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The faith of a child is like a seed that has sprouted. It is very rudimentary yet. It doesn't have branches or fruit yet. Only the most rudimentary root system can be visible, if at all. But if God regenerates an infant, then that infant has faith, even if it is only what Calvin would call a seed-faith. This does get at another significant difference between Presbyterians and most Baptists: Presbyterians believe that infants can have real faith, even if that faith is not something the infant could articulate. There is no lag in time between regeneration and faith.
Indeed, and this is gathered by deduction and necessary consequence: Men are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone (his doing and dying). End of story. Ergo, whilst dying elect infants (and other categories of elect folk) may not be outwardly called by the ministry, there is some way that they are called, albeit unbeknownst to us. Faith is a gift and miracle in itself, regardless of age, and I cannot understand why folks have difficulty accepting that those who are not on our particular plain of cognizance are regenerated, exercise faith (in some degree), granted repentance, etc.Presbyterians believe that infants can have real faith, even if that faith is not something the infant could articulate.
Can you name some of these "many", Scott?There are many orthodox, reformed men that hold to the idea.
Are you familiar with the Confession that you affirmed? Please review Chapter 10, para 3 of the LBCF.Are those who are born to saved parents automatically saved, are all of them chosen by God to get saved, and do they need to have a saving faith, or can God choose to them regardless if faith or not in Christ?
Can you name some of these "many", Scott?
While admitting that the truths of revelation are to be received upon the authority of God; that human reason can neither comprehend nor prove them; that a man must be converted and become as a little child before he can truly receive the doctrines of the Bible; and admitting, moreover, that these doctrines are irreconcilable with every system of philosophy, ever framed by those who refuse to be taught of God, or who were ignorant of his Word, yet it is ever to be maintained that those doctrines are unassailable; that no created intellect can prove them to be impossible or irrational.
Wherefore the unregenerate are emphatically said to be unable either to see, as referring to the understanding, or to enter, referring to the will, into the kingdom of God (john 3:5). This power in conversion which succeeds regeneration, proper circumstances being supposed, is in due time brought into actual exercise. So that one truly regenerate may, as to both habit and act, be for a time an unbeliever, destitute of repentance and walking in sin.]\
Are you familiar with the Confession that you affirmed? Please review Chapter 10, para 3 of the LBCF.
We can assert that there are elect infants who die in infancy. We don't know how many or how few. We can also assert that believers have special warrant to hope that their infants who die in infancy are such (Luke 18:15,16, II Sam. 12:23, Acts 2:38,39, Ezek. 16:20,21). Beyond this we may not go. We may legitimately hope, but we may not demand.
Outside of Reformed circles, there are Calvinists, especially those using the Spurgeon revision to the LBCF, that will say that all infants that die are on their way to heaven. Piper agrees with them, too.
I think that in the end, we can trust the Lord to do what is the right thing in this area, but also would see myself as agreeing with Spurgeon on this area.Are you familiar with the Confession that you affirmed? Please review Chapter 10, para 3 of the LBCF.
We can assert that there are elect infants who die in infancy. We don't know how many or how few. We can also assert that believers have special warrant to hope that their infants who die in infancy are such (Luke 18:15,16, II Sam. 12:23, Acts 2:38,39, Ezek. 16:20,21). Beyond this we may not go. We may legitimately hope, but we may not demand.
Outside of Reformed circles, there are Calvinists, especially those using the Spurgeon revision to the LBCF, that will say that all infants that die are on their way to heaven. Piper agrees with them, too.
Are those who are born to saved parents automatically saved, are all of them chosen by God to get saved, and do they need to have a saving faith, or can God choose to them regardless if faith or not in Christ?
Genesis 18:25 is no real help for your appeal. The context is clear. Sodom was destroyed. The Lord of the earth did rightly. There is but one hope for sinners: the righteousness of Our Lord.I think that in the end, we can trust the Lord to do what is the right thing in this area, but also would see myself as agreeing with Spurgeon on this area.
it is certainly no stretch to believe (and scripture testifies to this) that infants have the faculty to exercise faith in God
What scripture?
Tim,
I don't believe, even under the mindset I have of the doctrine, that one can believe that John is in anyway typical.
Much can be inquired in regard to what john actually knew in regard to Christ at a young age and if he understood repentance...
In this case, it is an isolated instance given the rest of scripture.
When we speak of seed faith, there is automatically an indication of a gap-being that these seeds need water. Consider that the external call must come from the outside and that that outside call is effectual based upon data.
Are those who are born to saved parents automatically saved, are all of them chosen by God to get saved, and do they need to have a saving faith, or can God choose to them regardless if faith or not in Christ?
in essence, are taking place at the same time? Even if you want to press your "seed needing water" argument, why cannot the seed-faith come to life (regeneration) at the moment it is watered (external call of God's Word)?
In other words, the unregenerate person hears the gospel,
the Spirit gives him ears to hear (regenerates him), he is convicted of his sin, repents, and places saving faith in Christ. I just don't understand why you feel the need to have the first part happen one day and the rest on another day (or month or year).
Perhaps not, but it may be typical for elect infants who do die in infancy.
Scott, I think you place too much emphasis on knowledge of biblical facts.
The Bible makes eternal life to consist in knowledge; sinfulness is blindness, or darkness; the transition from a state of sin to a state of holiness is a translation from darkness into light; men are said to be renewed unto knowledge, i.e., knowledge is the effect of regeneration; conversion is said to be effected by the revelation of Christ; the rejection of Him as the Son of God and Saviour of men is referred to the fact that the eyes of those who believe not are blinded by the god of this world. These Scriptural representations prove much. They prove that knowledge is essential to all holy exercises; that truth, as the object of knowledge, is of vital importance, and that error is always evil and often fatal; and that the effects of regeneration, so far as they reveal themselves in our consciousness, consist largely in the spiritual apprehension or discernment of divine things. These representations also prove that in the order of nature, knowledge, or spiritual discernment, is antecedent and causative relatively to all holy exercises of the feelings or affections. It is the spiritual apprehension of the truth that awakens love, faith, and delight; and not love that produces spiritual discernment. It was the vision Paul had of the divine glory of Christ that made him instantly and forever his worshipper and servant. The Scriptures, however, do not teach that regeneration consists exclusively in illumination, or that the cognitive faculties are exclusively the subject of the renewing power of the Spirit. It is the soul as such that is spiritually dead; and it is to the soul that a new principle of life controlling all its exercises, whether of the intellect, the sensibility, the conscience, or the will is imparted.
This new life, therefore, manifests itself in new views of God, of Christ, of sin, of holiness, of the world, of the gospel, and of the life to come; in short, of all those truths which God has revealed as necessary to salvation. This spiritual illumination is so important and so necessary and such an immediate effect of regeneration, that spiritual knowledge is not only represented in the Bible as the end of regeneration (Col. 3:10; 1 Tim. 2:4), but the whole of conversion (which is the effect of regeneration) is summed up in knowledge. Paul describes his conversion as consisting in Christ’s being revealed to Him (Gal. 1:16); and the Scriptures make all religion, and even eternal life, to be a form of knowledge. Paul renounced everything for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ (Phil. 3:8), and our Lord says that the knowledge of Himself and of the Father is eternal life.
While, therefore, the objects of faith as revealed in the Bible, are not truths of the reason, i.e., which the human reason can discover, or comprehend, or demonstrate, they are, nevertheless, perfectly consistent with reason.
Faith is not a blind, irrational conviction. In order to believe, we must know what we believe, and the grounds on which our faith rests
While admitting that the truths of revelation are to be received upon the authority of God; that human reason can neither comprehend nor prove them; that a man must be converted and become as a little child before he can truly receive the doctrines of the Bible; and admitting, moreover, that these doctrines are irreconcilable with every system of philosophy, ever framed by those who refuse to be taught of God, or who were ignorant of his Word, yet it is ever to be maintained that those doctrines are unassailable; that no created intellect can prove them to be impossible or irrational.
A sixth question, included under the head of the relation of faith to knowledge is, whether knowledge is essential to faith? That is, whether a truth must be known in order to be believed? This Protestants affirm and Romanists deny.
therefore, knowledge, or the intelligent apprehension of the meaning of what is proposed, is essential to faith.
It follows from what has been said, or rather is included in it, that knowledge being essential to faith, it must be the measure of it.
1. From the very nature of faith. It includes the conviction of the truth of its object. It is an affirmation of the mind that a thing is true or trustworthy, but the mind can affirm nothing of that of which it knows nothing.
2. The Bible everywhere teaches that without knowledge there can be no faith.
3. Such is the intimate connection between faith and knowledge, that in the Scriptures the one term is often used for the other. To know Christ, is to believe upon Him. To know the truth, is intelligently and believingly to apprehend and appropriate it. Conversion is effected by knowledge.
Infants know very few facts concerning what makes their parents their parents, but they know their parents all the same.
It seems that your application of knowledge to this discussion would necessitate believing that infants cannot know their parents until they can be cognitively aware of the facts about their parents.
Or not... I think you may be confusing faith with quantity of knowledge and level of sanctification.
Could it be that the whole issue you are having with some of us is because in making infants the exception to the rule you in turn have to create another rule to solve your own problem?
Yet, why must that biblical treatment go beyond what we already confess? The Confession declares that "elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated, and saved by Christ, through the Spirit..." simply acknowledging that - even if via atypical means - God will save the elect infant. You would agree that "saved" is equal to or at least encompasses "conversion," right? Else, they are saved but not converted, which is nonsense.in the case of the infant regenerated in the womb or closely thereafter, there must be a biblical treatment.
Agreed, and the hope is rooted in the truth that God Himself, in the Person of Jesus at the Cross and in His resurrection, has provided in full the grounds by which He might choose to save all infants who have died.Genesis 18:25 is no real help for your appeal. The context is clear. Sodom was destroyed. The Lord of the earth did rightly. There is but one hope for sinners: the righteousness of Our Lord.
Are there any scripture that states just some infants are saved though?1) no; 2) no; 3) a: yes; b: no
What is "Os"?Os there any scripture that states just some infants are saved though?