The Westminster Standards say that non-elect covenant members partake of “common operations of the Spirit.” Calvin consistently speaks of general election and special election. Now when some in the FV have used ordo words like regeneration and applied them to those who are not of the special elect, the response from the FV critics has been consternation, and the resultant controversy. Now I have always heard this usage as being something like “regeneration after a fashion,” and so on, and that is why the language has not freaked me out. Even if I don’t use that terminology (because I have enough trouble), I think I do understand the way it is being used.
Now when the Standards say that the decretally reprobate can and do partake of these common operations, this is the question that I think should be posed. Are these common operations undifferentiated or not? I use the word in two senses — undifferentiated from the operations enjoyed by the decretally elect, and undifferentiated within those operations themselves.
If they are said to be not differentiated at all (in the first sense), then the person holding this view would be a classic Arminian. If they are so differentiated (in the second sense) that the common operations of the Spirit amount to nothing more than the Holy Spirit being in the same room with the subject, making him feel vaguely cozy, then this protects the ordo on our schematic diagram, but it doesn’t address the central concern that the FV men have had.
That concern is the desire to be able to use biblical language while describing reprobate members of the covenant. The Arminians are not shy about using that language, and we do believe they are drawing erroneous conclusions from it. But their false conclusions are frequently far more plausible than Reformed hand-waving over the apostasy texts. So the reprobate has tasted the powers of the coming age. He has been cleansed from his former sins. He was once enlightened, and so on. This is differentiated language, in the second sense. The Holy Spirit is doing different things within these common operations.
So, I think my friends are saying, the Holy Spirit is doing different things at different times in these common operations. The language referring to these different things is sometimes (in the Bible) language that is used in ordo theology. This is okay, so long as we are careful to make the distinctions we need to. Just like general election and special election. Just call it a shadow ordo.