Fair points, all, though I would like to offer a response, in civility.
Your "falling out with Calvinism" was also mine. I had a very difficult time reconciling God's sovereignty and individual responsibility. How could God condemn someone who did not have the capability to make a decision? For me, the turning point was when it dawned on me that I was using human logic to try and understand a divine point of view.
While a very good point, we must also call to mind that every time we read the scripture we do so with a corrupted mind, fallen in sin. So God reveals scripture to a mind that, using human logic, would never be able to comprehend it, unless He provides guidance in some form, be it an elder, or a preacher, or a teacher, or through the divine influence of the Holy Spirit. Therefore I am hesitant to simply wipe away human experience from our interaction with God. I'm not saying one way is right and the other wrong. I'm saying that I don't want to write that one off just yet.
The first thing I accepted was that man was born completely fallen because of sin. The "completely fallen" part was very important. Is man just sick in his trespasses and sin, or dead in his trespasses and sin (Eph. 2:1)? If man is just sick, then he is not completely fallen. There remains the possibility of some latent faith, stored deep within his soul. That faith has but the dimmest light, the faintest glow. All it needs is a spark from outside in order to drive into a flame. That spark, according to the Synergist view, is the Gospel.
I agree that man is born in sin. However, at what point is that sin accounted of that man? If it is from birth, then every baby who ever died was guilty and cast into Hell awaiting final judgement, quite literally, for a sin they never committed. Then again, Deuteronomy 1:39 says "
Moreover your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, and your children, which in that day had no knowledge between good and evil, they shall go in thither, and unto them will I give it, and they shall possess it." In that scripture, God Himself refers to babies and children as having no knowledge of good and evil. Adam himself wasn't accounted to have fallen until he had knowledge of good and evil, so if these little ones lack that knowledge are they truly guilty? Can it be said that someone God in His own words does not account knowledge of good and evil unto is "completely fallen?"
However, if man is completely fallen - dead in his trespasses and sins - then there is no latent faith, no faint glow. The Gospel, separated from the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit, cannot be received by the sinner because the sinner is dead. The sinner lacks the ability to respond (Rom. 8:7; 1 Cor. 2:14).
2 Timothy 1:5, Paul writes "
When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee also." This, to me, accounts a familial bond of faith. Not a genetic passing on of faith, but a learned behavior or trait. Paul is speaking of Timothy's faith and he does not write "Your faith which God gave you at your regeneration," but he says "the faith that was in your grandmother, then your mother, and now also in you." It's a subtle difference, and one I'm sure we could debate until we both ran out of words, but it is a difference. If a sinner is born lacking the ability to respond to the call of God, then you are left with several verses in the scripture that, under that notion, make God appear to be bipolar. Now, I think we both agree that He is not. So how do we discern the truth? You find it in a monergistic system. I see it in a synergistic system. We can both point to scripture to back our claims. To that, I say consider the
blue line of my quote. (Not to toot my own horn or anything :smilewinkgrin: )
This realization was difficult for me. I had created a neat little caricature of what Monergism was. To me it was evil because it made mankind pawns of a Omnipotent God. How benevolent could a God like that be? But as I wrestled with the issue it became apparent to me that my objection was not biblically based but perception based. Try as I might I could not quench the pull to learn more about the thing I despised so much.
I understand that feeling. At one point or another each and every believer had a caricature version of God the Father and Jesus in mind. I don't consider Monergism to be evil, though I do see a robotic version of man contained within Monergism. It renders man with no will of his own, which goes back to my comment about those verses that make God appear bipolar. If man has no will to come to God unless God places that will within man, then why does Jesus lament Jerusalem's failure to turn to Him, saying "ye would not?" (Matt 23:37)
So, if man is completely fallen, and completely unable to believe, how can anyone be saved? Two words played havoc in my mind - "But God". I already agreed with Eph. 2:1 that sinful man is dead in trespasses and sin and that death is a state of spiritual death. I agreed that man was incapable of believing because his state of death made spiritual belief an impossibility. As I read further down in Ephesians 2, I read these words:
Ephesians 2:4-5 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
Epiphany! While we were dead in our transgressions (sin), "But God". Not, "But me". But God. It was God who took unilateral action to make me alive together with Christ. That was done through regeneration; which resulted in faith; which resulted in salvation. At that point I realized that I accomplished absolutely nothing to my salvation. Even the faith I exercised was a gift of God (Eph. 2:8).
Exactly. This particular synergist does not deny that God does the work. I did not die on the cross; Christ did. I did not rise from the grave; Christ did. But I did have to open the door when He knocked (Rev 3:20). If we are fully Monergistic, then why does Christ say "
Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." Why not just say "I stand at the door, and I open it, and come in unto a man?" That, to me, is true Monergism. The version Christ says in Revelation 3 implies, at least to my interpretation, some form of synergism.
The last domino to fall was about God being unjust. What about that tribal person living on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean? Even if he did have the ability to believe how could he unless God sent someone to preach the Gospel? Or would God save Him anyway just to be fair? Those questions became less problematic as I realized that God does everything for His own purpose and after the counsel of His own will. Indeed, Romans 9:14-18 states, "What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! For He says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." So then it does not depend on man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I raise you up, that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth." So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires." I was guilty of injecting the human understanding of fairness and equity into something reserved only for God. For who has know the mind of the Lord, or who has become His counselor (Rom. 11:34)?
At the point I waved the white flag. I had no answer as to why God saves some while He hardens others, other than to attribute it to mercy and grace. All of us are deserving of wrath. There is none righteous, no, not one. I take no pleasure in knowing that some people die in their sins. Nor do I believe I possessed something special, therefore God saved me. I was as reprobate as they, but for a reason known only to God, I received mercy.
Just curious, but how did you come to accept God hardening some to the point of damnation as "mercy?" I don't mean that facetiously, I'm genuinely curious how the monergist comes to that conclusion.
