Faith and Grace vs Works: One of the most significant aspects to the nature of works and faith is this: “Works” speak to your own merits, while “faith” in someone else speaks of the merits of the other person in whom you are placing your trust. So, while “works” speak of your value, faith speaks of someone else’s value. That’s a key distinction, and perhaps is why the apostle Paul spoke of the works of the Law and faith as being mutually exclusive:
But we don't KNOW the value of the one in whom we place our faith. Only the Spirit of God within us knows.
Our assessment of his value is not constant, not to mention that it begins at an ignorant start.
Faith does not exclude grace, but is directly linked to grace:
More than you know!
Faith is also our introduction to grace:
Are you saying that grace also comes by faith? That is not what the text says, not to mention that that is obviously, then, works-based, if the faith is humanly derived, and so it is not grace after all.
Calvinists conflate Faith with Works: Non-Calvinists hold that we receive the Spirit by hearing with faith, and hence faith is our introduction to grace. However, from the Calvinistic perspective, any religion that teaches that salvation comes about by anything other than an “Irresistible Grace,” necessarily makes salvation into a works-based process, because (as it is reasoned) once you incorporate any act of the human will—even as little as a person’s submission in passive non-resistance—what is left is some element of
human contribution in the process. So, when Calvinists say that “salvation is of the Lord” (
Jonah 2:9), what they really mean is that God does everything in salvation, including the act of faith, on behalf of the elect-person, by overcoming their resistance through an irresistible gift of pre-faith regeneration. In other words, Calvinists believe that faith becomes a “work” whenever we come to think of faith as something that we do ourselves, absent of an Irresistible Grace.
This means that in Calvinism, faith without Irresistible Grace = works. As such, Calvinists insist that if God had not chosen some—namely Calvinism’s elect—then no one would have freely chosen to love God. Calvinists also deny that God coerces any person to believe or that God believes on behalf of the elect, even though Calvinists admit that they believe that God unilaterally regenerates the unregenerate-elect against their totally depraved will, unsolicited, simply because they happen to be “elect.”
You say,
"...from the Calvinistic perspective, ...(as it is reasoned) once you incorporate any act of the human will—even as little as a person’s submission in passive non-resistance—what is left is some element of human contribution." So do you admit that 'human contribution' is works? What you term,
"passive non-resistance"—do you not consider that 'willed choice'?
—Let me again ask the question plainly: Does salvation, or does it not, hinge on willed human choice?
Then you say,
"what they really mean is that God does everything in salvation, including the act of faith, on behalf of the elect-person..." No, that's not what they mean. "On behalf of?" Not at all. Salvific faith is indeed the work of God, generated by the Spirit of God, incorporated into the person, by the inhabiting Spirit of God. It is of the same source as regeneration, and logically a result of regeneration, and concurrent with regeneration. It is, as has been shown you so often, "on behalf of" which you continue to insist on, along with, "should happen automatically", demonstrate your ignorance of what Calvinism does teach.
"Surely will come to pass" does not mean "automatically will happen". It only means that it will happen, and that, by the act and will of God. And the fact that all things come to pass by the act and will of God does not mean that God does what we are required to do "on our behalf", except where we are unable to live without sin, the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us. He does work in us to do whatever he wills, in order that what he has ordained will indeed come to pass. There is no "automatic" there. It is requisite, in order to be saved, that we be born again, but he does it
IN US. Not
for us. The same is true with all the virtues descended from regeneration. Our faith is the work of God IN US. We do not generate it. Indeed, we cannot. But it does nevertheless become ours upon regeneration. And yes, as a result of our regeneration, we DO CHOOSE to believe.
Also, you insist on the notion that Calvinism teaches that God forces a change of will on a person against their will. Yes, when your words are reduced to their meaning and use, it becomes that clumsy and silly to say. It is more than awkward, it's not even cogent. Regeneration, among other descriptions, is that change to a person's will. But it is not done against their will, nor is it done with their cooperation. (To put it in crass terms), it is not done with their consent —they are not even consulted, nor aware that it is going to happen, until it has already happened; their will has been bypassed on the matter. How can the fetus cooperate with their birth? How can the dead cooperate with their resurrection?
Summary: God saves us apart from the works of the Law, and on the basis of His own purpose and grace. If one does not conflate man’s free choice to repent with God’s free choice to save the repentant, then this is not an issue that needs to be reconciled. Humbly admitting you need salvation is not equal to saving yourself.
Since faith comes by hearing the word of God (
Acts 10:17), faith is as much a choice on man's part as what he chooses to listen to.
Salvific faith, which comes by the hearing of the Word of God, does not logically derive,
"...faith is as much a choice on man's part as what he chooses to listen to." Nevertheless, as I said above, man does choose to believe, because God has done it in him both to will and to do, of God's good pleasure. We do freely choose to repent, as do all the Redeemed, and as is required of them.
