Calvinist Flyswatter

"New Divinity" or "Hopkinsianism."

"NEW DIVINITY" EXPOSED
BY STEPHEN GARRETT

Stephen Garrett's research has unearthed more background on the "born again before faith" idea of some modern Calvinists. This is material we have not seen before, and I found it quite enlightening. Read the first paragraph, then go to the Baptist Gadfly for the rest of it. -- Bob L. Ross

NEW DIVINITY

It has been the contention of Bob Ross and myself that the idea that regeneration occurs prior to and without faith, and that conversion and regeneration are separate and distinct experiences, is not the original view of the first Calvinists and Reformers, but was a later invention by 18th and 19th century neo Calvinists. This later hybrid or novel invention is part of what historians of Calvinism properly call the "New Divinity." The following work by an able historian demonstrates that the view of the "hybrids" is a novel doctrine among Calvinists, a "New Divinity." The following citations are from "Theology in America: Christian Thought from the Age of the Puritans to the Civil War" by E. Brooks Holifield. This "New Divinity" is also sometimes called "Hopkinsianism."

Read the rest of this article at BaptistGadfly.

posted by Bob L. Ross @ 3:19 PM