Synergism stands opposed to monergism (which rejects the idea that humans cooperate with the grace of God), a doctrine most commonly associated with the Reformed Protestant as well as Lutheran traditions, whose soteriologies have been strongly influenced by the North African bishop and Latin Church FatherAugustine of Hippo (354–430).[8] Lutheranism confesses a monergist salvation that rejects the notion that anyone is predestined to hell (see §Lutheran and Calvinist views).
Synergism and semipelagianism each teach some collaboration in salvation between God and humans, but semipelagian thought teaches that the beginning half of faith is an act of human will.[9] The Council of Orange (529), Lutheran Formula of Concord (1577), and other local councils each condemned semipelagianism as heresy.[10]
Catholic theology
Synergism, the teaching that there is "a kind of interplay between human freedom and divine grace", is an important part of the salvation theology of the Catholic Church.[11]
The Catholic Church rejects the notion of total depravity: they hold that, even after the Fall, human nature, though wounded in the natural powers proper to it, has not been totally corrupted.[12] In addition, they reject double predestination, the idea that would "make everything the work of an all-powerful divine grace which arbitrarily selected some to be saved and some to be damned, so that we human beings had no freedom of choice about our eternal fate".[13]
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that the ability of the human will to respond to divine grace is itself conferred by grace. "By the working of grace the Holy Spirit educates us in spiritual freedom in order to make us free collaborators in his work in the Church and in the world".[14] "The preparation of man for the reception of grace is already a work of grace."[15] "When Catholics say that persons 'cooperate' in preparing for and accepting justification by consenting to God's justifying action, they see such personal consent as itself an effect of grace, not as an action arising from innate human abilities."[16]
Eastern Orthodox theology
The Eastern Orthodox view of synergism holds that "human beings always have the freedom to choose, in their personal (gnomic) wills, whether to walk with God or turn from Him", but "what God does is incomparably more important than what we humans do".[17]
"To describe the relation between the grace of God and human freedom, Orthodoxy uses the term cooperation or synergy (synergeia); in Paul's words, 'We are fellow-workers (synergoi) with God' (1 Corinthians iii, 9). If we are to achieve full fellowship with God, we cannot do so without God's help, yet we must also play our own part: we humans as well as God must make our contribution to the common work, although what God does is of immeasurably greater importance than what we do."[18] "For the regenerated to do spiritual good — for the works of the believer being contributory to salvation and wrought by supernatural grace are properly called spiritual — it is necessary that he be guided and prevented [preceded] by grace."[19]
Arminian Protestants share this understanding of synergism, i.e., regeneration as the fruit of free will's cooperation with grace.[2]
Anabaptists hold to synergism, teaching that "both God and man play real and necessary parts in the reconciling relationship which binds them."[20] Anabaptists have a high view of the moral capacities of humans when "enlivened by the active agency of the Holy Spirit."[20]
Christians who hold to Arminian theology, such as Methodists,[4] believe that salvation is synergistic, being achieved through "divine/human cooperation", each contributing their part to accomplish regeneration (the new birth) in and for the individual, as well as in the believer's sanctification.[21][22] However, although the individual plays a part in salvation, one cannot either turn to God nor believe on their own as God first draws all persons and implants the desire in their heart to know him (cf. 1 Timothy 2:3–4). After the New Birth, "Christians must do both works of piety and works of mercy in order to move on toward Christian perfection" in cooperation with God's grace.[22] In summation, Methodist (Wesleyan-Arminian) theology teaches that "Christians must grow in God's grace, which first prepares us for belief, then accepts us when we respond to God in faith, and sustains us as we do good works and participate in God's mission."[22]
Arminians believe that all humans are totally corrupted by sin but God grants all sinners prevenient grace (prevenient meaning "coming before"). With this prevenient grace (or with its effects on the fallen human), a person is able to freely choose to place faith in Christ or reject his salvation.[23] If the person accepts it, then God justifies them and continues to give further grace to spiritually heal and sanctify them. This view differs from semipelagianism, which maintains that a human being can begin to have faith without the need for grace.[24]John Wesley explained the Arminian conception of free will, saying, "The will of man is by nature free only to evil. Yet... every man has a measure of free-will restored to him by grace."[25] He continues, "Natural free-will in the present state of mankind, I do not understand: I only assert, that there is a measure of free-will supernaturally restored to every man, together with that supernatural light which 'enlightens every man that comes into the world.'"[26] Arminians hold that the individual's decision is not the cause of their salvation or loss, but rather that the free response to prevenient grace forms the grounds for God's free decision; the person's decision does not constrain God, but God takes it into consideration when he decides whether to complete the person's salvation or not.[27]
An analogy sometimes cited is based upon Revelation 3, in which Christ states that he stands at the door and knocks, and if anyone opens he will enter in.[28] Arminians assert that Christ comes to each person with prevenient grace, and if they are willing for him to enter, he enters them. Therefore, no one does any of the actual work of saving themselves, because Christ does the work of coming to them in the first place, and if they are willing to follow him, he does the work of entering in, but whether he does so is dependent upon the will of the person (no one, however, could will for Christ to enter if he did not first knock).[27]
Lutheran theology distinguishes between monergistic salvation and a synergistic damnation. By monergistic salvation, Lutherans mean that saving faith is the work of the Holy Spirit alone, while man is still the uncooperative enemy of God (Rom. 5:8,10). To support their understanding of synergistic damnation, they argue that Scripture states repeatedly that man participates in and bears the responsibility for resisting God's grace of the free gift – not enforced gift – of salvation (ex: Matt. 23:37, Heb. 12:25, Acts 7:51, John 16:9, Heb. 12:15, etc.). Lutherans understand their view to be in contrast to Calvin's monergistic damnation and to Arminius' synergistic salvation.[29] However, Calvinists would take issue with their view being called "monergistic damnation," since they claim to agree with Lutherans and Arminians that mankind alone bears responsibility for their sin and for their rejection of God's worldwide call to repent and be saved.
The difference Lutheranism has with Calvinism and Arminianism, then, lies in how they describe the workings of God's will, fore-ordination, and gracious providence. Lutheranism teaches that God predestines some to salvation but does not predestine others to damnation as God wills that all might be saved (1 Tim 2:3-6, Rom. 11:32, etc.). Lutheran view differs from the Calvinist view that God from eternity actively decrees some to salvation and some to damnation. In this theological determinism, God's predestination logically precedes his foreknowledge of it.[30] Lutheran view differs also with Arminian view that God's predestination is based on divine foreknowledge of men's synergistic acceptance or rejection of salvation.[31]
For Lutherans, people freely reject God's call to salvation because they refuse his grace since God did not predestine them to salvation. For Arminians, God has only the foreknowledge that they will freely reject his grace.[32] For Calvinists, people freely reject God's call to salvation because God eternally chooses not to place his saving grace upon them so as to magnify the value of his undeserved grace to those whom he does choose.
↑ Bloesch, Donald G. (2 December 2005). The Holy Spirit: Works Gifts. InterVarsity Press. p.362. ISBN978-0-8308-2755-8. Yet the polarity seems to fall between Reformation monergism (esp. Calvinist) and Anabaptist and Wesleyan synergism.
1 2 Stamoolis, James J. (5 October 2010). Three Views on Eastern Orthodoxy and Evangelicalism. Zondervan. p.138. ISBN9780310864363. A further concession is made, one that could easily be made by an Arminian Protestant who shared the Orthodox understanding of synergism (i.e., regeneration as the fruit of free will's cooperation with grace): "The Orthodox emphasis on the importance of the human response toward the grace of God, which at the same time clearly rejects salvation by works, is a healthy synergistic antidote to any antinomian tendencies that might result from (distorted) jurdicial understandings of salvation.
↑ Olson, Roger E. (6 September 2002). The Mosaic of Christian Belief: Twenty Centuries of Unity & Diversity. InterVarsity Press. p.281. ISBN9780830826957. Two examples of Christian synergism are the Catholic reformer Erasmus, who was roughly contemporary with Luther, and the seventeenth-century Dutch theologian Arminius. John Wesley, founder of the Methodist tradition, was also a synergist with regard to salvation.
1 2 Fahlbusch, Erwin (2008). The Encyclopedia of Christianity. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p.272. ISBN9780802824172. Methodist "synergism" is grounded in the conviction that in the justification begun in the new birth (the beginning of the divine work), there will have to be "appropriate fruits."
↑ Olson, Roger E. (20 August 2009). Arminian Theology. InterVarsity Press. p.18. ISBN9780830874439. When Arminian synergism is referred to, I am referring to evangelical synergism, which affirms the prevenience of grace to every human exercise of a good will toward God, including simple nonresistance to the saving work of Christ.
↑ For Calvinism/Against Calvinism. Zondervan. p.288. ISBN9780310490630. Arminian (Remonstrant) theology, as it evolved into a system, rejected unconditional election and, consequently, its monoergistic emphases.
↑ Salter, Roger (1 February 2018). "THE MARTYRS' STAKE: The Ensign of Reformational Anglicanism". VirtueOnline. Retrieved 23 June 2019. The code and creed of Anglicanism is richly Trinitarian (divine self-disclosure), soteriologically monergistic (grace alone), and warmly pastoral (godly care) in its approach to the people it serves within and beyond the bounds of its membership.
↑ The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford University Press 2005 ISBN978-0-19-280290-3), article "semipelagianism".
1 2 Hill, Samuel S. (15 December 2020). Southern Churches in Crisis Revisited. University of Alabama Press. p.129. ISBN978-0-8173-6008-5.
↑ Heitzenrater, Richard P. (20 August 2013). Wesley and the People Called Methodists: Second Edition. Abingdon Press. p.18. ISBN9781426765537. The primacy of grace was central to their position, though the implication of divine/human cooperation (synergism) led many to criticize the Arminians for stressing human activity in salvation. The controversies that developed over this issue toward to end of the seventeenth century led to some interesting name calling that is important to an understanding of the name "Methodist."
↑ Olson 2018. "What is Arminianism? A) Belief that God limits himself to give human beings free will to go against his perfect will so that God did not design or ordain sin and evil (or their consequences such as innocent suffering); B) Belief that, although sinners cannot achieve salvation on their own, without “prevenient grace” (enabling grace), God makes salvation possible for all through Jesus Christ and offers free salvation to all through the gospel. “A” is called “limited providence,” “B” is called “predestination by foreknowledge.”"
Olson, Roger E. (2018). "Calvinism and Arminianism Compared". Roger E. Olson: My evangelical, Arminian theological musings. Patheos. Retrieved 2019-08-27.
Arminianism is a movement of Protestantism initiated in the early 17th century, based on the theological ideas of the Dutch Reformed theologian Jacobus Arminius and his historic supporters known as Remonstrants. Dutch Arminianism was originally articulated in the Remonstrance (1610), a theological statement submitted to the States General of the Netherlands. This expressed an attempt to moderate the doctrines of Calvinism related to its interpretation of predestination.
Calvinism, also called Reformed Christianity, is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John Calvin and various other Reformation-era theologians. It emphasizes the sovereignty of God and the authority of the Bible.
Predestination, in theology, is the doctrine that all events have been willed by God, usually with reference to the eventual fate of the individual soul. Explanations of predestination often seek to address the paradox of free will, whereby God's omniscience seems incompatible with human free will. In this usage, predestination can be regarded as a form of religious determinism; and usually predeterminism, also known as theological determinism.
Total depravity is a Protestant theological doctrine derived from the concept of original sin. It teaches that, as a consequence of the Fall, every person born into the world is enslaved to the service of sin as a result of their fallen nature and, apart from the efficacious (irresistible) or prevenient (enabling) grace of God, is completely unable to choose by themselves to follow God, refrain from evil, or accept the gift of salvation as it is offered.
In Western Christian theology, grace is created by God who gives it as help to one because God desires one to have it, not necessarily because of anything one has done to earn it. It is understood by Western Christians to be a spontaneous gift from God to people – "generous, free and totally unexpected and undeserved" – that takes the form of divine favor, love, clemency, and a share in the divine life of God. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, grace is the uncreated Energies of God. Among Eastern Christians generally, grace is considered to be the partaking of the Divine Nature described in 2 Peter 1:4 and grace is the working of God himself, not a created substance of any kind that can be treated like a commodity.
The five solae of the Protestant Reformation are a foundational set of Christian theological principles held by theologians and clergy to be central to the doctrines of justification and salvation as taught by the Calvinism and Lutheranism branches of Protestantism, as well as in some branches of Pentecostalism. Each sola represents a key belief in these Protestant traditions that is distinct from the theological doctrine of the Catholic Church, although they were not assembled as a theological unit until the 20th century. The Reformers are known to have only clearly stated two of the five solae. Even today there are differences as to what constitutes the solae, how many there are, and how to interpret them to reflect the Reformers' beliefs.
In Christianity, salvation is the saving of human beings from sin and its consequences—which include death and separation from God—by Christ's death and resurrection, and the justification entailed by this salvation.
In theology, divine providence, or simply providence, is God's intervention in the Universe. The term Divine Providence is also used as a title of God. A distinction is usually made between "general providence", which refers to God's continuous upholding of the existence and natural order of the Universe, and "special providence", which refers to God's extraordinary intervention in the life of people. Miracles and even retribution generally fall in the latter category.
Semi-Pelagianism is a Christian theological and soteriological school of thought about the role of free will in salvation. In semipelagian thought, a distinction is made between the beginning of faith and the increase of faith. Semi-Pelagian thought teaches that the latter half – growing in faith – is the work of God, while the beginning of faith is an act of free will, with grace supervening only later. Semi-Pelagianism in its original form was developed as a compromise between Pelagianism and the teaching of Church Fathers such as Saint Augustine. Adherents to Pelagianism hold that people are born untainted by sin and do not need salvation unless they choose to sin, a belief which had been dismissed as heresy. In contrast, Augustine taught that people cannot come to God without the grace of God. Like pelagianism, semipelegianism was labeled heresy by the Western Church at the Second Council of Orange in 529.
Unconditional election is a Calvinist doctrine relating to predestination that describes the actions and motives of God prior to his creation of the world, when he predestined some people to receive salvation, the elect, and the rest he left to continue in their sins and receive the just punishment, eternal damnation, for their transgressions of God's law as outlined in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. God made these choices according to his own purposes apart from any conditions or qualities related to those persons.
Irresistible grace is a doctrine in Christian theology particularly associated with Calvinism, which teaches that the saving grace of God is effectually applied to those whom he has determined to save and, in God's timing, overcomes their resistance to obeying the call of the gospel, bringing them to faith in Christ. It is to be distinguished from prevenient grace, particularly associated with Arminianism, which teaches that the offer of salvation through grace does not act irresistibly in a purely cause-effect, deterministic method, but rather in an influence-and-response fashion that can be both freely accepted and freely denied.
Prevenient grace is a Christian theological concept that refers to the grace of God in a person's life which precedes and prepares to conversion. The concept was first developed by Augustine of Hippo (354–430), was affirmed by the Second Council of Orange (529) and has become part of Catholic theology. It is also present in Reformed theology, through the form of an effectual calling leading some individuals irresistibly to salvation. It is also in Arminian theology, according to which it is dispensed universally in order to enable people to respond to the offer of salvation, though it does not ensure personal acceptance.
Monergism is the view within Christian theology which holds that God works through the Holy Spirit to bring about the salvation of an individual through spiritual regeneration, regardless of the individual's cooperation. It is most often associated with Lutheranism, as well as with the Reformed tradition and its doctrine of irresistible grace, and particularly with historical doctrinal differences between Calvinism and Arminianism. This position supposedly contrasts with what is pejoratively called Arminian synergism, the belief that God and individuals cooperate to bring individuals salvation.
The history of the Calvinist–Arminian debate begins in early 17th century in the Netherlands with a Christian theological dispute between the followers of John Calvin and Jacobus Arminius, and continues today among some Protestants, particularly evangelicals. The debate centers around soteriology, or the study of salvation, and includes disputes about total depravity, predestination, and atonement. While the debate was given its Calvinist–Arminian form in the 17th century, issues central to the debate have been discussed in Christianity in some form since Augustine of Hippo's disputes with the Pelagians in the 5th century.
Free will in theology is an important part of the debate on free will in general. Religions vary greatly in their response to the standard argument against free will and thus might appeal to any number of responses to the paradox of free will, the claim that omniscience and free will are incompatible.
Roger Eugene Olson is an American Baptist theologian and Professor of Christian Theology of Ethics at the Baylor University.
Regeneration, while sometimes perceived to be a step in the ordo salutis, is generally understood in Christian theology to be the objective work of God in a believer's life. Spiritually, it means that God brings a person to new life from a previous state of separation from God and subjection to the decay of death. Thus, in Lutheran and Roman Catholic theology, it generally means that which takes place during baptism. In Calvinism and Arminian theology, baptism is recognized as an outward sign of an inward reality which is to follow regeneration as a sign of obedience to the New Testament; as such, the Methodist Churches teach that regeneration occurs during the new birth.
Sola gratia, meaning by grace alone, is one of the five solae and consists in the belief that salvation comes by divine grace or "unmerited favor" only, not as something earned or deserved by the sinner. It is a Christian theological doctrine held by some Protestant Christian denominations, in particular the Lutheran and Reformed traditions of Protestantism, propounded to summarise the Protestant Reformers' basic soteriology during the Reformation. In addition, salvation by grace is taught by the Catholic Church: "By the grace of God, we are saved through our faith; this faith entails by its very nature, good works, always enabled by prior grace, without which this faith is dead."
Sovereignty of God in Christianity can be defined as the right of God to exercise his ruling power over his creation. Sovereignty can include also the way God exercises his ruling power. However this aspect is subject to divergences notably related to the concept of God's self-imposed limitations. The correlation between God's sovereignty and human free will is a crucial theme in discussions about the meaningful nature of human choice.
Augustinian Calvinism is a term used to emphasize the origin of John Calvin's theology within Augustine of Hippo's theology over a thousand years earlier. By his own admission, John Calvin's theology was deeply influenced by Augustine of Hippo, the fourth-century church father. Twentieth-century Reformed theologian B. B. Warfield said, "The system of doctrine taught by Calvin is just the Augustinianism common to the whole body of the Reformers." Paul Helm, a well-known Reformed theologian, used the term "Augustinian Calvinism" for his view in the article "The Augustinian-Calvinist View" in Divine Foreknowledge: Four Views.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
