How do you prove from Scripture one can and must cooperate with grace?

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How do I respond in a way that will be able to refute this claim below?

Rome’s doctrine of “actual” grace that is given to all men with the understanding that men must choose to cooperate with this grace to obtain the grace of salvation (thus effecting election) by sacraments and works is false because it contradicts the biblical truth that salvific grace is both effectual (John 6:37) and exclusive (John 6:65, Rom. 4:16, Rom. 9:8).
 
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Hello MattPerk,
It seemed that your post was cut off. Can you post the rest of the argument?

In the mean time, I will address verses and concepts that have already been posted.

John 6:37 - It is rather ironic that Protestants pick verses from John 6 to reject actual grace through the sacraments and works because the entirety of John 6 is focused upon the Eucharist. Their thesis is explicitly disproved by simply reading John 6:37 within its context. Christ is saying, repeatedly, that he is the Bread of Life and that man must consume his Body and Blood to have eternal life. Verse 37 reads, “Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me…” This declaration is given within the context of his authority to institute such a practice (the Blessed Sacrament). So too, does it explicitly declare that works are required to receive these graces: “I will not reject anyone who comes to me.” Emphasis added. We must be the ones to come to Christ to receive these graces. This, in itself, is a work.

John 6:65 - "And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father.” Again, this is spoken within the context of the institution of the Eucharist and questioning if his apostles would also leave him over this teaching. This conforms with the Catholic perspective. If anyone would come to Christ (enact the work of approaching Christ in the sacraments), then the Father gives him the grace to be able to enact that work. Even in Sacraments, the grace attained is directly from the Father and the Son.

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Rom 4:16 - “For this reason, it depends on faith, so that it may be a gift, and the promise may be guaranteed to all his descendants, not to those who only adhere to the law but to those who follow the faith of Abraham, who is the father of all of us,” St. Paul is writing within the context of Abraham’s covenant with God that he might have many descendants. In all honesty, this argument against actual grace is extremely weak. Paul describing that it is not through external law which salvation comes to man. It arrives through Faith. The one proposing the argument hasn’t actually studied what Catholics believe about the Sacraments. Our belief in the sacraments is not through an outward formula but primarily through our Faith in Christ. He was the one who instituted the sacraments. It is our faith in Christ that we believe him that if we do certain acts in Faith (sacraments), then his grace will follow.

Rom 9:8 - “This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as descendants.” I have no idea about why the Protestant is using this for his or her argument. Paul is saying that Christ’s promise of salvation is not just limited to Jews but to all. Later in the chapter, Paul does explicitly say (verse 16) that God’s mercy does not depend upon how much you want that mercy or how much you do to earn that mercy. This is said within the context of the covenant with the Jews. It did not matter how much the Jews anticipated God’s mercy or how much they obeyed the Law, God’s mercy is granted to those who he wishes. This conforms with the sacraments. We don’t believe that the more times we enact the sacraments, the more mercy we receive. Instead, we only partake of the sacraments because it was God who decided that he would grant mercy (actual grace) upon those who approached the sacraments.

God bless,
Ben
 
First, anytime someone has to rely on the canard of “biblical truth” that means they are making things up. Thus, you are arguing against ego and not intellect. No way to win that one.

However, for a mind or heart that is the slightest bit open, try Matthew 25:14-30.
 
The fact that you must ‘prove from scripture’ is already funneling into narrowness of protestant thinking. Scripture alone is a false idea, and someone had to put together the scriptures! It was the Catholic Church. The bible is a Catholic book. The church has the church fathers to draw from and the catechism. Ask him to open his mind to see what the church fathers have to say on the subject.

It does take a lot of ego to say that the Catholic Church, standing for 2 thousand years and the force of the gospel that motivated men and women over the centuries to build civilizations, got it wrong.
 
Is this from a friend, family member or is it a random internet debate?
 
It is from a debate I am having on the internet. I am struggling to show how we cooperate with God’s grace. I believe this person is a Calvinist.
 
Friend, the best thing is to walk away. Christ did not tell us to “go debate on the internet with Calvinists”, he told us to be love and light and let our good works speak for themselves.
 
I suggest watching this video from How to Be Christian. He’s a Catholic apologist debunking Protestant beliefs using the Bible and reason. This one is addressed to James White and I think it addresses John 6:37 well.
 
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Thanks for the advice. Maybe I can glean some more.

I have been a Protestant for 45 years. I am currently in RCIA. I love to talk about these things. I was a hard core Hyper Calvinist for 20 years. Went to Dordt College etc. the whole deal. Loved Calvins institutes. Long story but I went from kicking and screaming to being in absolute love of Christ Church. I love the Catholic faith. My entire family is still hard core Dutch Calvinist. Some think I have betrayed them other think I am crazy. It is really hard because my wife and 5 kids go to the Protestant church and I have been going to Mass. I have made a commitment not to talk to my family about it unless they bring it up with me. They really don’t want to talk about it. I long to talk about it. The internet is one way I can do that. I am also trying to hone my apologetic skills. I have made some anti-Catholic friends and it has helped me sharpen my Catholic faith by debatign with them. For the most part it has been very civil and educational. I have even been able to get a few people to think about it and ask more questions and read some Catholic literature. Anyway I understand your caution, but I do think it has born some fruit?
 
The Lord’s Prayer says,
“Thy will be done
On earth as it is in Heaven.”

Thy/God’s will, not my/our will.
In Heaven God’s will is adhered to.

Ergo if we are wise, we will do exactly what He has instructed us to do while we’re on planet earth. And with the help of the invisible grace available to us in the sacraments - including the visible Body and Blood He has made sure are available for us every day - the free will He’s given to us will be strengthened and made stronger, to better align with and carry out HIS will, while we’re still here on earth. Assuming, of course that we want to spend the rest of our neverending existences being happy in Heaven, where we all originally originated from…

We already know that even if we live to be 150 years old, we’re not going to be HERE forever; however, we will be somewhere. John 15 explains our choices well.
 
Evidence of the need for co-operation in salvation seems really clear through Romans 2.

6 For he will repay according to each one’s deeds: 7 to those who by patiently doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; 8 while for those who are self-seeking and who obey not the truth but wickedness, there will be wrath and fury. 9 There will be anguish and distress for everyone who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, 10 but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. 11 For God shows no partiality.

12 All who have sinned apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. 13 For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but the doers of the law who will be justified. 14 When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. 15 They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness; and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them 16 on the day when, according to my gospel, God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all.
 
po18guy said:
However, for a mind or heart that is the slightest bit open, try Matthew 25:14-30.
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👍 That is the parable that came to my mind also. The master gives talents to his servants (God gives us grace) and they are expected/required to use the money to earn more (we need to use the grace we are given - cooperate with it - in order to merit more by doing what pleases God, obeying His wishes/commands). If they do not put to use what they are given to earn more, what was freely given to them will be taken away.
 
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po18guy referenced the Matthew 25:14-30 parable. I’d also add the rest of Matthew 25:31-46 - the final judgement according to deeds.

How do Calvinists interpret those passages?

I will pray for the conversion of your family. 🙏 🙏 🙏
 
This is from Cornelius a Lapide’s commentary on 1 Cor 15:10:
" Yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. It plainly appears from this passage against Luther and Calvin that man has free-will, and that God alone does not work everything in us, but that our free-will co-operates with Him, even in supernatural works, for the Apostle says with me , not in me , and I laboured more abundantly than they all.

Again, the verb to be supplied in this passage is properly laboured. Then it will run. “Yet it was not I that laboured, but the grace of God, which laboured with me.” S. Paul does not here exclude the co-operation of the will, but only attributes the praise due to the work to grace as its more worthy cause. But the sense will be the same if you read with the Greek Fathers and S. Jerome, “was with me.” The meaning then is, “which was with me to help me.” I laboured much of my own free endeavour, yet I did not so labour as to give myself all the praise and glory of my labour; but it was the grace of God which aroused me, aided me, strengthened me for this labour; to it, therefore, I give the first and best praise of my labour.”

S. Bernard (“On Grace and Free-will,” sub finem ) says. “ ‘It was not I, but the grace of God with me’ implies that he was not only a minister of the work by producing it, but in some way a companion of the worker by consenting to it. Elsewhere S. Paul says of himself, ‘We are workers together with God’ (1 Cor. iii. 9); hence we make bold to say that we merit to receive the kingdom because we are joined to the Divine Will by the voluntary surrender of our own will .”

See also Anselm, Chrysostom, Theodoret ( in loco ); also Jerome ( contra Pelag. lib. ii.), Gregory ( Morals , xvi. c. 10), S. Augustine ( de Liber. Arbit. c. 17, and Serm. 13 de Verbis Apost .). He says there: “ If you were not a worker, God could not be a co-worker ."
 
PennyinCanada said:
The fact that you must ‘prove from scripture’ is already funneling into narrowness of protestant thinking.
Click to expand...
YEP… Folks with Faith now know that Faith and “Proof” cannot co-reside…
As in … they’re spiritually diametrical…

)
 
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