Monergism & Synergism

Mission Possible: A Response to Shai Linne

Submitted by WilliamBirch on Tue, 03/02/2010 - 7:48am

The following is an edited response to Shai Linne's Limited Atonement rap
song, "Mission Accomplished." The original version was posted by "Murray" in the comments at the Gadgetry, Thoughts, Unleashed! blog. What is in brackets has been re-written or re-worded for this posting on SEA.

_____
Well excuse me Mr. Linne, but I think you’re confused.
And there are one or two verses which you have misused.

It’s true – God only saves the group He’s elected.
But that doesn’t mean we’re born preselected.

The "children of promise" He’s chosen to save;
All who seek God through works remain in the grave.

And God truly desires all men to believe;
His words in The Book weren’t meant to deceive.

_____
And the elect themselves were just like all others,
Once children of wrath, just like their brothers.

So even if His death was selective,

Some Basic Thoughts on "Decisional Regeneration" From an Arminian Perspective

Submitted by Ben Henshaw on Thu, 02/11/2010 - 11:03am

Someone asked a while back in the comments thread to one of my blog posts what I thought of “Decisional Regeneration”. Since this is a rather new label being thrown around mostly by Calvinists in a seeming attempt to mock a view of salvation conditioned by faith, it is important to address. Rather than write a new post I will just quote my initial response to the question below:

I think “decisional regeneration” is a hard phrase to pin down and is just thrown around as a slander by Calvinists towards those who do not believe that regeneration precedes faith or that regeneration is irresistibly and unconditionally given to the “elect” alone. But there can be much more to it and so I wanted to be clear as to what your specific concern was.

Al Jolson vs. Toby Mac Theology

Submitted by SEA on Mon, 12/14/2009 - 8:40am

1) Calvinist theology found in the opening lyrics to a famous song by Al Jolson:

YOU MADE ME LOVE YOU

You made me love you
I didn't want to do it
I didn't want to do it
You made me want you
And all the time you knew it
I guess you always knew it

You made me happy sometimes
Sometimes you made me glad
But there were times, dear
You made me feel so bad

2) Better theology by Toby Mac:

I WAS MADE TO LOVE YOU (chorus)

That I was made to love You
I was made to find You
I was made just for You
Made to adore You
I was made to love and be loved by You
You were here before me
You were waiting on me
And You said You’d keep me never would You leave me
I was made to love
And be loved by You

Does the Gospel According to Calvinism Offer Salvation to Anyone at all?

Submitted by Ben Henshaw on Mon, 12/07/2009 - 2:09pm

Dr. Picirilli thinks not. After making the point that Calvinists believe that those reprobates who hear the gospel cannot truly respond to the offer of salvation, he further observes that,

any

Without realizing it, the Calvinist is finally saying that repentance and faith (as the gift of God in the salvation “package”) are being offered to all who will repent and believe, when in fact none can do so. This reduces to pure tautology and is no offer at all. (Grace, Faith, Free Will, pp. 117, 118, emphasis his)

John Goodwin, Redemption Redeemed

Now available here online, John Goodwin's Redemption Redeemed may be the best defense of Arminianism ever written. Published in 1651 by the Arminian Puritan John Goodwin (1593-1665), it is written in seventeenth century English with a Puritan writing style, which can make for challenging reading. But it contains tremendous biblical exegesis. The patient reader will be rewarded with a powerful, classic, comprehensive, biblical defense of five point Reformation Arminian theology.

The book runs 740 pages and is made available here in eight file attachments. There is a table of contents along with the first part of the body of the book in the first file. Besides the last part of the body of the book, the final file also contains a Scripture index, a subject index, and a table of general rules for interpreting Scripture. The material is arranged like so:

File 1: Preliminary matter through page 78
File 2: Pages 79-173
File 3: Pages 174-268
File 4: Pages 269-363

The Equivocation of Regeneration

Submitted by Godismyjudge on Wed, 09/16/2009 - 6:04am

In the order of salvation, which comes first, faith or regeneration? Before we can answer that, don't we first need to understand what regeneration is? In this post I plan on contrasting Hodge's view with that of Arminius. Hopefully, in the process we can clarify the issue of monergism vs. synergism.

Hodge’s Order of Salvation

Monergism, Synergism, and Arminianism

Submitted by bossmanham on Thu, 08/27/2009 - 6:01am

It is often charged by Calvinists that Arminians believe that man must work with God to procure their salvation. Man must make a move toward God and then God will make a move toward them. It is often described as God meeting man half way. Is this what is taught by Arminians? Did Jacobus Arminius believe this way?

The answer is no. Arminians believe the work of salvation is started and completed by God. The Bible says in order for man to come to God, He must draw them to Himself (John 6:44). Arminians believe the initial work of salvation is done by God. God must do this, because due to the effects of sin, man's will toward faith in Christ has been lost and destroyed. God must free the person's will in order for them to make a conscious decision whether to accept His gift of grace or not.

The Failure of God?

Submitted by SEA on Wed, 08/26/2009 - 8:59am

The following post is comprised of comments submitted to our website by sirhemlock@yahoo.com, slightly revised with the author's permission.

Insofar as such infamous "failed God" arguments clearly assume the doctrine of irresistible grace (grace=force/deterministic salvation) as the very thing which God "fails to achieve," such arguments are entirely circular if they are intended as a counter to non-Calvinist theological systems.

If God fails to save some deterministically, this would not entail that God is therefore palsied or impotent, but rather that He is neither a Calvinist nor a determinist.

Arminius (and Arminians) on Monergism vs. Synergism

Submitted by WilliamBirch on Tue, 08/25/2009 - 9:54am

Arminius's comments are presented here in the first person, as though he were addressing you personally.

On the issue of Free Will, Grace, and Synergism, let me ask, "What liberty does the will have in a sinful state?" I distinguished between five kinds of liberty as applied to the will: freedom from control of one who commands, freedom from the government of a superior, freedom from necessity, freedom from sin and its dominion, and freedom from misery. The first two apply only to God; the last, to man, but only before the fall. As for freedom from necessity, it is the very essence of the will. Without it, the will would not be the will.

Let this be distinguished from Pelagianism. I say that the will which is free from necessity may not be free from sin. That is the point in question. Is there within man a freedom of will from sin and its dominion, and how far does it extend? Or rather, what are the powers of the whole man to understand, to will, and to do that which is good? The question must be further restricted to spiritual good. The question, then, is briefly: What is the power of free will in fallen man to perform spiritual good?

Setting the Record Straight: The Current State of Reformed Arminianism (Part Three of Three Parts)

Submitted by WilliamBirch on Wed, 07/29/2009 - 7:13am

R. C. Sproul, in his Willing to Believe, notes:

Repeatedly the Synod of Dort charges the Remonstrants with teaching the doctrines of Pelagianism. Is not this charge overly severe and unfair? Both Arminius and the Remonstrants sought to distance themselves from pure Pelagianism.

Arminianism is often said to be semi-Pelagian, but not, strictly speaking, Pelagian. What the fathers of Dort probably had in mind is the link between semi-Pelagianism and Pelagianism that renders the semi-Pelagian unable to escape the fundamental thesis of Pelagianism.1

But are the "fathers of Dort" right in their estimation? Is there a link between semi-Pelagianism and Arminianism? Though we agree with the Dortians that the "link between semi-Pelagianism and Pelagianism . . . renders the semi-Pelagian unable to escape the fundamental thesis of Pelagianism," we will witness a rather glaring, broken link between semi-Pelagianism and Arminianism below.

Society of Evangelical Arminians