Does regeneration come first? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
Years ago, I remember thinking that something about Calvinism seemed odd to me. It looks as if God in the system regenerates someone, and then at that point that person repents. That seemed out of order. Looking at Bates’s work, I see he has the same concern.
Bates finds the evidence for the idea of regeneration coming first lacking. He starts with Grudem who goes to John 3:5 stating that one must be born of the water and of the spirit. Like Bates, I am unclear how this addresses the point. It says nothing about regeneration at all nor does it mention faith.
Next is John 6:44 and 65. These state that no one can come to the Father unless they are drawn to Him. An Arminian could say the exact same thing. There is nothing saying if the drawing is prior to faith or if it is simultaneous with it.
Bates then says that:
Scripture and early Christianity consistently describe humans as having sufficient free agency to respond to the gospel. As Alistair McGrath puts it, “The pre-Augustinian theological tradition is practically of one voice in asserting the freedom of the human will.” Libertarian free will was everywhere presupposed in the early church prior to Augustine’s development of monergistic compatibilism in the fifth century AD.
Matthew W. Bates. Beyond the Salvation Wars (Kindle Locations 2991-2995). Kindle Edition.
This could very well be, but at this point, I would like to have seen some citations of the Fathers. That being said, McGrath is a serious scholar and I am inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.
In Colossians 2:13 we are said to be made alive in Christ. Bates will deal with this later on when he gets to the idea of imputed righteousness. At this point, order is not talked about. What is being said is that if we are in Christ, we are made alive. As Jesus said “Because I live, you shall live also.” (John 14:19)
Overall, Bates says none of the regeneration texts say anything about a pre-faith conversion.
As for the idea of the will being bound, Bates says that a monergistic idea is not presented in church history until Augustine. There seems to be an accepted idea of freedom of the will. I think he brings up a good point here in that we should always make sure we are not reading a theological system back into the text that could be foreign to the text.
Unfortunately, this is difficult for all of us because as soon as we come to a passage like 1 Thess. 4:17, we read into it debates we have today about the idea of a rapture instead of asking first “Were the first century Christians asking about this?” We read a text like Genesis 1 expecting it to tell us how old the Earth is without asking “Did the Jewish readers think that was the purpose of the text?” It’s always good to try to put yourself into the shoes of the audience.
We move on to chapter 7 and eternal security next.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)
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