Reformed Baptists and GNC

[Ploutos]

I'll moderate some of my stronger criticisms of White. I don't think he is a heretic. I can chalk up his lapses on God and Christ just to a faulty way of asking theological questions. I do think it is concerning that he seems ambivalent about good and necessary consequence.

Isn't White a Baptist? It seems that a less-than-sanguine view of GNC would be a feature, not a bug.

Indeed, a certain amount of biblicism seems to be integral to White's method. By this I don't mean biblicism in a necessarily pejorative sense, but rather as a method, in contrast to scholasticism.

 

[RamistThomist]

Isn't White a Baptist? It seems that a less-than-sanguine view of GNC would be a feature, not a bug.

I thought about that, but I didn't want to generalize and say Baptists reject GNC. They might. I just don't know.

 

[Ploutos]

I thought about that, but I didn't want to generalize and say Baptists reject GNC. They might. I just don't know.

I chose my wording deliberately and carefully. I have seen from some threads on here that it is not as simple as saying that Baptists reject GNC. Nonetheless, their view of it is not the Presbyterian view, and the phrase itself is absent from the 1689: "either expressly set down or necessarily contained". Envisioning a spectrum with scholasticism at one end and biblicism at the other, this does seem to push the needle for the towards the biblicist end overall.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

I chose my wording deliberately and carefully. I have seen from some threads on here that it is not as simple as saying that Baptists reject GNC. Nonetheless, their view of it is not the Presbyterian view, and the phrase itself is absent from the 1689: "either expressly set down or necessarily contained". Envisioning a spectrum with scholasticism at one end and biblicism at the other, this does seem to push the needle for the towards the biblicist end overall.

Yeah, well there are some Baptists who think it's a distinction without a difference. I do think, however, that the Baptist "GNC" thing is a thing. Some would consider it a feature and not a bug.

It is interesting that I was thinking about it just this morning and wasn't going to make that observation because I was afraid it would offend Baptists. It is noteworthy how many recent Baptists are trying to retrieve a "Great Tradition," and I do think James is not odd to find it strange. To be fair, however, we just finished a decade or so where Trueman was pointing out not a small number of Presbyterians who were soft on the doctrine of God in the T4G movement. There are a lot of pietists in the PCA who think that all this Niceness complexity is not worth thinking about too much. It also doesn't help that Frame taught a lot of Pastors how to think his thoughts after him.

 

[MW]

Niceness complexity

So it's a debate between Nicea and Nice.
[automerge]1756427458[/automerge]

I chose my wording deliberately and carefully. I have seen from some threads on here that it is not as simple as saying that Baptists reject GNC. Nonetheless, their view of it is not the Presbyterian view, and the phrase itself is absent from the 1689: "either expressly set down or necessarily contained". Envisioning a spectrum with scholasticism at one end and biblicism at the other, this does seem to push the needle for the towards the biblicist end overall.

I recall Waldron saying somewhere that they changed 1.6 because they were suspicious of what Presbyterians do with GNC. There might be an element of that. I tend to think, like you, that the words reflect a shift away from logic to text in some way, but I don't have the historical materials to back that up.

 

[SeanPatrickCornell]

The change from "good and necessary consequences" to "either expressly set down or necessarily contained in the Holy Scripture" was deliberate.

Much ink has been spilled by Baptists over the last over this change. The tl;dr version is that we affirm "necessary consequences" but reject "good consequences", because who is to judge which consequences are good? Good may be for me but not for thee, and so forth.

 

[paranymph]

As a 2LBC Baptist, I agree that White's method has flaws in being resistant to what is "necessarily contained" in Scripture.

 

[MW]

Much ink has been spilled by Baptists over the last over this change. The tl;dr version is that we affirm "necessary consequences" but reject "good consequences", because who is to judge which consequences are good? Good may be for me but not for thee, and so forth.

I'm not sure that will fit the historic sources. There are examples where "just and necessary consequence" is used, and "just" is functioning in the same way as "good." Coxe and Gill come to mind. A "good consequence" in the traditional understanding is something that doesn't go against the ethical teaching of Scripture. Even though it is logically necessary it must still be agreeable with the rest of Scripture. I can't think of anyone who would disagree with that.

 

[SeanPatrickCornell]

I'm not sure that will fit the historic sources. There are examples where "just and necessary consequence" is used, and "just" is functioning in the same way as "good." Coxe and Gill come to mind. A "good consequence" in the traditional understanding is something that doesn't go against the ethical teaching of Scripture. Even though it is logically necessary it must still be agreeable with the rest of Scripture. I can't think of anyone who would disagree with that.

Dr. Samual Renihan expounded upon this better than I, over 10 years ago here on PB.

P

Thread 'Good & Necessary: LBCF vs WCF'

Jul 16, 2013

Moderators, if you think this should be moved elsewhere, that's fine. Just seemed unnecessary to start a thread to reply to one point at hand.

WCF 1.4 The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man's salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men.Nevertheless, we acknowledge the inward illumination of the Spirit of God to be necessary for...

• Petty France

 

[MW]

Dr. Samual Renihan expounded upon this better than I, over 10 years ago here on PB.

I came in late to that discussion and gave my thoughts on the 2nd page.

He correctly observed the taxonomy from George Gillespie earlier in the post. Later in the post he contradicted it. He wrote:

'Taken rigidly, by confessing that "good" consequences are valid material from which to derive knowledge of "all things necessary for His own glory, man's salvation, faith and life," non-binding matters and conclusions are included within that which is never to be added unto.'

This is not how "good consequences" work. The 1689 corrective as he interprets it then becomes nonsensical. He has not really pinned down the point of Keach, who did not deny common ground on "consequences," but had a more restrictive position when it came to positive institutions like baptism.

 

[SeanPatrickCornell]

I came in late to that discussion and gave my thoughts on the 2nd page.

He correctly observed the taxonomy from George Gillespie earlier in the post. Later in the post he contradicted it. He wrote:

'Taken rigidly, by confessing that "good" consequences are valid material from which to derive knowledge of "all things necessary for His own glory, man's salvation, faith and life," non-binding matters and conclusions are included within that which is never to be added unto.'

This is not how "good consequences" work. The 1689 corrective as he interprets it then becomes nonsensical. He has not really pinned down the point of Keach, who did not deny common ground on "consequences," but had a more restrictive position when it came to positive institutions like baptism.

I've evaluated and analyzed the matter at length and have decided that Dr. Renihan is right, and you are wrong. This decision is binding. Case dismissed.

 

[MW]

I've evaluated and analyzed the matter at length and have decided that Dr. Renihan is right, and you are wrong. This decision is binding. Case dismissed.

I know this was not intended to be serious, but I wondered if Dr. Renihan may have had more mature thoughts on the subject. Lo and behold, he wrote an article in 2016 called, "The Consequences Of Positive Law: The Particular Baptists’ Use Of Inferential Reasoning In Theology." This is what he stated, "The second, and more pertinent, explanation for the difference between the confessions derives from the Particular Baptists’ insistence on positive institution for religious worship or covenantal ordinances." In my judgment this agrees more with the statement quoted from Keach.

 

[SeanPatrickCornell]

I know this was not intended to be serious, but I wondered if Dr. Renihan may have had more mature thoughts on the subject. Lo and behold, he wrote an article in 2016 called, "The Consequences Of Positive Law: The Particular Baptists’ Use Of Inferential Reasoning In Theology." This is what he stated, "The second, and more pertinent, explanation for the difference between the confessions derives from the Particular Baptists’ insistence on positive institution for religious worship or covenantal ordinances." In my judgment this agrees more with the statement quoted from Keach.

I believe that was the argument that Dr. Renihan put forth in that thread from 2013.

Edit: And thank you for taking the previous post in the spirit in which it was intended.

 

[Ploutos]

"Reference to "the place of Scripture" shows that the antipaedobaptists only allowed what could be proven to be implicit in the text itself."

This quote from the linked thread is key and defining an approach that is dispositionally more biblicist and more interested in proof-texting - without accounting for controls on what assumptions one brings to the text in the first place.

 

[DNM300]

Honest/serious Question. Are there any Paedobaptist brethren who believe that Paedobaptism follows not on inferential grounds but on explicit, positive institution grounds?

Here’s my angle. If the children of believers are disciples, then does not the great commission answer this requirement? Isn’t that all the positive, explicit-ness that is “required”?

 

[John Nyberg]

If the children of believers are disciples, then does not the great commission answer this requirement?

This might be a great thread to start on its own

 

[Contra_Mundum]

Honest/serious Question. Are there any Paedobaptist brethren who believe that Paedobaptism follows not on inferential grounds but on explicit, positive institution grounds?

Here’s my angle. If the children of believers are disciples, then does not the great commission answer this requirement? Isn’t that all the positive, explicit-ness that is “required”?

I think it's been stated this way on the PB in so many words re discipleship. But then the argument shifts to defining "disciple" for this purpose. The paedobaptist will supply a definition, grounded in Scripture, with room for all subjects of baptism. The credobaptist will likely reject the allowance.

Something similar happens with the question: whether there are occasions of infant baptism in the Bible. Defining terms is clearly vital to the debate. Are "households" inclusive by definition? Does the baptism into Moses--which undoubtedly included infants--have relevance to defining NT baptism into Christ's?

Definitions.

 

[Ploutos]

Honest/serious Question. Are there any Paedobaptist brethren who believe that Paedobaptism follows not on inferential grounds but on explicit, positive institution grounds?

Here’s my angle. If the children of believers are disciples, then does not the great commission answer this requirement? Isn’t that all the positive, explicit-ness that is “required”?

I think the way that this question is worded is somewhat challenging. As far as I can tell, many or most convinced paedobaptists believe that the scriptures are fairly clear on this issue. I wasn't always there, but I am now, and I can't possibly see another viable interpretation of the Bible on this topic. In fact, I'm now convinced that the paedobaptist reading is actually the most straightforward and simple reading of the scriptural text.

I think what your question is really getting at is the issue of what is needed to believe that the scriptures are clear on something. And that's where you get to the real difference between the Presbyterian and Baptist views. Baptists believe that you need an explicit command, specific to the New Covenant and to the New Covenant sign, to baptize babies. Presbyterians believe that the issue is sufficiently clear as to render the Baptist demand unnecessary - and not only unnecessary but unhelpful in the way that it shapes one's hermeneutic.

 

[Ploutos]

Moderators: is it inappropriate for someone other than the OP to request that a new thread be formed if it seems it's going down a different topic? If it's appropriate to request this, I'd like to request that the posts from #97 onward be broken off into their own thread.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

So it's a debate between Nicea and Nice.

It's both incredibly frustrating and hilarious to have a visual impairment.

 

[Sam Jer]

Moderators: is it inappropriate for someone other than the OP to request that a new thread be formed if it seems it's going down a different topic? If it's appropriate to request this, I'd like to request that the posts from #97 onward be broken off into their own thread.

I would not object to that

Brothers, I can't agree with either of you. If Sam Jer is right here, RZ has over half a million subscribers. That is larger than the PCA, over a dozen times larger than the OPC, and almost as large as the total membership of NAPARC.



I see a lot in RZ that reminds me of the emphasis on "catholicity of the church" that I was taught at Calvin Seminary. At the time I strongly reacted against that view, and managed to seriously antagonize one of my professors who I must say now, decades later, was right in being upset that I was confusing his teaching on "catholicity" with Roman Catholicism. My views back then were largely formed in reaction against the mainline Protestant "big steeple" church in which I was raised and out of which I had been converted, and I adopted some views on relations between churches that were more sectarian than the majority of the Reformed tradition. That professor was wrong on many other things, and he's thrown in his hat with the Christian Reformed liberals on a number of important issues, but he was right "way back when" in accusing me of being sectarian rather than Reformed.

In that light, seeing that RZ is reading Nevin and the Mercersburg Theologians does not surprise me. That is a type of Reformed theology that was deliberately reacting against the Second Great Awakening, but went beyond it and also attacked the First Great Awakening, failing to make the crucial distinction between "revival and revivalism" that is key to Reformed Puritanism.

Wait, is this related to old side-new side?

I see a lot of myself four decades ago in Zoomer. I was baptized in a large downtown United Church of Christ and grew up as a member of a socially and politically conservative but theologically moderate (in a bad way) upper-class suburban Congregational church. I would have remained indefinitely in my local mainline Congregational church if a new pastor had not come in my first year of seminary and had driven me out due to my opposition to abortion. I came very close to joining the Christian Reformed Church, but recognized that I would be jumping from the fire into the frying pan, i.e., fighting the same battles in the 1980s and 1990s that the Congregationalists had fought and lost in the 1880s and 1890s.

If I hadn't been run out of my mainline Congregational church, I could see myself acting like Zoomer does today.

His audience is massive and he has a legitimate success story of turning around a dying PC(USA) local church.

Zoomer's problems need to be addressed and corrected, but given the context in which he's working, I'd rather see PC(USA) people listening to him than listening to some rainbow-garbed LGBTQ female pastor. He has half a million subscribers; the usual audience of a PC(USA) liberal is a few dozen to a few hundred.

Is it really PCUSA people who are listening to them though?

I'm inclined to wait and see what happens. If God wants to have a "reconquista" in the PC(USA), it will be someone like Zoomer who reacts against the excesses of American evangelicalism and seeks to return the PC(USA) to its roots.

Do I think that will happen? Probably not. The liberals in the PC(USA) are very strong, and the secession of the ECO meant most of the remaining large evangelical churches in the PC(USA) are now gone that could have been his key allies and supporters a decade ago. I think that he, like me, will eventually be thrown out by liberal leaders.

But God is sovereign and the impossible is possible with Him. It's a liberal myth that a denomination, once captured by liberals, can never return to the truth.

 

[Ploutos]

Moderators: is it inappropriate for someone other than the OP to request that a new thread be formed if it seems it's going down a different topic? If it's appropriate to request this, I'd like to request that the posts from #97 onward be broken off into their own thread.

I would update my request to specify posts 97 through 116.

 

[darrellmaurina]

Wait, is this related to old side-new side?

This really belongs in the original thread about RZ, not here. But the Old School/New School debate was in the 1800s over the Second Great Awakening under Finney and his fellow-travelers. The Old Side/New Side debate was in the 1700s over the First Great Awakening. Two different but related issues. It's possible to be New Side but Old School, i.e., a supporter of Edwards but a fiery opponent of Finney, and there are probably plenty of people on the Puritan Board who would, if pressed, describe themselves that way.

There were other factors in both movements and that's where things get messy. It is entirely possible that RZ does not fully understand the group to which he has hitched his wagon when he supports Nevin and Mercersburg.

The Mercersburg Theology was an attempt, primarily in German Reformed circles but spreading beyond them, to re-emphasize a Reformed view of confessions, of catechesis, and of the importance of sacraments and liturgy, in reaction against the Second Great Awakening. Most of that sounds good, until we get into the details. Most people who supported the Mercersburg Theology not only opposed the Arminian revivalism of the Second Great Awakening, but also the emphasis on personal conversion that was the key impetus of the First Great Awakening. Exceptions exist because history is complicated, and the allegations that the Mercersburg people were "dead orthodox" and "ritualists on a road to Rome," while they may well have been accurate for some (especially some of the leaders) can't be fairly applied to everyone in that movement. There were people in the Mercersburg circles who were sincerely converted but were horrified by the Finneyite craziness, and reacted strongly by returning to an emphasis on creeds, confessions, catechisms and solemnity in worship, i.e., recovering the historic Reformed position.

RZ wants to be an "ecclesial Calvinist" with an emphasis on being part of the historic Christian church rather than lapsing into "sectarianism" and "me and my Bible" broad evangelicalism. Paying attention to the importance of the institutional church, and doing theology in community, is a major part of what Mercersburg was about.

I think RZ likes that part of the Mercersburg tradition and may not understand its later development and what it opened the door to bringing into America out of the very worst parts of German theology of the mid-to-late 1800s.