Was Jonathan Edwards a "virtual pantheist"?

[RamistThomist]

What caused you to change your mind on those issues?

1. Realizing General Equity is inevitable and contradicts the stricter Bahnsenian Thesis.
2. Do this and live principle. And if we do'nt have the CoW, we risk collapsing the inner/outer distinction of the CoG into one way of being into the CoG, which leads to Federal Visionism.
3. God promsies to be God to our children, and he doesn't make this promise apart from the sign of the covenant.

 

[Dachaser]

1. Realizing General Equity is inevitable and contradicts the stricter Bahnsenian Thesis.
2. Do this and live principle. And if we do'nt have the CoW, we risk collapsing the inner/outer distinction of the CoG into one way of being into the CoG, which leads to Federal Visionism.
3. God promsies to be God to our children, and he doesn't make this promise apart from the sign of the covenant.

Clarification on point 3, are you saying that the saved parents are assured saved children then?

 

[RamistThomist]

Clarification on point 3, are you saying that the saved parents are assured saved children then?

No.

 

[RamistThomist]

Clarification on point 3, are you saying that the saved parents are assured saved children then?

To clarify: the children are in covenant with God and have the sign of the covenant. God promises to be a God to them. But none of that negates the duty to believe

 

[Dachaser]

To clarify: the children are in covenant with God and have the sign of the covenant. God promises to be a God to them. But none of that negates the duty to believe

God would be the God of the children of the saved parents, regardless if they take the sign of water baptism, as He will save those who are His elect still?

 

[Gforce9]

God would be the God of the children of the saved parents, regardless if they take the sign of water baptism, as He will save those who are His elect still?

Your statement taken as "stand alone" is true, but it doesnt address the sign, the relationship to the thing signified, or the recipients of the sign. Why would you withold something that was given (sign), as Jacob stated, that should be applied?

 

[TheOldCourse]

God would be the God of the children of the saved parents, regardless if they take the sign of water baptism, as He will save those who are His elect still?

God sets apart those to whom he is the covenantal God by means of his sign and seal. If he is their God, covenantally speaking, then the sign of that relationship belongs to them. While there may be a federal application of the sign (thus circumcision was for males only), the sign applies to all who are considered under that federal relationship and thus should not be withheld from any members for whom the sign is appropriate. Accordingly, baptism is administered to both male and female children of the New Covenant.

 

[Grant]

God would be the God of the children of the saved parents, regardless if they take the sign of water baptism, as He will save those who are His elect still?

Baptism..does not save. None of our outward workings of obedience save us. Jacob already made that clear in the very statement you quoted from him "but none of that negates the duty to believe."

To withhold Baptism is sin, which in the very least is a denial to acknowledge and proclaim outwardly the Promises of our great God. Now with all that said, can we avoid the baptism debate (on this thread) because it is not the purpose of the original post (Johnathan Edwards a "virtual pantheist"?). If you want to discuss baptism, why not make a new thread or read old ones.

Now since I posted, I will say that i do not believe Johnathan Edwards to have been a "virtual pantheist". Pantheism as i understand it was a heresy...so you might as well pose the question "Was Johnathan Edwards a "virtual heretic"?

NO he was not..he was a bold man of sound faith, who like all of us had/have flaws in faith and practice. We owe him much grace (and thanks for that matter) ...as we all need/desire much grace ourselves when we give an account for all we have said and done.

 

[Dachaser]

Baptism..does not save. None of our outward workings of obedience save us. Jacob already made that clear in the very statement you quoted from him "but none of that negates the duty to believe."

To withhold Baptism is sin, which in the very least is a denial to acknowledge and proclaim outwardly the Promises of our great God. Now with all that said, can we avoid the baptism debate (on this thread) because it is not the purpose of the original post (Johnathan Edwards a "virtual pantheist"?). If you want to discuss baptism, why not make a new thread or read old ones.

Now since I posted, I will say that i do not believe Johnathan Edwards to have been a "virtual pantheist". Pantheism as i understand it was a heresy...so you might as well pose the question "Was Johnathan Edwards a "virtual heretic"?

NO he was not..he was a bold man of sound faith, who like all of us had/have flaws in faith and practice. We owe him much grace (and thanks for that matter) ...as we all need/desire much grace ourselves when we give an account for all we have said and done.

He might have held to Pantheism of some degree, but that would be from drawing some kind of inference from his writings, but not being to ahve himself state categorical that he held to that viewpoint.

 

[RamistThomist]

God commanded the sign of the covenant to be placed on children of believers. Now, if believers refuse to put God's sign on their children, will God still be God to them? In a sense, sure, but why go that route? It's better that kids grow up in a Reformed baptist household than in a family with three Demi-gender parents. The child will get good instruction, etc. But you are getting all of that outside the way that God promised to be God to your children.

 

[Dachaser]

God commanded the sign of the covenant to be placed on children of believers. Now, if believers refuse to put God's sign on their children, will God still be God to them? In a sense, sure, but why go that route? It's better that kids grow up in a Reformed baptist household than in a family with three Demi-gender parents. The child will get good instruction, etc. But you are getting all of that outside the way that God promised to be God to your children.

This all would be going back into just how new we see the New Covenant as being though, and that would be a topic and discussion for another day.

 

[TheOldCourse]

This all would be going back into just how new we see the New Covenant as being though, and that would be a topic and discussion for another day.

We are getting far afield, but you asked "God would be the God of the children of the saved parents, regardless if they take the sign of water baptism, as He will save those who are His elect still?"

If God is the God of the children of the saved parents, which you seem to grant, in any manner peculiar to them relative to the heathen masses, that demands a setting apart of them as his covenant people since the covenantal relationship, fundamentally, is for God to be their God and they to be His people. To signify and seal this relationship God has given us the sacrament of baptism.

 

[Scott Bushey]

God would be the God of the children of the saved parents, regardless if they take the sign of water baptism, as He will save those who are His elect still?

Yes and no...

In Gen 17 we see the result of rebellion:

11 And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you. 12 And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed. 13 He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised: and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. 14 And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant.

The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Ge 17:10–14.

So, in the compound sense, yes, God would still be a God to the parent and child, but in the divided sense, they are cut off.

Consider the response of Zipporah to Moses:


Exodus 4:25
25 Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me.

Poole writes:
"Perceiving the danger of her husband, and the cause of it, and her husband being disenabled from performing that work, whether by some stroke or sickness, or by the terror of so dismal and unexpected an apparition to him, and delays being highly dangerous, she thought it better to do it herself as well as she could, rather than put it off a moment longer; whether because the administration of that sacrament was not confined to any kind or order of persons, or because, if it was so, she did not apprehend it to be so, or because she thought this was the least of two evils, and that it was safer to commit a circumstantial error, than to continue in a substantial fault.

Matthew Poole, Annotations upon the Holy Bible, vol. 1 (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1853), 124–125.

"And because she durst not accuse God, the author of this work, she falls foul upon her husband as the occasion of it, and as a costly and bloody husband to her, whose endangered life she was forced to redeem with blood, even the blood of her little child, by which as he received a new life after a sort, so she did anew, and the second time, espouse him."

Matthew Poole, Annotations upon the Holy Bible, vol. 1 (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1853), 125.

 

[TylerRay]

I don't think I've ever seen a thread change topics so radically or so quickly. From JE and pantheism to infant baptism. Go figure.

 

[Scott Bushey]

Poole goes on to say that in Exodus 4:24 that God was looking to kill Moses for the sin of neglect:


14 And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant.

And the uncircumcised man-child; or rather, and as for the uncircumcised man-child. So the nominative is put absolutely, as is frequent in the Hebrew tongue. Whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, or, who shall not circumcise the flesh of his foreskin; for the Hebrew verb may be rendered actively, which seems best here; because the punishment seems more justly to belong to the parent, who was guilty of this neglect; than to the child, who was not capable of this precept, and therefore not guilty of the violation of it. And this may further appear from Exod 4:24, 25, where God seeks to kill, not the child, but the father, Moses, for this sin. And the flesh of the child’s foreskin is rightly called the flesh of his, i.e. the parent’s, foreskin, because the child is a part and the possession of his parent. So that this threatening concerns only grown persons, and of them only such as shall wilfully and unnecessarily neglect this duty; for otherwise it was neglected by the Israelites for forty years together in the wilderness, Josh. 5:7, without any token of God’s displeasure for it. That soul shall be cut off from his people. This phrase denotes either, 1. An exclusion from fellowship with God’s people, and from all the promises, privileges, and blessings belonging to them, either in this life or that to come. Or rather, 2. An untimely and violent death, as may be gathered from Exod. 31:14, to be inflicted by the magistrate, to whom God committed the execution of this as well as other laws; and in case of his neglect and default, or the secrecy of the fact, by the extraordinary hand of God, who sometimes ascribes this act to himself, as Lev. 17:10; 20:6. He hath broken my covenant, that sacred bond which tied him and me together; and by his neglect and contempt of the condition required on his part, he hath forfeited the blessing promised on my part.



Matthew Poole, Annotations upon the Holy Bible, vol. 1 (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1853), 40.

Poole also shares a difference in God's response to the neglect by comparing the 40 years in the wilderness and Moses' neglect. One may wonder in this age, if the credo baptist is seen as the former. in my opinion, neither scenario is approved of God, but that God may be long suffering to ignorance.

 

[Dachaser]

I don't think I've ever seen a thread change topics so radically or so quickly. From JE and pantheism to infant baptism. Go figure.

I am trying to keep from being into another water baptism Presbyterian Vrs reformed baptist discussion.

 

[TylerRay]

I am trying to keep from being into another water baptism Presbyterian Vrs reformed baptist discussion.

I think that threshold has been crossed already. Nearly half of the thread has nothing whatsoever to do with Edwards or pantheism.

 

[Gforce9]

I think that threshold has been crossed already. Nearly half of the thread has nothing whatsoever to do with Edwards or pantheism.

Additionally, Mr. Edwards, posthumously, of course, wishes not to be embroiled in such matters as pantheism, wig powder content, or any water debates, including polo, fresh spring-vs-tap, or waterboarding for truth.

 

[Dachaser]

Additionally, Mr. Edwards, posthumously, of course, wishes not to be embroiled in such matters as pantheism, wig powder content, or any water debates, including polo, fresh spring-vs-tap, or waterboarding for truth.

He would probably find it amusing just how we are defining his theological views on this area.