This is beautifully said! Aside from the alluding to irresistible grace, I would agree with pretty much everything you have said. Just remember, God gave us the liberty to accept or reject His grace. If He did not, then He would not be a God of love, but of cajoling and coercing.
It’s synergy. God planting and us bearing fruit.AugustTherese:
So we are the ones in charge. The creator of the universe bows to our will.
A claim of having faith and actually having faith are two different things.
Doesn’t our faith have to be a result of monergism? If we choose to have faith as a result of free will then isn’t the faith itself a work of merit? Or are Catholics semi-pelagian, where we have a little bit of goodness left inside of us that can allow us to seek after God. If so, is the seeking out of God a work of merit? Or maybe some form of Arminianism, where we have a small amount of spiritual life left is us that allows us to respond to the initiative of God’s grace? The same question can be asked, is choosing to respond to God’s grace a work of merit because it is “of ourselves”.
No, we are saying that one can “jump out” of His hand. He does not prevent us from leaving.
Of course not! But His power to hold you is the same power that gives you the free will to reject Him.
We will agree that there are some who have a form of godliness, lacking the power thereof. But there are also those who were grafted into the Body then abandoned Him. Apostasy cannot exist if faith was not previously present.
Certainly, if they choose to do so. The difference between the Catholic view of synergism and the Calvanist view of monergism is that Catholics believe that one can choose to stop abiding in Christ.
No one is claiming that we remain in Christ through our own ability. We are saved by grace, through faith.
Why do you think this?
No.
I will respond to you using Paul’s words to the people of Athens. “From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.”
This is one place where we differ with regard to the relationship between faith and works. Catholics believe that justification can be lost (it is not a once for all event) and that we remain justified by walking in the works He has prepared for us.
While we would not go so far as to say there is no grace transmitted through sacraments, definitely if we are not disposed to receive His grace through them, and we do not cooperate with His will that is placed in us to will and to do, they will not get us to heaven.
Unless one changes one’s mind, and decides to reject the sacrifice of Christ, making a shipwreck of their faith.
This is certainly a good solid Calvanist view!
The words/concept “true” disciple and “true” faith must be added to the text to preserve the Calvanistic soteriology.
Catholics will agree that these qualities demonstrate that saving faith is present. We just believe that a person can have these things, then fall away, walk away, jump out of His hand and spurn the blood that bought them.
No, it just means that He has not abrogated the free will that He created for us. He will/can hold us, but only if we agree. Even the angels chose to leave heaven. They have free will, as we do. God did not stop them from rebelling. To say that the angels were not created and existed in a state of grace and communion with God is absurd.
It is not about His ability, it is about our willingness. He is not going to save us against our will. He respects our choice, even if that choice is to profane the blood of the covenant.
No, human beings are not capable of finishing His work in us. Our part is to trust, and walk in His grace. It is his part to perfect that which He began in us. This is why we call it synergistic, rather than monergistic. “Work out your salvation” means that we cooperate and “work together with” the grace through which we are saved by faith.
This statement is an accurate expression of Calvanistic Theology. It was not found in the Church until the Reformation. It is considered an innovation, and a “different doctrine” than what we received from the Apostles.
Christ wants all to be saved, and come to the knowledge of the Truth. Yet, He has created us with free will, and we can choose not to enter into the plan He has for us.
This is a good Calvanistic rendering. The problem is that it flies in the face of so many scriptures that indicate the opposite. I do agree that there are some people who are religious, but not disciples, and that there are a lot of reasons that people wander away from the faith.
No, God has given mankind parameters for our existence, and the free will to remain in them, or not. He created Adam and Eve, placed them in the garden, and gave them the choice. The choice remains today.
Yes, but @AugustTherese question remains. How can you lose something you did not have? This is not a “claim to have”, but actually having been sanctified by grace.
Yes, but this does not eliminate the desires of the flesh. And creating in us a clean heart does not prevent us from falling into sin.
This is a fundamental tenent of Calvanism. It is monergism.
I agree! This is why some joyfully received the word of God when the seed was scattered. Without His grace, this cannot happen.
This is a good question. We are dead in our trespasses and sins, and cannot, of ourselves, reconcile with God. We require His grace to enter a right relationship with Him. Catholics receive the Apostolic faith that God calls every human person to Himself. We call this grace prevenient, or “calling” grace. Not all respond to this grace, but it is sufficient to draw everyone to hear the gospel, or to seek God.
The Catholic sense if “merit” is different than the modern American sense of the word. It is more accurately understood as “found worthy”. But no, the only way we can choose faith is by grace. Since we are dead in our trespasses and sins, it is only by His grace that we can be reconciled to Him. Even our ability to choose is a work of Grace, as He is the one who made us in His image and likeness (we are indeed His offspring). Free will is a part of being His offspring. It is a gift that is part of our nature, just as it was the nature of the angels.
We do acknowledge that God has made us with the desire to feel after Him and find Him. But it is not semi-Pelagianism because we also acknowldege that we cannot find him with out His grace. But this is where we differ from Calvanism. The Apostles taught that the image of God in which we are made was wounded, but not destroyed.
If you mean by this that we can reconcile/find God by our own human efforts, apart from grace, then NO.
I am not sure what you mean by “small amount of spiritual life”, but Arminianism does preserve the Apostolic teaching that God gives us sufficient grace so that we can feel after Him and find Him. Our identity as "offspring’ of God, though marred, is able to respond to His grace to find Him.
As in all of salvation, it is synergistic. God calls, we respond (or not), but He does not save us against our will.
What I mean is that we have enough spiritual life in us to respond to His grace.
I read this and recalled an amusing (and pretty truthful) statement I once heard that the Calvinist definition of “Pelagianism” (or Semi) is anything that isn’t Calvinism
Please take the time to read this article by the late R.C. Sproul. Depravity, Augustine and Pelagius
I understand. But it is not the spiritual life within us that enables us to respond to His grace. It is His grace reaching out to us. There is nothing in us, or of us, that can initiate reconciliation toward God. He created us to seek after Him, and that, in itself, is grace.
Our state of separation from God has not removed the image of God in which we are created, and the ability to have faith toward God.
It creates a false dichotomy, as, according to the Apostles, the spiritual sickness that has resulted from the Fall has left us spiritually dead in our sins. The image of God is still in us, and we are still created to seek after Him and find Him, but we cannot do so apart from His grace.
On the contrary, dead men grab all kinds of ropes in order to make their lives what they think they ought to be - money, power, etc. These do not heal the human soul, and cannot bring us to everlasting life.
I could go into a lengthly response to Sproul’s article, but I am not sure I would do better than the succint response already given here.
If he created us to seek after Him then isn’t that something in us that can initiate reconciliation toward God?
Of course Sproul considers any form of synergism to be a form of semi-plegianism. To a strong Calvinist any co-operation that results in salvation, even 1%, violates Ephesians 2:8-9 where we are saved “Not by our own doing” (ESV). And they consider a choice by our un-regenerated Free Will to be a work.
Yes, but all those things are things of the flesh. We are talking of spiritual things.
It is only there because He first placed it there, and it is only His grace to which our seeking souls respond.
Yes. He misunderstood the Apostolic Teaching. God created us out of love, to be in relationship with Him, not to be sock puppets.
Yes. But the flaw is in the concept of the “unregenerated free will”. The Apostles did not teach total depravity. This still does not mean any “good work” of our will get us to heaven.
There is much of this that is consistent with what we have received from the Apostles. They taught that we can, by grace, choose Christ. Not only that, but that we are commanded to do so and “should” do so (it is His will for us). But none of this is “of our own free will”. We can choose it, but only do so because we are called and enabled to do so by Christ. Catholics have a different understanding of the effects of the Fall and of how regeneration happens, but after that there is a great deal of consistency in Calvanism with Catholic theology.
Catholics call this prevenient grace. The only difference might be that we consider it to be a lot of “somethings” over a long period of time in some cases, not a once for all and for all time event.
My point is that human beings choose to grab “ropes”. Even the will in bondage is able to make choices, just not those that lead to heaven.