Calvinistic Synergy

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Green Baggins has now resumed his review of my “Reformed” Is Not Enough, picking up where he left off. That, as it turns out, is with the second half of Chapter 21, on justification by faith. He discusses briefly –without really disagreeing — my illustrative point that justification and sanctification are definitionally related, but not inter-related. A husband is not a husband without a wife, but a husband is not a wife. The same point could be made by saying that height is not height without breadth and depth, but height is not breadth and depth. Lane takes my point, and does not differ with it exactly, but says that he and folks like him get a little skittery with illustrations like this.

“However, this definition will still make Reformed folk a bit skittery. Reformed folk are so used to excluding works categorically from justification, that any language such as “definitionally related” is going to cause angst.”

Skittery is fine, and maybe I can help. The use of husband and wife was not intended as a definition of sola fide, but rather as an illustration of it. And all I meant was that you cannot have one without the other, but that the other concerned was truly other. I am fine with categorically denying that our works have anything whatever to do with God’s forensic declaration that we now have the perfections of Jesus Christ. The only thing our works do in this event is get in the way, and God’s grace blessedly overcomes the obstacles our works attempt to throw in the way. So Lane and I continue to be okay on this one.

In the comments following this post, an interesting discussion arose with regard to monergism and synergism. In monergism, God alone works, and with synergism, God works together with others. As with many of these discussions, there is some confusion between God’s creational sovereignty and God’s redemptive sovereignty.

Now every Calvinist (when it comes to viewing God’s relationship to the created order) is an ultimate monergist. God freely and unalterably ordains whatsoever comes to pass. The work is all His, ultimately His. Okay, but this sovereignty, the Westminster Confession is at pains to point out, does not abolish the liberty or contingency of secondary causes, but rather establishes them. Now when Paul says that we are saved by grace through faith, He takes care to remind us that even that faith is a gift from God, lest any should boast. This tells us that justification is “synergistic,” if we must use this language. I am justified through faith, and it is my faith that God’s uses as the instrument (not the ground) of my justification. But, because the sinful heart of man would like to boast about this, he goes on to remind us that behind it all, ultimately, our justification is monergistic. God gives justification through our faith, but He also previously gave us that faith. What do we have that we did not receive as a gift? But justification is certainly monergistic in the same sense that everything is.

Regeneration is monergistic in a strict redemptive sense. God does not regenerate us in response to anything we did prior to that point. Regeneration is the kick off to the whole game, and God alone does it. This is why God receives all the glory for everything that happens after that point.

Is prayer and answered prayer monergistic or synergistic? Well, it is monergistic in the sense that God ordains everything, including this. It is synergistic in the sense that a significant part of what He ordains is the activity of free, responsible agents. The first moment of creation was monergism simpliciter. The first moment of a man’s conversion is analagous, God creating light in a dark heart, and is also monergism simpliciter. But when God gives me a job, allows me to earn a paycheck, and I purchase groceries to feed my family, this is monergism through agents, or, to the extent there is such a thing, synergism.

Now with those distinctions made, is justification a direct act of God’s or is it an indirect act of God’s through another agent? Clearly, if justification is to be through the agency of faith, then it must be the latter.

The problem with this is that synergism is frequently used by people who want God to do 90 percent, and we do the remaining 10. He carries one end of the heavy object, and we carry the other end. This is not a Calvinistic understanding at all. In Calvinistic synergy, God does one hundred percent, and I do the other one hundred percent. Shakespeare writes one hundred percent of Hamlet’s lines, and Hamlet speaks one hundred percent of Hamlet’s lines. The wrong kind of synergy has Shakespeare writing the plot of Hamlet’s life, with Hamlet ad-libbing his way through it.

Calvinistic monergy is when God does it, and we don’t do anything, like when God made the moon. Calvinistic synergy is when God does it, and we fulfill what God has done. Regeneration is Calvinistic monergy. Justification by faith alone is Calvinistic synergy.

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