Prevenient Grace for Calvinists

[in_terra_pax]

Do Calvinist believe in prevenient grace?

I don't want to skew any answers by projecting any definitions of what is meant by "prevenient grace" so feel free to explain your answer based on your definition or understanding of what that term means.

[Jacob]

05-20-2003 @ 05:41 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=102310#post102310)
in_terra_pax:

Do Calvinist believe in prevenient grace?

I don't want to skew any answers by projecting any definitions of what is meant by "prevenient grace" so feel free to explain your answer based on your definition or understanding of what that term means.

Calvinists believe in something very much like prevenient grace. It is Irresistable grace. Here's the classical "five points" of Calvinism.

Total depravity (Original Sin)
Unconditional election (God's Election)
Limited atonement (Particular Redemption)
Irresistible grace (Effectual Calling)
Perseverance of the Saints

We believe that God must excercise particular grace toward and individual before they can believe, which I think is like prevenient grace. However we believe that this grace is always effective at bringing the person to repentence & faith, which I don't think is at all like prevenient grace.

What is the particular issue you're wondering about?

[in_terra_pax]

I'm just looking for other Reformed perspectives. I've been engaged with a Calvinist who says that there is no such thing as prevenient grace, no scriptural support for it, and it is a term concocted by Arminians (John Wesley in particular). My position is that the specified term "Prevenient Grace" has been used by Wesleyans and Catholics to describe grace that precedes faith but which requires cooperation and is not efficacious. But prevenient grace is also a term accepted by Calvinists, because grace does precede regeneration, but for them it is operative and efficacious (irresistable). My opponent won't accept that distinction, saying that prevenient grace is not, by any definition, a biblical concept.

I just wanted to see if other Calvinists were as firm in their rejection. I'm not looking at starting a parallel debate here. (This all started from a distinction that was made between Arminians and semi-pelagianism which my opponent disputes...that of the logical sequence of grace and regeneration.)

[exegeter]

Hi everyone

This is my first post here after a professor showed me the site last monday.

Prevenient grace is more or less saying "I agree with scripture here, but think I know better over here." A tragedy in the making if you ask me. It's an attempt to humanize God's motivation.

It's saying God has rebirthed our spirit enough to say yes or no thanks.

I disagree because it makes God no longer sovereign, as He's still waiting with baited breath, held captive by our decision for Him. "Will they choose me?" I believe in God's free will and not our own.

And I respond strongly to this because it is so theologically catostrophic.

[in_terra_pax]

I'm presuming, then, that you are Reformed, exegeter. And I take it you also understand prevenient grace to be, by definition, grace that is cooperative and not irresistable, and not simply grace that precedes regeneration. Thanks.

Any other Calvinists out there that agree or disagree? I'm not trying to change minds. I'll take all of the data points I can get.

[exegeter]

Right on the money, Peace. ;)

[in_terra_pax]

Only two Calvinists have responded to my question. There must be more inputs out there. What does prevenient grace mean to you?

(A) A resistable grace that is unbiblical and an analytical fabrication of Arminians/Wesleyan? Or...
(B) A descriptor for grace that precedes regeneration regardless of its monergistic or efficacious attributes?

Do you reject the doctrine of prevenient grace outright or accept it on the condition that its definition is distinct from Arminianism?

[Chappie]

05-24-2003 @ 01:33 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=106015#post106015)
exegeter:

Hi everyone

This is my first post here after a professor showed me the site last monday.

Prevenient grace is more or less saying "I agree with scripture here, but think I know better over here." A tragedy in the making if you ask me. It's an attempt to humanize God's motivation.

It's saying God has rebirthed our spirit enough to say yes or no thanks.

I disagree because it makes God no longer sovereign, as He's still waiting with baited breath, held captive by our decision for Him. "Will they choose me?" I believe in God's free will and not our own.

And I respond strongly to this because it is so theologically catostrophic.

You reason as tho men lived thousands of years. Essentially you have this lifetime to accept Christ. God does not have to sit around waiting and wondering. Each generation in it's own time, and God has already determined the last generation.

He waits only as long as he chooses.

God has determined the times, his sovereignty is untouched.

Numbers 14:18
18 The LORD is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.
KJV

Psalms 86:15
15 But thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion, and gracious, longsuffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth.
KJV

1 Timothy 1:16
16 Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.
KJV

2 Peter 3:9
9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
KJV

2 Peter 3:15
15 And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;
KJV
:cheers:

[joelkaki]

ITP, the problem that I have, as a Calvinist, with prevanient grace, lies in both its ineffectiveness, as well as its universal extent. We believe that grace must come before salvation by the Holy Spirit, like the Arminians who hold to Prevanient grace, but we believe it always precedes faith in the person, because it changes their nature and enables them to believe. Arminians believe the grace only allows a person to choose; it is not effective, and they believe it is given to everybody. So no, I do not think p. grace is a Biblical concept at all, because I do not believe that the Bible teaches that the grace given by the Holy Spirit is given to every single person, nor is it ever ineffective.


Joel

[Jacob]

05-23-2003 @ 01:14 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=105762#post105762)
in_terra_pax:

I've been engaged with a Calvinist who says that there is no such thing as prevenient grace, no scriptural support for it, and it is a term concocted by Arminians (John Wesley in particular).


Just for grins, tell the Calvinist that Irresistable Grace was a term concocted by Calvin.:teeth:



I just wanted to see if other Calvinists were as firm in their rejection.

Most Calvinists would firmly reject your understanding of prevenient grace, if they understood the history of the terms.

Jacob

[Solly]

ITP, I think you'll find that where there is any possibility of parity between prevenient grace as Arminians et al understand it, and a Reformed understanding, then the Reformed will call it "common grace", but with the proviso that it is not salvific grace.

To my understanding, Arminian prevenient grace is the communication of God's desire to save people, which then awaits a response from people; Reformed "irresistable grace" is the communication of that salvation in actual fact, and engenders its own response. One appeals to a sick heart saying, Choose me and I will renew the heart you have; the other provides a new heart that chooses as its first act. IMHO

[Chappie]

Today @ 12:08 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=119735#post119735)
joelkaki:

ITP, the problem that I have, as a Calvinist, with prevanient grace, lies in both its ineffectiveness, as well as its universal extent. We believe that grace must come before salvation by the Holy Spirit, like the Arminians who hold to Prevanient grace, but we believe it always precedes faith in the person, because it changes their nature and enables them to believe. Arminians believe the grace only allows a person to choose; it is not effective, and they believe it is given to everybody. So no, I do not think p. grace is a Biblical concept at all, because I do not believe that the Bible teaches that the grace given by the Holy Spirit is given to every single person, nor is it ever ineffective.


Joel
IV. THE GRACE OF GOD (By James Arminius)
In reference to Divine Grace, I believe,
1. It is a gratuitous affection by which God is kindly affected towards a miserable sinner, and according to which he, in the first place, gives his Son, "that whosoever believers in him might have eternal life," and, afterwards, he justifies him in Christ Jesus and for his sake, and adopts him into the right of sons, unto salvation.

2. It is an infusion (both into the human understanding and into the will and affections,) of all those gifts of the Holy Spirit which appertain to the regeneration and renewing of man — such as faith, hope, charity, etc.; for, without these gracious gifts, man is not sufficient to think, will, or do any thing that is good.
3. It is that perpetual assistance and continued aid of the Holy Spirit, according to which He acts upon and excites to good the man who has been already renewed, by infusing into him salutary cogitations, and by inspiring him with good desires, that he may thus actually will whatever is good; and according to which God may then will and work together with man, that man may perform whatever he wills.

In this manner, I ascribe to grace the commencement, the continuance and the consummation of all good, and to such an extent do I carry its influence, that a man, though already regenerate, can neither conceive, will, nor do any good at all, nor resist any evil temptation, without this preventing and exciting, this following and co-operating grace. From this statement it will clearly appear, that I by no means do injustice to grace, by attributing, as it is reported of me, too much to man’s free-will.

For the whole controversy reduces itself to the solution of this question, "is the grace of God a certain irresistible force?" That is, the controversy does not relate to those actions or operations which may be ascribed to grace, (for I acknowledge and inculcate as many of these actions or operations as any man ever did,) but it relates solely to the mode of operation, whether it be irresistible or not. With respect to which, I believe, according to the scriptures, that many persons resist the Holy Spirit and reject the grace that is offered.


My Comments:
Resistible grace does not carry as an inevitably all the negative consequences as Calvinist insist on attributing to it. God is not weakened by freewill as long as he is omnopotent, nor is his sovereignty threatened by it.

Still Calvinism must attribute these falacies to it in order to defend against it. In other words, if you believe differently, and you cannot find a problem with that which your advasary proposes; invent one: And conveniently intergrate it into his theology...

There are many more scriptural conclusions that can be arrived at concerning free-will than those negative consequences held so dear by Calvinist...

Until all are willing to view opposing positions with the same honesty and integerity as they attempt to view their own, heresies and blasphemies will continue to flourish..

[joelkaki]

Chappie, the liberal arts section is not for debate, but only Q&A discussion, so I won't respond to your points here.


Joel

[Chappie]

06-11-2003 @ 09:41 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=120500#post120500)
joelkaki:

Chappie, the liberal arts section is not for debate, but only Q&A discussion, so I won't respond to your points here.


Joel

Thank you. I appreciate your not indulging me in my error. Still not thuroughly familiar with all the nuances of this board.

I do enjoy following the rules....

Apology extended...

I would appreciate it if an admin. would delete it....

[joelkaki]

Thank you. I appreciate your not indulging me in my error. Still not thuroughly familiar with all the nuances of this board.

I do enjoy following the rules....

Apology extended...

I would appreciate it if an admin. would delete it....

No problem, and it isn't that big a deal. No apology really necessary to me.

Joel