Is Catholicism monergistic synergistic?

[rturner76]

Do we have a role in our salvation ie. we must accept freely given grace for it to be activated. Such as living faith. Is it monergistic in that God predestined those whom he would save and grants them the faith they will need?

SOmewhat like the Calvin/Arminian debate but with actual Catholic theology. Does God grant us faith and we meerly receive it or do we have a part to play in our salvation by excersizing our own free will. Does free will even exist?

 

[King_Lazy]

Do we have a role in our salvation ie. we must accept freely given grace for it to be activated. Such as living faith. Is it monergistic in that God predestined those whom he would save and grants them the faith they will need?

SOmewhat like the Calvin/Arminian debate but with actual Catholic theology. Does God grant us faith and we meerly receive it or do we have a part to play in our salvation by excersizing our own free will. Does free will even exist?

We can freely resist and are culpable in doing so.

If we do nothing with our will, the grace will have its effect, and we may not boast about it, because it is a work of God and not of us.

That’s a really simple way of understanding it.

There are more complicated theological answers, although there are about five different schools of thought about predestination, grace and free will that are at the moment considered to be orthodox and Catholic, and the simple understanding that I mentioned above is yet another way of looking at it, and I can’t remember the name for it.

It’s a very interesting subject. Thomism and Molinism are the Catholic Calvinism and Arminianism, as they both affirm similar principles but the Catholic understandings are not heretical.

The matter is not settled, so a faithful Catholic’s duty is to avoid falling into heresy by affirming what the Church has defined on this matter.

I personally prefer to keep things simple. I think many problems come from the idea that grace has to be actively accepted. But if we see grace as automatically effective provided we don’t actually actively resist it, it becomes simpler to reconcile God’s sovereignty and human free will, without taking credit away from God for our good deeds and without making God responsible for our own damnation.

 

[rturner76]

I will have too look up Thomism and Molinism. This does not seem to be a devisive subject in the Catholic Church and I like that. When I run in to so called “Calvinists” I get hit with this attitude that what I believe is not Biblical and I get very defensive. I thought I would go to the real authority on Soteriology. The Holy Mother Church. I wish the “reformers” would not have gone so far in to their own lines of thought on these matters and went back to their Mother for real doctrine. Now we have confusion, debate, and competition hurting the universal church. I wonder if any Pope’s have weighed in on this issue? Isn’t a Papal decree infallible?

I think we can get in to trouble in the semantics of giving ourselves credit for accepting grace through our faith. “I” have faith in Christ’s atonement so “I” am saved. Rather than “God gave me grace through Christ’s atonement on the cross” Thank God for "“His” grace and mercy.

Then I think can we even have faith unless God grant’s it to us? Like grace, is faith a gift from God? Certanly I have faith where someone else may not. Is that my doing or God’s election? According to some it is God’s election however, I can’t help but believe the same offer of grace is given to everyone, why would God offer grace to all but only choose to elect some? So I go back to free will but then we have the pride thing again and I just made a circle.

Anyway, I’m sure those wiser and more learned than me have a much better idea. Usually the answer is simple and I like to make it more complicated than it needs to be.

Thank you for responding, all who do. It is very charitable of you to help a non-catholic. I’m not going to say Protestant because Methodists were not formed in protest of the Catholic Church and neither am I. I have great respect for the Mother of all churches and pray that I might be Catholic one day if God will have me.

 

[AdesteFideles]

I will have too look up Thomism and Molinism.

If you’d like to read a good article on the subject, I’d recommend this piece from Jimmy Akin’s blog.

 

[Qoeleth]

The simple answer is God has given us commandments in the Torah and the Gospel. If we obey those commandments by our own will and effort, including the commandments to forgiveness, charity and poverty, we will not be condemned on judgement day. It is a simple as Matthew 25:31-46.

‘Salvation’ and ‘grace’ are confusing theological concepts, thanks to people like Luther and St. Paul, which do not figure much in the Gospel. Instead, the message is clear, “he will judge each according to his deeds.”

 

[King_Lazy]

There is a certain degree of freedom with regard to what one may believe about the interaction of grace and free will, but Catholicism affirms both.

I was also going to suggest Jimmy Akin’s Tiptoe through TULIP article for a sort of semi-Calvinist position made compatible with Catholic teaching. My own position also is neither Thomist or Molinist, but I don’t fully agree with Jimmy Akin either.

I did find a really good attempt at reconciling grace and free will that appeared to be orthodox once, so I’ll try and find it for you today when I have time.

From a subjective perspective, whatever the case may be, we must strive to co-operate with God’s grace.

Objectively, however, even our efforts in this regard do not come of ourselves, but are a result of grace.

We, as Catholics, must affirm that it is only through God’s grace that we do anything meritorious but that we do indeed have free will. We also affirm that predestination does exist, although there is no double predestination and nobody is predestined to hell, and that predestination is somehow a result of God’s omniscience whereby God turns the decisions of our free will into His infallible decree for our salvation.

It’s very easy to fall into heresy contemplating these matters, so “tiptoeing” is advised.

Popes have weighed in on this issue, condemning heretical ideas, but there is no single positive Catholic idea. It still remains somewhat of a mystery.

I’ll get back to this thread, but as to the question of faith:

It is certainly a gift of God:

Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit.
**1 Cor 12:3
**

But we can resist the Spirit of God:

"You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit!
Acts 7:51

If we see it in this way, then if we are passive and do nothing with out free will and God gives us faith, we will have it. We have to say therefore that “God gave us faith.” Should that result in our salvation, it’s because of our passive conformance to God’s will, and not our own doing.

But we are entirely free in taking God’s gift and throwing it away. Should that result in our damnation, that’s because of our active rebellion against God’s will, and not of God’s doing.

 

[rturner76]

But we can resist the Spirit of God:

If we see it in this way, then if we are passive and do nothing with out free will and God gives us faith, we will have it. We have to say therefore that “God gave us faith.” Should that result in our salvation, it’s because of our passive conformance to God’s will, and not our own doing.

But we are entirely free in taking God’s gift and throwing it away. Should that result in our damnation, that’s because of our active rebellion against God’s will, and not of God’s doing.

So thank God for the gift of faith and don’t blame him for your decision to shun him. I can dig that.

 

[King_Lazy]

rturner76,

As promised, I have found the source which I think is a tidy reconciliation of grace and free will. It is by no means infallible Church teaching and you are free to disagree with it, but I believe it to be orthodox and better than both Jimmy Akin’s semi-Calvinist position, the Calvinist-like traditional school of Thomism and the other traditional school of Molinism, all of which have their problems. It is described in Fr. William G. Most’s article on Actual Grace available on EWTN.

It is Fr. Most’s exposition of what he believes to be the authentic teachings of St. Thomas, as compared to the Thomist theory as proposed by Domingo Banez, and which should in my opinion more aptly be called Banezianism and not Thomism. I recommend the whole article, but here are some salient quotes:

“Since this is in the power of free will [namely] to impede or not to impede the reception of grace, not wrongly is it charged as a fault against him who sets up an impediment to the reception of grace. For God, so far as is in Him, is ready to give grace to all…but they alone are deprived of grace who set up an impediment to grace in themselves.”

 So St. Thomas does teach that we really can resist, or really can omit resistance.

 In the ordinary mode: God sends me a grace which, with no help from me, causes two things: it causes me to see something as good (cf. 2 Cor 3:5), it makes me well disposed toward it.

 At this juncture where I could reject the grace, if I merely make no decision against it, then grace continues in its course, and "works in me both the will and the doing (cf. Phil 2:13)." 

 However, in phase 2, after the omission of a contrary decision, then two things happen in parallel: first, grace works in me both the will and the doing, as we said; second, I am cooperating with grace by virtue of power being received at the same instant from grace.

 Comments: 1) After grace has caused the two effects, I do not have the power to make a decision to accept (Phil 2.13: it would be a good decision). I do have the power to make no decision against it. (Grace sustains me in nonrejecting, without forcing

nonrejection). To act that way has the same effect as a good decision, but it operates in radically different way. By omission, not by commission.

          2) What we have proposed is basically the same as Contra gentiles 3.159, which we quoted above: A man has in his power to impede or not impede. Only they are deprived of grace who do impede, just as if someone closes his eyes when the sun shines, he is guilty of any harm that follows from closing his eyes.

Even in the ordinary mode, it is grace that is efficacious. At the critical juncture which decides everything my contribution is a metaphysical zero, the lack of blocking it.

Imagine a ledger for me. On the credit page I write the number for what I have contributed to a good act. It is a metaphysical zero. On the debit page, the number for my sins. So 1 Cor 4:7: “What have you that you have not received? And if you have received it, why boast as if you had not received it?”

If you find the topics of predestination, grace and free will interesting, I recommend reading Fr. Most’s other articles in addition to exploring the various traditional Catholic views. I link to some of them below:

[Was St. Thomas a Thomist? Reasons for Centuries-old Impasse](REASONS FOR CENTURIES-OLD IMPASSE)

Predestination

God bless you