“Neither does this new creation give new strength to the faculties, which belong to human nature. The man of weak understanding is not, by this change, made to possess a strong mind; the understanding of a child is not at once made to possess the vigor of manhood. Persons constitutionally deficient in quickness of apprehension, in memory, or judgment, remain the same, as it relates to the vigor of their intellect, as before; except that the rational powers, when freed from the misdirection of evil motives, act more correctly. When the mind forms a relish for any particular subject, it manifests a power in understanding that subject, which is peculiar, and which it does not display on other subjects. Hence it is , that pious persons of weak understanding in other matters, often discover much sagacity in religious matters that the natural faculties are enlarged or strengthened, by regeneration.”
Archibald Alexander (1772-1851)
Practical Sermons – p. 111-112
Archibald Alexander was a guiding force in early American Presbyterianism serving as the first professor at Princeton Seminary where he molded the minds of American Presbyterian clergy for 39 years. He was the mentor to renown Presbyterian theologian Charles H. Hodge. In this quote Alexander is writing about regeneration.
Note,
1.) Regeneration does not create within the individuals regenerated new native powers that did not exist prior to regeneration. In terms of natural capacities and inclinations regeneration does not instill new natural abilities though regeneration redirect existing natural capacities and inclinations in a different direction. People who have a 85 IQ before regeneration do not get more IQ points because they have been regenerated. However, people who have a 149 IQ before regeneration, because of regeneration use that horsepower for the glory of God as opposed to using it for self-centered ends.
2.) Those who are regenerated will tend increasingly to understand all of life, including their careers, their family life, their relationships, etc. in terms of a Christ-ward direction. This ever increasing God centeredness may look like different capacities and abilities in those born again but these are not new capacities or abilities but are the old capacities and abilities put to a new service, thus expanding to their previous unused potential.
3.) This reminds us of the old Reformed maxim that “grace restores nature.” God’s grace in regeneration makes men and peoples the best men and peoples they can be in light of who God made them to be creationally.
4.) Regeneration then is not an act of God that makes all men the same. It is not the case that all men/peoples, because of regeneration will have the same character traits, the same strengths or weaknesses, the same capacity to build the same cultures/civilizations. It would be errant theology to think that should God be pleased to regenerate the Yellow man in Japan and the Black man in Rwanda that therefore that the church in Japan and Rwanda will therefore begin to look exactly the same. True, both the Rwandans and the Japanese will build churches to worship and glorify our Triune God, but regeneration will not work to make those churches with their worship look exactly the same. Sermons in those churches will not sound exactly the same. The way the sacraments are dispensed may not look the same. In the same way, regeneration will not make Christian civilizations/cultures look all the same. This is because regeneration is an act whereby God takes what He has made creationally and restores it to be the best possible expression of what He intended it to be in creation — the best possible something that was lost in the fallenness of different men, peoples and civilizations.
5.) To deny what Alexander teaches in the above quote is to deny the Trinitarian character of God. God created mankind in order to express His one and many character. Mankind is a unity in diversity, just as the Triune God is. Man is one, and yet His oneness does not negate the distinctions that God created men to be in their races, nations, clans, and families (Acts 17:26). The way that modern clergy are teaching Christianity is that in regeneration God is intending a uniformitarian product in all men and all peoples. This quite contrary to the Archibald Alexander quote.
6.) Now for the really controversial statement. Regeneration therefore does not mean that regenerated men and women from different races therefore are automatically good matches for one another in marriage. In point of fact, because God has made men and women from different races to be creationally distinct it is the case that even with regeneration marriage between different races is normatively unwise. Regeneration, while working to make both the Japanese male and Rwandan female (as our previous example) to be increasingly, by sanctification, the best expression of their peoples does not create a same human product that will necessarily make for good fits for marriage.
7.) Using regeneration as an excuse for “godly” miscegenation denies the in built natural creational distinctions that God ordained for His creation. That which happens by the supernatural (regeneration) does not negate that which God ordained by His work of creation, though regeneration as existing among different people groups and races does allow for the harmony of interest between them to exist. Regeneration can not turn clarinets into trombones but regeneration can work to make the clarinet section work in harmony with the trombone section in performing a piece of music.
This would be the Biblical basis for saying that there is more hope for a simple-minded, low-IQ Black man who yet comes to see his fallen state and repents, than for a high-IQ White man who is full of himself and his own excellence (and may well use his mental talents to promote some dangerously utopian globalist scheme, something so foolish that mere simpletons with horse-sense could not believe in it, like uneducated African Blacks could rightly laugh at the globohomo notions that are pushed on them):
“Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? there is more hope of a fool than of him.” (Proverbs 26:12)