So God gives man what he needs, and then the rest is up to man.
This statment insinuates that man's act of believing helps God save him, or that man's faith saves him, all of which is total nonsense, which you well know.
Seems a review of the definition is in order again. I provided this in another post last year, but let's just put this erroneous charge to rest, ok?
From
Monergism -
2) Synergism
Synergism is the error that affirms that the natural man can cooperate with God in the regeneration process (the new birth) ...that an unregenerate person has the moral capacity to embrace the Gospel apart from the work of the Spirit to open our eyes, ears and heart to the gospel.
I reject that faith is a cooperation with God in regeneration. The Bible says that God is the Regenerator, and He doesn't need help. Second, "moral capacity" is fallacious. God created mankind with the intellect with which to understand the gospel and the freedom to either accept or reject it. And, thirdly, the Holy Spirit most surely DOES work in the hearts of unbelievers, per John 16:8,9.
Again, remember what our interpretive Key to the Bible is? Jesus Christ. So, in relation to regeneration and conversion, when the gospel is preached, what makes people to differ in their response to it? Does Jesus Christ make us differ or does something else make us to differ? This "something else" may take various forms; it may be something native to the human constitution (i.e. Pelagianism) or something alien yet universal (i.e. Arminianism)? In either case, the point is that it is not Christ that makes the difference. Anyone who claims that the difference arises from one of these something-else has failed to see first our hopelessness as fallen creatures apart from Christ and second the exclusive sufficiency of Christs s saving work. If I am different than my neighbor because of something other than Jesus Christ, then Christ, whatever role he may play, cannot be central to my understanding of salvation. He may beonly partly responsible for it. It is the grace we have in Christ that saves, and nothing in addition to it.
I reject this because I don't believe that men are "different" in the sense of why some believe and some do not. God created all men with the intellect with which to understand the gospel, plus the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of unbelievers (Jn 16:8,9) in conviction of sin. But the Bible is clear that men reject grace and the Holy Spirit.
So, once again I've provided the MONERGISM's definition of synergism and I reject that view.
Now, if you reject the definition, the problem is yours, because that definition came from one of "your" websites. Calvinists claim to be monergists. Well, either accept what that site defines as synergism or quit calling yourself a monergist.
Here's the definition of monergism from the same site:
A Simple Explanation of Monergism
by John Hendryx
Monergism simply means that it is God who gives ears to hear and eyes to see. It is God alone who gives illumination and understanding of His word that we might believe; It is God who raises us from the dead, who circumcises the heart; unplugs our ears; It is God alone who can give us a new sense that we may, at last, have the moral capacity to behold His beauty and unsurpassed excellency.
Except for "moral capacity", I agree with all of this. The apostle John recorded Jesus saying to Nicodemus that we naturally love darkness, hate the light and WILL NOT come into the light (John 3:19, 20).
Yet, he ignores Jn 1:7 - "He (John the baptizer) came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that thourgh Him all men MIGHT believe". And since our hardened resistance to God is thus seated in our affections, only God, by His grace, can lovingly change, overcome and disarm our rebellious disposition.
I believe this occurs with regeneration, which doesn't occur before faith. The natural man, apart from the quickening work of the Holy Spirit, will not come to Christ on his own since he is at enmity with God and cannot understand spiritual things.
False. 1 Cor 2:14 isn't about the gospel, but about a "message for the (spiritually) mature (v.6) and the "deep things of God" (v.10). Shining a light into a blind man's eyes will not enable his to see, since, as we all know, sight requires new eyes or some restoration of his visual faculty.
Faulty analogy since Jesus actually said that the "dead with hear" (Jn 5:25). RT believes that regeneration is necessary for hearing. Likewise, reading or hearing the word of God itself cannot elicit saving faith in the reader (or hearer) unless the Spirit first "germinates" the seed of the word in the heart, so to speak, which then infallibly gives rise to our faith and union with Christ.
False. There is nothiing "infallible" about it. Yes, the Holy Spirit has a ministry of conviction, but man is free to accept or reject the free gift. RT has not proven otherwise. Like unto Lydia whom "the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul," (Acts 16:14) He must also give all His people spiritual life and understanding if their hearts are to be open and thus turn (respond) to Christ in faith.
Since faith is infinitely beyond all the power of our unregenerated human nature,
This is false as well. Faith is believing God's promise of eternal life. And God created mankind with all that is necessary to understand the promise and the freedom to accept or reject. it is only God who can give the spiritual ears to hear and eyes to see the beauty of Christ in the gospel. God alone disarms the hostility of the sinner turning his heart of stone to a heart of flesh. So the problem of conversion is not with the Word or God's Law but with man's prideful heart.
What does RT do with Ezek 18:31, where God tells the people to make themselves a new heart? The humility required to submit to the gospel (which is beyond man's natural capacity)
This is false. is, therefore, not prompted by man's will but by God's mercy (John 1:13; Rom 9:16) since no one can believe the gospel unless God grants it (John 6:63, 65). The Spirit must likewise give all His people spiritual life and understanding if their hearts are to be opened and thus respond to Christ in faith.
So, I'm neither a synergist nor a monergist by these definitions. Because the Bible doesn't teach either view. As I've explained.
