spirit effects faith in the person of Christ under the sound of the gospel, including some degree of assent to gospel propositions, does not establish that faith is created by the rational hearing of the audible gospel. When a man hears the audible gospel and faith is effected by the Spirit, the faith effected is not fundamentally in the gospel propositions but in the person of Christ, which is the content of the gospel. This is the crucial point. Christ is not known savingly through propositions of language, even if these propositions mediate the Spirit (the meaningful mediation to man would be after faith in Christ is immediately effected by the Spirit), but by direct and immediate revelation of God, as Gal. 4:6 depicts. It is the Spirit of Christ, sent from God, wherein true sons respond in faith, not first in gospel propositions, though that surely follows to some degree in those under the sound of the gospel.
As Vincent points out in his word studies, Romans 10:17 does not refer by 'and hearing by the word of God' to the notion of gospel instrumentality to hearing, but, as the oldest manuscripts known have 'rhematos Xristou', to the idea that it is from the commission of Christ to the Apostles to preach the gospel indicated by Romans 10:15. The 'hearing' is the same word as 'report' in 10:16, so that Paul is clearly referring to the authority of Christ's command in the Commission of the Apostles to preach to all nations. The hearing under consideration does not carry with it a meaning of the individual's hearing of faith, but that belief of the individual is the intended effect of the divine command of Christ for the Apostles to report the gospel to all nations.
This passage should be evaluated in context and by word study before it is recklessly applied, as Paul then argues in 10:18,19 that the Gentile world had been preached to the point of satisfaction of Christ's commission to Paul.
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Fralick on "Two Kinds of Faith"
Brother Fralick posted an article regarding what he takes to be the "two kinds of faith" argued by Primitive Baptists.
Brother Fralick wrote:
"It was always my understanding when I embraced conditional time salvation that there were two kinds of faith. There was what we call seed faith, sometimes referred to as embryonic, subconscious, or vital faith. And then there was what we call evangelical faith. The first one came in regeneration and was necessary for eternal salvation. This was the kind of faith under consideration when addressing those biblical passages which joined faith with salvation, but could not possibly be squeezed into the time salvation framework. The second one was wrought through the gospel, and deemed not necessary for eternal salvation based on established anti-means premises. The “regenerate” child of God who just happens to hear the gospel, conditionalism saying there is no guarantee that he shall, would now believe evangelically what he had already “believed” subconsciously."
Brother Fralick makes a simplistic caricature of what he takes to be Primitive Baptist views. Now, it could be true that some Primitive Baptists lend fuel to such a caricature, but this does not exonerate Brother Fralick from depicting views he opposes in a ridiculous light. He erroneously attributes what he sees as a dividing asunder of faith as the prejudicial effect of the doctrine of conditional, time salvation. There are clearly other motives at work, such as a consideration of the nature of the knowledge of the vital union to all the seed, which plainly makes this issue pertinent to doctrines other than conditional, time salvation. I wonder at his irrational obsession with conditional, time salvation, as he cannot prove that all defenses of this doctrine are false; yet he irrationally perseveres in accusing this doctrine alone to be the central poison of Primitive Baptists when it is clearly universalism and "no-hellism" that is the poison.
The central point of Brother Fralick is that the "two kinds of faith" issue among Primitive Baptists is in need of clarification.
First of all, Primitive Baptists do not believe in two kinds of faith, but one faith in Jesus Christ. To depict the view in the manner Brother Fralick does throughout his article is haphazard, and plainly intent on making a caricature of the actual position.
What Brother Fralick fails to recognize is that evangelical faith and "seed" faith cannot be fully separated from each other in those that have heard the gospel preached by man. These, in their essence, are the same, not contrary because evangelical faith is faith in the person of Christ just as "seed faith" is a rudimentary, spiritual revelation of the person of Christ. One with faith in the gospel cannot break down what they have learned from the Spirit with what they have been taught instrumentally by man because the gospel as preached by man is efficacious by the same power and revelation of God as that which is immediately revealed by God.
The relevance of a "seed faith" is only in regard to the effectual call apart from the gospel as preached by man, as in John 3:3-8, and in relation to what is fundamental to the evangelical faith of gospel belief. It is not relevant to support the inconsistent notion that a "seed faith" can stand fully contrary to faith in gospel propositions, except when some extend what is intrinsically salvific in gospel propositions beyond what is intrinsically salvific - beyond gospel, propositional truth that is tantamount to the experience of the person of Christ.
In this manner, when some argue that evangelical faith must necessarily encompass the propositional assent to the resurrection of Christ, Christ's death, or public confession of Jesus Christ at any one time they err in this standard for the faith of the vital union because of the unbelief of the disciples at the report of the risen Christ by women, Hymenaeus, and Philetus of the resurrection of Christ, Peter's unbelief in the necessity of Christ's death in Matt. 16:22, and the public denial of Jesus Christ by Peter.
Now, it is important to realize that this proves the nature of the object of faith in those that disbelieve(d) some portion of gospel propositions, not that they remained in a state of unbelief of these propositions. Growing to the full stature of Christ is a process of conversion and sanctification, which those truly effectually called are perfected toward, if by any means they might attain unto the resurrection of the dead (Phil. 3:10,11).
If Hymenaeus and Philetus were children of God in error, God would recover them out of the snare of the devil (2 Tim. 2:25,26) just as Peter and the disciples were converted from the error of their ways.
"Evangelical faith" and "seed faith" are both a faith in the person of Christ. "Evangelical faith" encompasses a greater degree of intellectual knowledge about Christ, but the central faith is still in the spiritual person of Christ, not in mere propositions of language.
There is no reason to disallow evangelical faith in any passage of the New Testament because the fact that faith in the person of Christ may be effected by the preached word is not in any way detrimental to the nature of Biblical faith, which is in the person of Christ. This faith in Christ is effected immediately by the Spirit, whether or not the Spirit is mediated through gospel propositions about Christ.
Brother Fralick wrote:
"It was always my understanding when I embraced conditional time salvation that there were two kinds of faith. There was what we call seed faith, sometimes referred to as embryonic, subconscious, or vital faith. And then there was what we call evangelical faith. The first one came in regeneration and was necessary for eternal salvation. This was the kind of faith under consideration when addressing those biblical passages which joined faith with salvation, but could not possibly be squeezed into the time salvation framework. The second one was wrought through the gospel, and deemed not necessary for eternal salvation based on established anti-means premises. The “regenerate” child of God who just happens to hear the gospel, conditionalism saying there is no guarantee that he shall, would now believe evangelically what he had already “believed” subconsciously."
Brother Fralick makes a simplistic caricature of what he takes to be Primitive Baptist views. Now, it could be true that some Primitive Baptists lend fuel to such a caricature, but this does not exonerate Brother Fralick from depicting views he opposes in a ridiculous light. He erroneously attributes what he sees as a dividing asunder of faith as the prejudicial effect of the doctrine of conditional, time salvation. There are clearly other motives at work, such as a consideration of the nature of the knowledge of the vital union to all the seed, which plainly makes this issue pertinent to doctrines other than conditional, time salvation. I wonder at his irrational obsession with conditional, time salvation, as he cannot prove that all defenses of this doctrine are false; yet he irrationally perseveres in accusing this doctrine alone to be the central poison of Primitive Baptists when it is clearly universalism and "no-hellism" that is the poison.
The central point of Brother Fralick is that the "two kinds of faith" issue among Primitive Baptists is in need of clarification.
First of all, Primitive Baptists do not believe in two kinds of faith, but one faith in Jesus Christ. To depict the view in the manner Brother Fralick does throughout his article is haphazard, and plainly intent on making a caricature of the actual position.
What Brother Fralick fails to recognize is that evangelical faith and "seed" faith cannot be fully separated from each other in those that have heard the gospel preached by man. These, in their essence, are the same, not contrary because evangelical faith is faith in the person of Christ just as "seed faith" is a rudimentary, spiritual revelation of the person of Christ. One with faith in the gospel cannot break down what they have learned from the Spirit with what they have been taught instrumentally by man because the gospel as preached by man is efficacious by the same power and revelation of God as that which is immediately revealed by God.
The relevance of a "seed faith" is only in regard to the effectual call apart from the gospel as preached by man, as in John 3:3-8, and in relation to what is fundamental to the evangelical faith of gospel belief. It is not relevant to support the inconsistent notion that a "seed faith" can stand fully contrary to faith in gospel propositions, except when some extend what is intrinsically salvific in gospel propositions beyond what is intrinsically salvific - beyond gospel, propositional truth that is tantamount to the experience of the person of Christ.
In this manner, when some argue that evangelical faith must necessarily encompass the propositional assent to the resurrection of Christ, Christ's death, or public confession of Jesus Christ at any one time they err in this standard for the faith of the vital union because of the unbelief of the disciples at the report of the risen Christ by women, Hymenaeus, and Philetus of the resurrection of Christ, Peter's unbelief in the necessity of Christ's death in Matt. 16:22, and the public denial of Jesus Christ by Peter.
Now, it is important to realize that this proves the nature of the object of faith in those that disbelieve(d) some portion of gospel propositions, not that they remained in a state of unbelief of these propositions. Growing to the full stature of Christ is a process of conversion and sanctification, which those truly effectually called are perfected toward, if by any means they might attain unto the resurrection of the dead (Phil. 3:10,11).
If Hymenaeus and Philetus were children of God in error, God would recover them out of the snare of the devil (2 Tim. 2:25,26) just as Peter and the disciples were converted from the error of their ways.
"Evangelical faith" and "seed faith" are both a faith in the person of Christ. "Evangelical faith" encompasses a greater degree of intellectual knowledge about Christ, but the central faith is still in the spiritual person of Christ, not in mere propositions of language.
There is no reason to disallow evangelical faith in any passage of the New Testament because the fact that faith in the person of Christ may be effected by the preached word is not in any way detrimental to the nature of Biblical faith, which is in the person of Christ. This faith in Christ is effected immediately by the Spirit, whether or not the Spirit is mediated through gospel propositions about Christ.
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