Salvation from the Catholic View Compared to the Eastern Orthodox View

[ladodgers6]

How can this be said? Synergism gives all men the chance while monergism favors only some- unless one believes salvation to be universal.

Got this wrong. Monergism is the doctrine that God is the sole agent in saving sinners. Synergism on the other hand refers to the cooperative efforts or works between God and fallen humanity. But there's a huge difference between in these two. In Reformed Faith Monergism is needed because man is totally fallen into an estate of sin, corruption, misery, bondage of unrighteousness & ungodliness. Scripture is explicit on the depiction of man's fallen nature. I even provided those passages for you reply to.

Anyway, and with synergism it has a lofty view of man, that he isn't fallen or a sinner in some cases, and that it's ultimately up to the person to be saved or not by their decision, by casting a ballot for their own soul. This sir is not biblical teaching, but a man-made doctrine of Pelagius which has been condemned by more church councils in history. Pelagius and you believe there is intrinsic good in man to which he can cooperate through his own efforts and works that contribute to his salvation. This Sir, is a work-based religion that is condemned by Scripture. No flesh will be justified through works, period. Synergism also distorts and pervert man's ability to build his own babel tower or Jacob's ladder to reach God. These are the lies of the serpent. Who blinds the minds of unbelievers. Paul is clear Sir, that nobody seeks after God or understand God. Why? Because the Spiritual things of God no carnal mind will understand.

You are missing the whole point of why sinners need a Redeemer is the first place. But you claim you can save yourself, without effectual Grace, how so? This is the pinnacle point you lack in your synergistic system. Which I did as well, when I was once in your very position. Either Grace does save sinners effectually in Christ or not. The problem you have here is you claim that Grace is necessary for salvation, but then deny it is effectual in saving??? Do you see the paradox??? This point is what change my view entirely. Grace liberates the will of sinners to hear, understand, believe and trust. This Effectual Grace calls God's people out of the darkness into His marvelous light. It is His doing that resurrects the sinners who are dead in sin and trespasses by His Mercy and Grace, not by man's will or desire.​

 

[ladodgers6]

Provisionism teaches that Jesus' sacrifice paid for the sins of everyone, leaving unbelief as the reason for condemnation. However, this raises a few logical inconsistencies:

1. Unbelief as Sin: The most obvious is If unbelief is a sin, then it should fall under the scope of what Jesus paid for on the cross. By sending people to hell for unbelief, it appears that God is requiring something additional beyond Christ’s work, which challenges the completeness of Jesus’ atonement as they describe it.

2. God’s Love and Partiality: Provisionists often argue that God loves all people equally. However, if God condemns people for something other than the sins Jesus paid for (like an incorrect "choice"), then it implies there is something else God values more than the individuals themselves. This undermines the concept of God’s unconditional love, as it suggests God values a correct decision over a person’s salvation.

3. Grace and Human Choice: If salvation is by grace alone, then a person's “choice” should not be what ultimately determines their salvation. If God could save by grace alone, the idea that He withholds salvation based on a choice contradicts the idea of grace. This view could imply that human decision is more powerful than God’s grace, effectively making grace conditional.

4. Hell as a punishment for a simple wrong choice raises another significant problem in the Provisionist view. If rejecting God's provision (Christ's sacrifice) is the reason people are cast into hell, this seems disproportionate when compared to the severity of eternal punishment. A person might make a "simple" decision of unbelief or rejection, but the response—eternal torment in hell—is an extreme consequence for such a decision.

To use an analogy, it's like offering someone a home and food, and if they "simply" decline the offer, the punishment is not just rejection or being left to their own devices—it’s being tortured for the rest of their life. The punishment doesn’t seem to fit the "crime" of rejecting the provision, especially when that provision was offered out of supposed love and grace.

This further questions the coherence of the idea that God is all-loving and all-gracious in the Provisionist framework. If hell is a place of eternal punishment, and God sends people there for not making the correct choice, this implies God values the "choice" more than the person. It also undermines the very essence of grace, which should not be conditioned on human decision-making.

Therefore, the inconsistency lies in the fact that, if hell is reserved for rejecting God's provision, it casts doubt on both the fairness of the punishment and the nature of God's grace and love as described in Provisionism.

5. Hell based on a single choice influenced by temporary circumstances—raises serious questions about fairness and justice in the Provisionist view.

If a person rejects God due to a particularly difficult day or moment and then dies soon after, this one instance of unbelief seals their eternal fate. This creates a scenario where someone is condemned to eternal punishment not because of a lifetime of considered choices, but because of one fleeting decision influenced by temporary emotions or circumstances. If they had lived longer or experienced different circumstances, they might have chosen differently.

This situation raises questions about the fairness of God’s judgment in Provisionism. If God knows a person might eventually make the "right" choice given time and different experiences, it seems harsh—and inconsistent with a God who supposedly loves all people equally—to condemn someone to eternal torment based on a momentary lapse. This would imply that God values the timing of one’s death as a determinant of eternal fate, rather than offering grace and patience that truly seeks each person’s redemption.

---

In a view where grace is not just offered, but sovereignly applied, as in Calvinism, God's decisions aren’t contingent on the randomness of life events or on human timing. Instead, they’re rooted in God’s perfect purpose, which ensures that His actions are both just and merciful, leaving no room for eternal consequences based on momentary lapses or life’s unpredictabilities.

 

[fhansen]

1. Unbelief as Sin: The most obvious is If unbelief is a sin, then it should fall under the scope of what Jesus paid for on the cross. By sending people to hell for unbelief, it appears that God is requiring something additional beyond Christ’s work, which challenges the completeness of Jesus’ atonement as they describe it.

Of course unbelief is sin. It’s intrinsic to the first sin, in fact, as Adam’s disobedience was as much an act of unbelief because, with it, Adam literally disbelieved God, believing himself and other created peers over and against Him and therefore failing to heed Him. “In that sin man preferred himself to God and by that very act scorned Him” as one credible catechism puts it. By denying God’s authority Adam rejected God as his God. We’re here to come to a reversal of that act, within ourselves. Faith is to acknowledge and accept God as God again-and that pleases Him immensely. Unbelief is a matter of injustice for man, an anomaly, chaos, disorder: sin, not how man was meant to exist.

2. God’s Love and Partiality: Provisionists often argue that God loves all people equally. However, if God condemns people for something other than the sins Jesus paid for (like an incorrect "choice"), then it implies there is something else God values more than the individuals themselves. This undermines the concept of God’s unconditional love, as it suggests God values a correct decision over a person’s salvation.

God values their love, without which they aren't His, and therefore values their freedom as love is only attainable as a gift given, and then accepted and expressed by man.

3. Grace and Human Choice: If salvation is by grace alone, then a person's “choice” should not be what ultimately determines their salvation. If God could save by grace alone, the idea that He withholds salvation based on a choice contradicts the idea of grace. This view could imply that human decision is more powerful than God’s grace, effectively making grace conditional.

There's absolutely no reason that it cannot play a role in their salvation. The view does not imply in any way that man can be saved apart from the grace that moves him to God. And if God condemns to hell without regard to human choice then He's simply the author of all evil-since they had no choice but to be reprobate to begin with in that case.

4. Hell as a punishment for a simple wrong choice raises another significant problem in the Provisionist view. If rejecting God's provision (Christ's sacrifice) is the reason people are cast into hell, this seems disproportionate when compared to the severity of eternal punishment. A person might make a "simple" decision of unbelief or rejection, but the response—eternal torment in hell—is an extreme consequence for such a decision.

Geez! God judges by the heart, which He knows far better than we do. A simple, foolish choice does not earn one hell if they've been loving well during the rest of their lives. It's a continuous choice, a series of choices, of not pickling up our cross and following daily. A far worse scenario would involve a God who just created some people for eternal punishment without regard to any criteria, to their choices reflected in how they live their lives. The first right choice for man is God, to turn to Him. And as God must come to man first, with that gift of faith, then faith, as well, is both: a gift of grace and a human choice.

5. Hell based on a single choice influenced by temporary circumstances
—raises serious questions about fairness and justice in the Provisionist view.

If a person rejects God due to a particularly difficult day or moment and then dies soon after, this one instance of unbelief seals their eternal fate. This creates a scenario where someone is condemned to eternal punishment not because of a lifetime of considered choices, but because of one fleeting decision influenced by temporary emotions or circumstances. If they had lived longer or experienced different circumstances, they might have chosen differently.

This situation raises questions about the fairness of God’s judgment in Provisionism. If God knows a person might eventually make the "right" choice given time and different experiences, it seems harsh—and inconsistent with a God who supposedly loves all people equally—to condemn someone to eternal torment based on a momentary lapse. This would imply that God values the timing of one’s death as a determinant of eternal fate, rather than offering grace and patience that truly seeks each person’s redemption.

---

In a view where grace is not just offered, but sovereignly applied, as in Calvinism, God's decisions aren’t contingent on the randomness of life events or on human timing. Instead, they’re rooted in God’s perfect purpose, which ensures that His actions are both just and merciful, leaving no room for eternal consequences based on momentary lapses or life’s unpredictabilities.

Our lives are temporary here, and your POV only raises an even thornier question. Why should a temporary, created being be cast into eternal punishment ever, unless his choice was for eternal autonomy from God and the love that marks His children? Otherwise God created evil, and then why would we want to follow Him? The only way your POV is resolved would be if salvation were universal.

 

[fhansen]

Got this wrong. Monergism is the doctrine that God is the sole agent in saving sinners. Synergism on the other hand refers to the cooperative efforts or works between God and fallen humanity. But there's a huge difference between in these two. In Reformed Faith Monergism is needed because man is totally fallen into an estate of sin, corruption, misery, bondage of unrighteousness & ungodliness. Scripture is explicit on the depiction of man's fallen nature. I even provided those passages for you reply to.

Right, in your view God's divine whim is solely responsible for the evil of tormenting some individuals enterally, with no choice, and therefore no culpability, of their own involved. All that earlier stuff about choosing good over evil, life over death, was nonsense, because none of that is possible for man to begin to with! Never was! God has to do it all for him. He cannot possibly make morally accountable beings. Now why He didn't just do it all for us to begin with is difficult to explain but at least in this case we can rest assured that God's in control and just likes to see some folks suffer eternally while He likes to see others not suffer eternally.

The above is nonsense because important parts of Reformed thinking were nonsense, while often punctuated by intelligence and clear understanding, incidentally. Such is the case with “Institutes”. Anyway, there’s no reason for revelation, for knowledge, for the bible, for God patiently working with and cultivating man down through the centuries, of man coming to see something of his utter depravity and need in a godless world, unless with it all man might become informed- and so able to make a choice. Faith comes by hearing. We’re drawn by the revelation and presence of God in a world that otherwise wants to ignore Him-and succeeds. The cross is the ultimate grace, and the Holy Spirit prompts us to bow before it while this world can and should simultaneously engender a distaste for godlessness and darkness and the injustice and falsehoods and sin that prevail in that world, in this world.

You are missing the whole point of why sinners need a Redeemer is the first place. But you claim you can save yourself, without effectual Grace, how so? This is the pinnacle point you lack in your synergistic system. Which I did as well, when I was once in your very position. Either Grace does save sinners effectually in Christ or not. The problem you have here is you claim that Grace is necessary for salvation, but then deny it is effectual in saving??? Do you see the paradox??? This point is what change my view entirely. Grace liberates the will of sinners to hear, understand, believe and trust. This Effectual Grace calls God's people out of the darkness into His marvelous light. It is His doing that resurrects the sinners who are dead in sin and trespasses by His Mercy and Grace, not by man's will or desire.

I don't know if you even know what salvation is. Salvation is to come to know God and draw near to Him as that knowledge blossoms into love- and that love makes you increasingly like Him. That's your purpose and your justice/righteousness. It all begins, from our perspective, with faith.

Pelagius and you believe there is intrinsic good in man to which he can cooperate through his own efforts and works that contribute to his salvation.

No, you still fail to understand. Pelagius thought that grace was not necessary in order for man to live a life pleasing to God. Semi-Pelagianism taught that grace was not necessary in order to turn a man to faith-after which grace was said to be available to him. And the church rejected both those ideas early on. But you've already demonstrated a lack of desire to do diligence in researching and considering the ancient teachings on this, which were formerly laid down 1000 years before Calvin, and based mainly on Augustine's arguments for the necessity of grace. So why bother with all this-just repeating the same erroneous opinions over and over?

 

[fhansen]

Synergism also distorts and pervert man's ability to build his own babel tower or Jacob's ladder to reach God. These are the lies of the serpent.

Nope. Building such towers and ladders are man's work, keeping himself separate from and opposed to God while pursuing his own agenda. Synergism is to choose God. to say yes to Him and His work in us. Again the gospel, the entire bible, is gutted of their purpose and without meaning unless man is called- while also enabled- to participate in God's work without wholly forcing his participation. The greater being is produced who's led to choosing, to the extent he can, the right thing. But that only comes as he's first reconciled with God, now entered into a state of loving subjugation which is meant to grow into an even stronger/greater state of loving subjugation. God wants the very best for man-always has.

 

[ladodgers6]

Of course unbelief is sin. It’s intrinsic to the first sin, in fact, as Adam’s disobedience was as much an act of unbelief because, with it, Adam literally disbelieved God, believing himself and other created peers over and against Him and therefore failing to heed Him. “In that sin man preferred himself to God and by that very act scorned Him” as one credible catechism puts it. By denying God’s authority Adam rejected God as his God. We’re here to come to a reversal of that act, within ourselves. Faith is to acknowledge and accept God as God again-and that pleases Him immensely. Unbelief is a matter of injustice for man, an anomaly, chaos, disorder: sin, not how man was meant to exist.

I believe you missed crux of this point. Synergistic Theologies such as yours, hold a position that Christ died for everyone, which includes all of their sins. But yet people still go to hell. So, the point is this, how can people to go hell if Christ died for everyone; dying for all their sins; which includes their unbelief that is a sin. So you face a huge dilemma here.​

 

[ladodgers6]

Right, in your view God's divine whim is solely responsible for the evil of tormenting some individuals enterally, with no choice, and therefore no culpability, of their own involved. All that earlier stuff about choosing good over evil, life over death, was nonsense, because none of that is possible for man to begin to with! Never was! God has to do it all for him. He cannot possibly make morally accountable beings. Now why He didn't just do it all for us to begin with is difficult to explain but at least in this case we can rest assured that God's in control and just likes to see some folks suffer eternally while He likes to see others not suffer eternally.

This is pure conjecture on your part. People go to hell for sins and unbelief. But again people (Synergistic) want to place fault with God instead of sinners.

 

[ladodgers6]

Nope. Building such towers and ladders are man's work, keeping himself separate from and opposed to God while pursuing his own agenda. Synergism is to choose God. to say yes to Him and His work in us. Again the gospel, the entire bible, is gutted of their purpose and without meaning unless man is called- while also enabled- to participate in God's work without wholly forcing his participation. The greater being is produced who's led to choosing, to the extent he can, the right thing. But that only comes as he's first reconciled with God, now entered into a state of loving subjugation which is meant to grow into an even stronger/greater state of loving subjugation. God wants the very best for man-always has.

Thank you, yes they are man's work. Just like man trying to find hope in their efforts, will or desires. It's in these they trust instead of the Triune Self Contained God of Scripture.

 

[fhansen]

Thank you, yes they are man's work. Just like man trying to find hope in their efforts, will or desires. It's in these they trust instead of the Triune Self Contained God of Scripture.

Yer not reading attentively, apparently. Faith is man depending on God's work in him. And He wants our effort included, with Him now and not me, myself, and I, as Scripture attests.

 

[fhansen]

This is pure conjecture on your part. People go to hell for sins and unbelief. But again people (Synergistic) want to place fault with God instead of sinners.

Nonsense. Monergism squarely places all the responsibility for man going to eternal torment upon God, as it does for those going to heaven. You cant have it both ways. Instead, however, all men have the opportunity to come to Him, as even Rom 1:18 and following confirms, while also confirming that it's man's fault when they don't, not His.

 

[fhansen]

I believe you missed crux of this point. Synergistic Theologies such as yours, hold a position that Christ died for everyone, which all of their sins. But yet people still go to hell. So, the point is this, how can people to go hell if Christ died for everyone; dying for their sins; which includes their unbelief that is a sin. So, you face a huge dilemma here.

Not really. My sins are forgiven. Do I care? He gives me sufficient reason and grace to care, but do I reject that anyway?

 

[ladodgers6]

Yer not reading attentively, apparently. Faith is man depending on God's work in him. And He wants our effort included, with Him now and not me, myself, and I, as Scripture attests.

Even by your comments here, you fail to see, that you are saying it is partly by our works, right. And works are works no matter what you say about it. One drop of poison in water, makes it lethal.

 

[ladodgers6]

Nonsense. Monergism squarely places all the responsibility for man going to eternal torment upon God, as it does for those going to heaven. You cant have it both ways. Instead, however, all men have the opportunity to come to Him, as even Rom 1:18 and following confirms, while also confirming that it's man's fault when they don't, not His.

C'mon man! Monergism saves sinners. Meaning sinners cannot save themselves, God is the only One who can redeem them period. In your view there aren't any sinners, just good people. So, why is a Savior needed.

 

[ladodgers6]

Not really. My sins are forgiven. Do I care? He gives me sufficient reason and grace to care, but do I reject that anyway?

What is sufficient grace? And what does it do to you?

 

[fhansen]

C'mon man! Monergism saves sinners. Meaning sinners cannot save themselves, God is the only One who can redeem them period. In your view there aren't any sinners, just good people. So, why is a Savior needed.

Time for you to give it up. You don't want to know

 

[fhansen]

What is sufficient grace? And what does it do to you?

It means, just as Rom 1 says, that no one has excuse.

 

[fhansen]

Even by your comments here, you fail to see, that you are saying it is partly by our works, right. And works are works no matter what you say about it. One drop of poison in water, makes it lethal.

Not works of the law, which would only make us boast, but works of grace, works prepared for us in advance, works that come only after being justified. And works the we can refuse to do. We aren't forced to follow God and you already admit that believers don't necessarily do so. Again, talk is cheap. But:

"To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life."

C'mon man!! Get on track with the gospel.

 

[ladodgers6]

Time for you to give it up. You don't want to know

Sure, whatever you say. You are the master of your destiny, right?

 

[ladodgers6]

It means, just as Rom 1 says, that no one has excuse.

Why not? I am not a sinner in Adam, he is just a cautionary tale, a bad example. People are good according to your position. Your position is even teaches and believes that people are intrinsically good. They can enter heaven by their good works by following the Commandments, just like the the Rich Young Ruler.​

 

[ladodgers6]

Not works of the law, which would only make us boast, but works of grace, works prepared for us in advance, works that come only after being justified. And works the we can refuse to do. We aren't forced to follow God and you already admit that believers don't necessarily do so. Again, talk is cheap. But:

"To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life."

C'mon man!! Get on track with the gospel.

You are talking out both ends of your mouth, like a used car salesman. It's not by works, "BUT" works that prepared us for advancement. Then you say the works that come after being Justified. I don't think you know what this means or entails.

Flippity Floppity, which way did he go.