Help with an almost Calvinist

[ChristopherPaul]

I have been guiding a dear friend of mine in the direction of Reformed Theology. We do not talk regularly on the matter, but slowly I have been sending him various resources on Calvinism and Covenant Theology.

My family left our former church to join a PCA church back in July/August of this past year. Due to that move, I don't talk with my old church friends as much as I once did. This past Saturday I spoke with my friend on the matter for the first time in several months. It was to my surprise and joy that he said that he can clearly see the Bible teaches the Calvinist view on salvation and he can agree with most of it; however he is hung up on one point.

He still cannot reconcile how man does not have some part to play in becoming a believer. He said Abraham was reckoned righteous because he believed. David was a man after God's own heart because he longed for God.

I can't put my finger on what exactly he is hung up on. He agrees that unless God draws someone they will not be saved. He denies Universal Prevenient Grace. He agrees with Total Depravity. But he thinks that accepting a gift does not mean someone earned that gift. He argues that if a man offers a gift and a person accepts it, it would be absurd to say that the receiver earned the gift by simply taking it. They did not earn it, they simply took what was offered.

I thought about that, and then said that the analogy is not so accurate because it is not just a matter of a man taking what is offered. The fact is, every man does not only not take it, but does not want it and will run far from such a gift.

But he says he still struggles with verses that say that man was made righteous because of his belief and belief must not be a work. I am puzzled as to what his hang-up is.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[non dignus]

I offer the case of two siblings. They are nearly identical in all ways yet one believes and one doesn't. If the believer generates his own faith he absolutely has the higher moral ground. In this way, barring sovereign election, good people go to heaven bad people go to hell.

 

[CalsFarmer]

Belief is a response...not something we initiate. We have to have SOMETHING to believe in first....

I used this reasoning with some Church of Christ people it went a long way ....

 

[fredtgreco]

Christopher,

It seems to me likely that your friend is hung up on the "automaton" false objection.

Here would be my (brief) answer:

Man indeed has an action in salvation. He must believe. That faith must be his own (personal) and not that of another. So I think you can affirm that for him. Surprisingly to (and to the consternation of) many, the Confession actually uses the phrase "accept" with respect to justification:

But the principal acts of saving faith are accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life, by virtue of the covenant of grace. (WCF 14.2)

The larger catechism speaks much the same:

WLC 67 What is effectual calling? A. Effectual calling is the work of God's almighty power and grace, whereby (out of his free and special love to his elect, and from nothing in them moving him thereunto) he doth, in his accepted time, invite and draw them to Jesus Christ, by his word and Spirit; savingly enlightening their minds, renewing and powerfully determining their wills, so as they (although in themselves dead in sin) are hereby made willing and able freely to answer his call, and to accept and embrace the grace offered and conveyed therein.

Of course it would do so, because the Scriptures use the same language:

But to all who did receive {or accept, from λαμβαÌνω } him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God (John 1:12)

And they said, "Believe {viz. a command, πιÌστευσον }in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household." (Acts 16:31)

Of course the key is that we can only be made able to accept or receive because of the work that the Holy Spirit has already done in us. That is the point to make with him, I think. It is really a work of God, since faith is itself a gift of God.

But I think you would not make headway by saying that man's belief is not really and truly his own - it is. We must have a response to the gospel, but praise be to God that it is not a response born of our autonomous wills (which would be rejection), but that born of God's renewal of our will.

 

[Me Died Blue]

to Fred. I think that gets at the heart of the issue on which your friend seems to be caught up, Christopher; of course faith in Christ and acceptance of the Gospel is absolutely integral to salvation, and Calvinists and Arminians alike fully agree on that point. The question, as Fred highlighted, is what the source of the faith is.

And with an affirmation of Total Depravity and a denial of universal prevenient grace, it would be illogical to say that the source is anything other than God's specific will alone - unless of course your friend would take the essentially unheard-of position that God only gives prevenient grace to some (rather than prevenient grace to all or effectual grace to some), and thus that it is only the ones out of that select group who autonomously accept it that are eventually saved. But to likewise show him the emptiness of that possible conclusion, you could then show him the countless Scriptures that speak of Irresistible Grace, many of which I have compiled within this page. Also, given the issue your friend is having with "faith" and "acceptance" in the Calvinistic system, you may also want to unpack what we mean by "irresistible," including how "effectual" (that is, effectual to produce the faith and repentance, by revealing to men their true, sinful condition as well as God's true, perfect character and redeeming Gospel) may in fact be a better term to truly describe the doctrine than simply "irresistible."

 

[Ivan]

Faith is a gift from our Lord.

 

[non dignus]

CS Lewis, Mere Christianity, lays out the paradox of repentance.

A bad man needs to repent.
A bad man can't repent because he is bad.
Only a good man can repent.
A good man doesn't need to repent because he is good.

Thus repentance is impossible for man alone. His nature must first be changed.

The condition of the covenant is faith. If God doesn't supply the condition, then salvation would be of work, namely the imperative, "Believe on the Lord".
And that is why Arminians have turned grace upside down.

I know that you already know this stuff but this is MY method.
Any critique would be appreciated.

 

[Herald]

I have held to the opinion that God first regenerates the sinner, then the "new creation" is able to believe. Regeneration preceeds belief.

 

[brymaes]

I have held to the opinion that God first regenerates the sinner, then the "new creation" is able to believe. Regeneration preceeds belief.

This is the orthodox ordo saluttis.

 

[fredtgreco]

{enter the Latin police}

That's salutis, boy! You got a permit to decline nouns?

{exit Latin police}

 

[brymaes]

Originally posted by fredtgreco
{enter the Latin police}

That's salutis, boy! You got a permit to decline nouns?

{exit Latin police}

Sorrry officer. Ya see, I only have my learner's permit in Latin...

[Edited on 12-30-2005 by SharperSword]

 

[BlackCalvinist]

Give him a human illustration to go along with all said here.

If he were required to lift a 300 lb box from crushing a loved one, but he didn't work out and only had a small frame, he would be unable to do so. Yet, saving the life of the loved one requires this.

But if strength to lift the 300 lb box were given to him mystically as a gift, he would then be able to lift the box. He does truly lift the box of his own determination, but the strength to do so comes from elsewhere.

He would then be able to meet the requirement for saving the loved one - lifting the box. It wouldn't be that he lifted the box of his own strength - the strength was a gift. But it was indeed he that lifted the box and not someone else lifting the box for him.

He cannot, therefore, boast to his friends as to his amazing ability to 'lift the box' because his small frame and lack of working out preclude all such boasting. Neither can he say that it was his strength simply 'aided' by someone elses' because his arms are too weak to even lift his own weight. All of the strength necessary to lift the box was given to him.

Hope this helps.

Philippians 1:29 touches on this point. I did a basic analysis of the greek a while back....but it's late, it's on my other computer, and I'm too lazy to go get it.

 

[August]

I just want to confirm that I have it straightl since I am slightly confused.

Even though the WCG states that man freely accepts, it is not really freely accepting, since God's grace is irresistible, and the ability to accept was given before man accepted?

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Eph 2:8-9
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.
NKJV

The most immediate gift in the context of the passage is the faith that is the instrument of God's saving Grace. The problem with the "accept the gift" analogy is that the faith itself is a gift.

I completely agree that man's will is involved in the matter in every way that others have spoken about.

If faith is not a gift then man has a reason to boast. Some are fond of using this gift analogy as if the gift is imperfect until it is accepted. In fact I was in a Church on 12-25 where the Pastor was saying just that (my in-laws Church that I attended before God's Grace reformed me).

There are multiple problems with the analogy. The primary problem is the idea that Christ's atonement is imperfect until we add something to it - namely our faith.

The other problem with the analogy is this: what distinguishes the man who hears the Gospel call and responds from he who thinks it's the most stupid thing he's ever heard? Both men hear it from the same preacher but one man responds and the other does not.

In the final analysis the only thing separating the responder from the fool would be the intelligence of the person who accepts the gift. Replace "intelligence" with any other quality you desire but there is something "good" about one that the other does not possess. He has the one "it" that enables him to see the value in the most meaningful decision - that which will enable him to see the Gospel as a "gift" and receive it. There is something in him that is not in all the others who hear and scoff.

In the end, there is something good about him and wretched in others.

Something he can boast about.

[Edited on 1-3-2006 by SemperFideles]