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Theological method

How do we choose between monergism and synergism?

Previously, I wrote a post about why some people become accessibilists and others gospel exclusivists. This will have alerted you to my interest in theological differences and the reasons why they occur. Few theological choices are more influential in our thinking and practice than the choice between monergism and synergism, so that is an area where the differences within the church particularly intrigue me.

In my reading of Roger Olson’s Against Calvinism, I was struck by a thought in this regard, and I figured I’d put it in writing and bounce it off others.

I think I have mentioned previously how I recommend people arrive at a decision regarding monergism and synergism. Both positions have key texts that they can trade with one another in debate, but these get interpreted within a larger framework and so they rarely serve as effective “trump cards.” I think, therefore, that it is the larger framework which needs to be our focal point. We need to read Scripture in large chunks, and regularly, looking for the overall picture that emerges. I’m not suggesting that this will inevitably produce consensus one way or the other, but I think that it is the best way to reach our own position. After that, of course, we continue, for the rest of our lives, to pursue the hermeneutical circle, moving from whole to part to whole again etc. Since I came to see the big picture monergistically, almost 50 years ago, my reading of Scripture has reinforced my sense that God is completely in control in his creation and has not chosen to limit himself. Needless to say, since this perspective is so regularly confirmed to my own mind, it sometimes puzzles me that everyone doesn’t see it.

Reading Roger’s book slowly and reflectively, I’m seeing a dynamic at work, and I wonder if others are seeing it as I do. Both Arminians and Calvinists are convinced that humans are morally responsible, but we disagree about whether God has chosen to be meticulously in control. Why so?

I have noted on a number of occasions already that I see behind Olson’s choice of synergism an overwhelming conviction that compatibilism is incoherent. He knows that humans are morally responsible and that God is good; he believes that neither of these could be true if God were meticulously in control, as monergists assert. I think that this informs his reading of all the texts in which Calvinists see divine determination, necessitating that he interpret them differently.

Now, here is the thing that prompted my most recent ruminations on this methodological conundrum, something that took me quite by surprise. In his chapter on double predestination (which we will soon discuss), Roger mentions his intention to speak about the issue of free will in a later chapter, but then he says: “I admit libertarian free will (the will not entirely governed by motives and able to act otherwise than it does) is somewhat mysterious, but I do not think it is impossible or illogical. Nor do many philosophers. And I do think, with Cottrell and Wesley and other non-Calvinists quoted here, that without libertarian freedom, which presupposes divine self-limiting sovereignty, we are right back in divine determinism with all its deleterious good and necessary consequences” (133-34 [emphasis mine]).

Well, yes, we would be right back there, if compatibilism were incoherent!

In the previous chapter, Roger had asserted that we must choose between “God’s absolute determining sovereignty and humans’ sole responsibility of evil,” we cannot affirm both of these except through “a sheer act of will power to embrace what is unintelligible. . . . One cannot really embrace both without falling into contradiction. Appeal to mystery is not appropriate; contradiction is not mystery” (98 [emphasis mine]).

This puts us back in the territory of which I wrote yesterday, in my post about theological formulation. How do we discern when something is contradiction and not just mystery? I ventured to enunciate the planks of the platform that supports my own compatibilism on March 1, but I would be the first to admit that, after all of that has been stated, I am still left with some mystery. What I laid out there enables me not to see contradiction, but it does not make the situation so logically obvious that I can say no mystery persists.

What I am puzzling about is this: why is it that I hold to compatibilism while granting that there is some ineffable mystery remaining in the concept, but that this is not contradiction, whereas Roger holds as firmly to incompatibilism, leading him to deny divine determination, even though he admits that some mystery remains in regard to libertarian freedom, which he is sure is not contradiction? When we considered the difference between accessibilists and gospel exclusivists, factors such as temperament and culture were identified as possible contributors. Now, in this much more far-reaching difference between monergists and synergists, regarding the shape of the biblical metanarrative, what is going on?

We are not finished with Roger’s book yet, and more light may dawn before we are done, but in the meantime, knowing that both synergists and monergists read my posts from time to time, I welcome your observations.

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By Terrance Tiessen

I am Professor Emeritus of Systematic Theology and Ethics at Providence Theological Seminary, Canada.

9 replies on “How do we choose between monergism and synergism?”

I’ll bite this bait, I think you may be suggesting that temperment and culture inform, to some degree, those unspoken and implied ideas that are omitted but that the reader assumes. I am sympathetic to your understanding of compatibalism but I would be lying if I said that I don’t find it to be implicated in real contradictions. If, in reading scripture, you find it underlying the narrative and the grand scheme of what is revealed, I can only commend another to believe it.

For myself, I don’t find the scripture leading me to see compatibalism underneath the entire story, as a matter of fact, scripture alone seems to me to undercut it beyond retrieval. As an engineer, I’ve learned that when we ask the wrong questions of a phenomena then we get useless answers that shed no light, when we change our questions to those the event invites then we can move forward. I don’t think the monergist asks good questions and therefore the answers don’t seem to advance any relationship or intimacy.

But, to answer your question at the individual level, yes, I was raised and taught that responsibility does require an attendant amount of freedom to respond and I see compatibalism denying that only to replace it with a soft-shoe shuffle that ‘appears’ to me to be disingenuous. Could I have be raised and taught wrong? Sure I could have; but, I believe that it is compatibalism that is illogical and contradictory and I’ve not heard arguments that even get close to convicting me that I’m wrong.

As a young child of 9 and 10, I read the scriptures through and frequently and I never had Monergism, as is advanced in Calvinism generally, even occur to me. The special pleadings that ask us to logically make everything resolve to a monolithic scheme of rationally appealing theology I think lacks a subtle appreciation for God’s purposes in disclosing what He does in scripture.

What I find rather, is that those who find monergism compelling, reading of an encounter or statement of devotion and trying to universalize the application of that interaction as timeless principle when I think it was written to show us other people coming to know God. David prays something like, ‘Lord give em theirs’ and Jesus says, don’t pray evil on your enemies. David really was seeking God but still got confused about Who God is and we do as well so we can grow from this.

I also think monergism requires the proof-texting of scripture and is undone when the scripture is read as from a friend seeking to establish a relationship with the reader.

Anyway, I am sympathetic to monergism and beat my head against a wall for about 6 years trying to hold it as a belief; but, at the end of the day, debates and philosophy seem to underpin it more than anything in human experience and I think that makes it iffy as somewhere to hang one’s hat.

Love your blog, by the way. Your thoughts make me think..

I have as well pondered how intelligent people can use the same hermeneutical method, believe in the same God, read the same Scriptures and yet come to different conclusions.

And in that regard I do not find compatibilism at all difficult to accept. It nicely explains the requirement of faith and repentance in order to be saved while maintaining the sovereignty of God.

My conclusion at the moment is that is has somewhat to do with the angle from which you view the biblical narrative. Is it a story about us or is it a story about God? As a story about us, we are the main characters and we are the objects of affection. As a story about God, it is about his glory and what expresses that to the fullest extent. An understanding of libertarian free will diminishes the glory of God by placing power in the hands of the creation for its fate, undermines God’s divine decree that cannot be thwarted, destroys the necessity to pray for the lost and gives man a reason to boast.

I at one time was puzzled by many passages that tended to support a monergism reading and simply ignored them or explained them away. I found that there were many holes that I could not fill in my understanding. But since coming to a monergistic position these holes have been filled. I have also seen as I have encountered synergist is that the basis of their biblical position is based more in tradition than exegesis and they come to the text in such a way that diminishes the glory of God.
In fact most of the Arminian encounters I have had as we discussed the doctrines of grace is hostility and even anger.

In my own experience (which is informed by Scripture) and many others that I have encountered as they have moved from synergism to monergism is that they have been set free from fear and can have full confidence in their salvation and God’s ability to keep them as Scripture claims to do.

I do not intend to be pejorative and I do not question the sincerity of anyone’s faith, but I find that Scripture explains a monergistic view from the opening to the closing pages. But with that said, what remains is a mystery as to why many Christians do not see it.

A good and timely post. I have been working thru this topic for some time.
Lately I have been reading Norman Geislers ,CHOSEN BUT FREE,a balanced view of God,s sovereignty and free will. He does make a good argument in favor of his position. I was raised up in a synergism church for most of my christian life. Around 15 years ago I looked seriously at monergism and was compelled to agree that I had been missing some vital truth. If you find pleasure in sturring up a hornets nest with your Arminian bretheran then I recomened this path. I must admit that I became overly dogmatic with my new found monergism and caused myself a certain amount of wounds. Now that I’am older and hopefully wiser I cannot but hope and pray for a more peaceful way to dwell with both camps, hence I also have now moved towards ‘compatibilism’. I will for the time being leave the scriptural proofs for the reader to discover, but if I could bring in a physical model of this reconciliation , then here it is . The Bible seems to treat this issue like a Mobeus strip . If you take a strip of paper that is say one inch by one foot ,then you clearly have a peice of paper with two sides. However if you take one end of your strip and turn it 180 degrees and then tape it to the other end of the strip you will end up with a strip of paper with only one side ! I must admit that though I can clearly see that a Mobeus strip works, I don’t know how to put into words ,how it works. It is kind of like trying to explain the color red to a blind man. Likewise I don’t know how to tell you how ‘compatibility’ works , but I’am sure it does.

hello, I am currently in a spot of being deeply troubled by the monergism synergisgm debate. I have put immense pressure on myself to figure this puzzle out in a thought framework that says if I don’t, I will not be saved. I am afraid that if I was saved (12 years ago) with a synergist viewpoint, thinking that it was part me responding and accepting, that I was not actually saved and have not been this entire time. On the other hand, I know my affections for Christ are genuine and my life has radically changed through the holy spirit over the past 12 years. I guess my question is- can a person still be saved who believes synergist theology? Is it only if you hold a monergist viewpoint at the time of salvation that you’ can be saved? Or rather, can God still save a person genuinely at that point in time even if they wrongly held a synergist belief that they were deciding in their free will to respond to previent grace for Christ at the moment of conversion? Or, is this a matter of later illumination after a person has been saved rather than something that must be figured out prior to being saved..

Because obviously we have a lot of non-calvinist/monergist evangelistic churches holding altar calls and I believe people are genuinely being saved there even if they don’t understand if it’s them responding to God or God responding through them. Is it possible that God still saved me monergistically 12 years ago even if I held a synergistic view all the while?

This dichotomy has left me anxious and afraid that I am not saved or that anyone isn’t saved who doesn’t perfectly understand monergism and who does believe they responded to Christ/decided to accept Christ (synergy).

Please help me settle my anxious mind if you can.

In Christ,

Sophia

hello, I am currently in a spot of being deeply troubled by the monergism synergisgm debate. I have put immense pressure on myself to figure this puzzle out in a thought framework that says if I don’t, I will not be saved. I am afraid that if I was saved (12 years ago) with a synergist viewpoint, thinking that it was part me responding and accepting, that I was not actually saved and have not been this entire time. On the other hand, I know my affections for Christ are genuine and my life has radically changed through the holy spirit over the past 12 years. I guess my question is- can a person still be saved who believes synergist theology? Is it only if you hold a monergist viewpoint at the time of salvation that you’ can be saved? Or rather, can God still save a person genuinely at that point in time even if they wrongly held a synergist belief that they were deciding in their free will to respond to previent grace for Christ at the moment of conversion? Or, is this a matter of later illumination after a person has been saved rather than something that must be figured out prior to being saved..

Because obviously we have a lot of non-calvinist/monergist evangelistic churches holding altar calls and I believe people are genuinely being saved there even if they don’t understand if it’s them responding to God or God responding through them. Is it possible that God still saved me monergistically 12 years ago even if I held a synergistic view all the while?

This dichotomy has left me anxious and afraid that I am not saved or that anyone isn’t saved who doesn’t perfectly understand monergism and who does believe they responded to Christ/decided to accept Christ (synergy).

Please help me settle my anxious mind if you can.

In Christ,

Sophia

Thank you for sharing your concern, Sophia. I hope that I can put your mind at ease.

Salvation has never depended upon the correctness of a person’s theology. We are saved by grace through faith, and the faith that justifies a person is one which responds humbly and trustingly to the revelation God makes known to that person.

In Who Can Be Saved?: Reassessing Salvation in Christ and World Religions¸ I made a case for what I call “accessibilism.” I believe that God reveals himself to everyone, in some way, at some point in their life, and salvation comes through a person’s responding to that particular revelation appropriately. Since the fall, in Eden, God has established a series of covenants which present the means of salvation. Everyone lives in a relationship with God that is covenantal, and the faith which God requires from us is relative to the terms of the covenant within which we live. The most basic covenant is that of creation and of the human conscience, and the apostle Paul wrote this, in Rom 2:12-16: “When the Gentiles sin, they will be destroyed, even though they never had God’s written law. And the Jews, who do have God’s law, will be judged by that law when they fail to obey it. For merely listening to the law doesn’t make us right with God. It is obeying the law that makes us right in his sight. Even Gentiles, who do not have God’s written law, show that they know his law when they instinctively obey it, even without having heard it. They demonstrate that God’s law is written in their hearts, for their own conscience and thoughts either accuse them or tell them they are doing right. And this is the message I proclaim—that the day is coming when God, through Christ Jesus, will judge everyone’s secret life” (NLT).

Salvation by grace through faith is thus accessible to every human being. At some point within a person’s life, God makes himself known to a person, in a way which enables them to respond to God in an affirming, believing way, rather than suppressing the knowledge they have been given. Within the Noahic covenant, Noah and his family were saved because they built an ark and went into it when God told them to. People to whom God has made himself known with the revelation which God gave to Abraham, can be saved if they have the faith of Abraham. Jews under the old covenant were not given the revelation of God as three-personal, and so their knowledge of God was more basic than that of a new covenant believer to whom God has made himself known through Jesus and the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit whom the Son sends from the Father.

Whether or not I have libertarian freedom is not going to determine whether and when I am saved, nor will salvation be impossible for a person whose understanding of how God works to save us, whether monergistically or synergistically, is theologically incorrect. I find this wonderfully encouraging, and I rejoice in the graciousness of God, who leaves no one without revelation of himself, however inadequately we may understand God’s ways of working.

A well said and very palatable response to Sophia, Mr Tiessen. I appreciate your gentleness, lack of typical calvinist arrogance and biblical thoughtfulness.

How do you define hyper Calvinism if you acknowledge the term?

Also, do you agree like Calvin in his book the predestination of God that evils come to be not By God’s will but by his permission “It is a quite frivolous refuge to say that God otiosely permits them, when Scripture shows Him not only willing, but the author of them…” (John Calvin, The Eternal Predestination of God, Pg, 176)

Personally in my lay person league and understanding, I believe scripture teaches synergism at God’s decree not man’s. God self limits his monergism as a bridegroom self limits his rights to his wife in order to inspire her own love for him. Nothing forced or coerced could ever be considered true love. The fact that Christ is love incarnate and has always shown the most holy and perfect of true love in the universe, always seeking the preference of the Father and is our supreme example, how much more is it not improbable that He does not force us to love him but delights when we do so most willingly as a offering.

Do you be teach as my ex pastor does that God is the author of all evil for his glory alone?

I see that I have not defined “hyper-Calvinism” in my “Glossary.” I find Peter Toon’s definition helpful. He defines it as “an exaggerated or imbalanced type of Reformed theology,” and as “a system of theology framed to exalt the honour and glory of God and does so by acutely minimizing the moral and spiritual responsibility of sinners . . . It makes no meaningful distinction between the secret and revealed will of God, thereby deducing the duty of sinners from the secret decrees of God. It emphasizes irresistible grace to such an extent that there appears to be no real need to evangelize; furthermore, Christ may be offered only to the elect.” (New Dictionary of Theology).

In regard to your final question, I definitely do not teach “that God is the author of all evil for his glory alone.” As the only perfectly good being, God can not be the “author of evil.” Evil gives God no pleasure at all. Evil occurs in the world which God chose to actualize, from among all the possible worlds which he could have actualized, but it grieves him when his moral creatures choose to do what they knew to be wrong.

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