Green Baggins has come to the chapter of RINE where I seek to establish my Calvinistic bona fides. Some have interpreted the FV as though it were some form of Arminianism or semi-Pelagianism. So early in the book, I set aside a chapter to demonstrate that I wish that the Synod of Dort had promulgated a couple extra points so I could believe them too.
The review of this chapter is fair, with Green Baggins mostly wanting to have a few questions clarified. So here I go.
The first is whether I am a compatibilist when it comes to questions of free will. The answer is yes, if we are talking about creaturely choices, like whether to go left or right, or whether to pick this flavor or that one at the ice cream store. But when it comes to moral choices, I believe that unregenerate men are not free unless and until God creates that freedom in them by granting them a new heart.
Secondly, when I said that God ordained us making free choices, one of the commenters at Lane’s blog was correct in assuming that I was referring to the teaching of the Westminster Confession at that point — that God’s ordination is the foundation and establishment of our creaturely freedom, not the annihilation of it. But I want to keep categories distinct. Lane appealed to the “coercive” nature of Saul’s conversion. And okay, I would agree that the new birth is “coercive” in the same way my first birth was. Nobody consulted me in 1951 about whether I wanted to be born in 1953. But we don’t normally describe that kind of thing as coercive, but it is clearly monergistic. And I affirm that as well.
And last, Lane points to a place where I say that I am not denying the Reformed faith — the objectivity of the covenant is the Reformed faith. He is right to catch me here; this was an unfortunate overstatement. I have said in other places that there are those in the Reformed stream who do not emphasize the objectivity of the covenant, and yet should be recognized as Reformed (Reformed Baptists). I should have said that here. I do believe that this understanding is the best understanding of the Reformed faith (which is why I hold it), and that this part of the stream in which I am floating goes all the way back. But I did not mean to say that there were not disagreements over these issues all the way back.