Jumping Ahead (3)

On 5/9/07, Charles F. Capps <ccapps@stanford.edu> wrote:

Thanks again for your patience in explaining yourself to us, Mickey; we are new to the way you describe justification and we are still trying to wrap our minds around it. I would like to say right now that we were both very impressed yesterday with how consistent you were in your reasoning and how well your position held up to our objections.

Regarding Php 1:6 very briefly, I will try to explain why I think this particular passage is consistent with our stance as well as with yours. First of all, reading the passage in context, I have no problem with what Paul is saying.

3: I thank my God in all my remembrance of you,
4: always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy,
5: thankful for your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.
6: And I am sure that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Paul is commending the Philippians on their works of charity, and for this reason he says that he has no doubt that God will bring them into their inheritance as sons with Christ, and therefore heirs with Christ (Rom 8:15-17). (Aside from your problem with synergism) would we be correct to say that you interpret this passage in a similar way? In other words, you think that Paul is saying: "I have utmost confidence that your act of faith actually justified you"--presumably on account of the Philippians' works of charity, which provide a clue as to whether or not other Christians are actually among the elect or merely in a temporal covenantal relationship with Christ.

Yes, I would understand it in a similar way. I don't know how much Paul's infallibility of an apostle plays into his statements here, but I think that interpretation is reasonable.

Now moving on to your questions regarding synergism. No, we agree that even our act of faith is a work done in us by Christ, just like you do. The good act of faith itself is moved and accomplished by grace alone. So yes, God is the one who began the good work in us. In the same way, God is the one who carries the salvation of the elect to completion. The carrying to salvation is "done" or "powered" or "accomplished" or however you want to put it by God's grace alone, not by our efforts. The only issue we take with your position is this: God does not carry the salvation of the reprobate to completion not because He desires their damnation but because they freely refuse to cooperate with His grace.

So you would say that God began a good work in them by enabling faith, which we passively go along with. Along with that, you would say all have received this enablement.

So, in what ways is that "begun a good work" carried to completion in the reprobate?

It seems inconsistent to me because I see you as banking on God's saving graces, yet still trying to maintain that we somehow have free will in accepting God's grace, and in accepting God finishing it.

Yet, Paul does not make any remark that "you who have passively started the good work done by God, will carry it to completion, provided that you continue availing yourself to God's grace." Rather, he puts the emphasis solely upon God and His actions throughout. God begins the good work (faith) and He will finish it (salvation).

If in fact, God begins this good work in all people, then Paul is actually lying, for God doesn't complete it in all people, but only in those who "passively go along." I wonder also how "passive" this action is, if indeed it is a determining factor, but the nature of the human condition is another topic we have to address in the future.

Now you seem to be objecting that God's grace is only enabled by our cooperation – or our lack of dis-cooperation, however we like to word it. This is true enough if you mean "if and only if we refuse to cooperate, we would not receive the grace." But, going back to the family analogy, I think it is fair to say that the parents who adopt a child and eventually give him the inheritance are the sole movers in the process. It is the parents who do the adopting, not the child, and it is the parents who confer the inheritance, not the child. Even though the son did absolutely nothing to earn his right to that inheritance which is gratuitously being bestowed on him by the parents, it is nonetheless his by default as a member of the family. However, he retains the power to reject it by rejecting membership in the family at any point.

I think I understand your point, though I do have a few quibbles with the analogy (as we are spoken not only of as "adopted" but also "reborn," so in what ways did you have a choice in being reborn?) But I digress. An analogy is helpful for clarifying your position, but it doesn't establish it.

We realize the distinction we are making is subtle and might be frustrating to you who are coming from the perspective of not believing in free will, but at the same time we really do not think that we are creating a distinction that is not there.

I see nothing wrong with making man "passive" in salvation. But what I'm saying is that he is wholly passive, contributing nothing to his salvation. Your view of man is more active than mine, as he has to at least "not resist," whereas I would say God, being the unstoppable force, cannot be resisted, and changes our hearts so we cannot resist.

I would say that is exactly what Philippians 1:6 teaches, that man is wholly passive in salvation. God begins the good work, and He carries it to completion.

For a view that affirms independent free will in man, God begins the good work, but then depending upon whether or not they accept it or not, He carries it to completion if they do, and He does not if they do not.

To sum it up - If indeed God gives the gift of faith to all people, in what sense does God carry to completion the gift of faith given (but rejected) to the reprobate?