Journal: Journal for Baptist Theology & Ministry
Volume: JBTM 20:2 (Fall 2023)
Article: Fallen Humanity And Its Redemption: Mainstream Sixteenth-Century Anabaptist Views Vis-À-Vis Arminian Baptist And Traditional Baptist Positions
Author: Kirk R. MacGregor

Fallen Humanity And Its Redemption: Mainstream Sixteenth-Century Anabaptist Views Vis-À-Vis Arminian Baptist And Traditional Baptist Positions

Kirk R. MacGregor

Kirk MacGregor is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion at McPherson College in McPherson, Kansas.

Part of the contemporary debate between Arminian Baptists and Traditional Baptists concerns the effects of the Fall on human nature and the possibility of a need for prevenient grace prior to the Holy Spirit’s work via the Gospel. For the purposes of this article, let me define exactly how I am using the descriptors Arminian Baptists and Traditional Baptists.1 By Arminian Baptists I mean those Baptists who affirm total depravity as a result of the Fall, believe that prevenient grace is needed to remedy the effects of total depravity on human free will, affirm the doctrine of unlimited atonement, and are possibly but not necessarily skeptical toward eternal security.2 The doctrine of total depravity entails, in philosophical terms, the Fall’s rendering powerless the mental faculty by which humans could freely believe the Gospel.3 Adherents to prevenient grace hold that at least part of such grace is the Holy Spirit’s supernatural restoration of this mental faculty.4 By Traditional Baptists I mean those Baptists who deny total inability and thus deny that prevenient — by which I simply mean preparatory — grace is needed to remedy its effects on human free will, believe that the Holy Spirit’s work via the Gospel does not need to be described as

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prevenient grace, and affirm eternal security. Traditional Baptists hold that the Fall did not effectuate “the incapacitation of any person’s free will,” such that no supernatural restoration of free will is needed before fallen humans can make “a free response to the Holy Spirit’s drawing through the Gospel” (TS Art. 2).5 The points of divergence between these two Baptist groups on which I shall focus here regard fallen humanity and its redemption, leaving aside the question of eternal security. For any Southern Baptist, whether Arminian Baptist or Traditional Baptist, should affirm the doctrine of eternal security (BFM 2000 Art. 5).6

At this juncture a further question arises: for Arminian Baptists, when does prevenient grace restore the free willing faculty? Is it at birth and thus prior to the hearing of the Gospel, or is it when the Gospel is heard?