Synergism | Bible Study Notes

Expanded explanation

Synergism is often presented as the opposite of monergism. In the debate, however, the terms can be answering different questions. Monergism asks who performs the saving work. Synergism asks whether God and a human response are both involved in the process in some meaningful sense.

Decalvinised does not affirm synergism as the idea that people cooperate with God to produce salvation or contribute part of the merit. God does 100 percent of the saving work. Christ alone provides the atonement, grace initiates reconciliation, and salvation rests entirely on what God has done.

People nevertheless must respond to God's provision through faith. Faith is not a work and does not make a person a co-savior. It is the receptive response to the gospel. A person who accepts a gift has not purchased it, improved it, or shared credit for producing it.

This is why Decalvinised can affirm a qualified form of monergism while also affirming that human faith is necessary. God alone saves, while people are responsible to receive his saving provision. The disagreement with Calvinist monergism is not about whether God deserves all glory. It is about whether giving God all glory requires him to determine every human response.

Context

The disagreement depends heavily on how the terms are defined. Monergism can refer to who accomplishes the saving work, while synergism can refer to whether a human response is necessary for receiving that work. If synergism means shared merit or shared saving power, Decalvinised rejects it. If it simply means that a person must respond to God's grace, then the issue is not whether the person saves himself but whether faith is a genuine response.

Calvinist arguments often say that God must do 100 percent of everything, including producing the act of faith, for God to receive all the glory. Decalvinised rejects that premise. Faith is not a work, and receiving a gift does not make the recipient its co-savior. God receives all glory for providing and accomplishing salvation even when he holds people responsible to receive it by faith.

Calvinist Usage

Calvinist theology commonly uses synergism as a contrast to monergism. In the Calvinist account, God alone performs the decisive saving work: he chooses, regenerates, grants faith, and brings the elect person to salvation. Human beings willingly believe, but their faith is the result of God's prior and effectual work rather than an independent response that could have been refused.

Calvinists often reject synergism because they believe it gives humans a role in the decisive difference between salvation and condemnation. If the final distinction is a person's response, they argue, then salvation depends partly on the human will and God does not receive all the glory.

Decalvinised Position

Decalvinised does not affirm synergism if the term means that God and human beings share the saving work, divide the credit, or contribute merit to redemption. God alone provides and accomplishes the saving work through Christ. The atonement, grace, revelation, and provision of salvation are entirely God's work.

Decalvinised does affirm that a person must respond to God's provision through faith. Faith is not a work, does not earn salvation, and does not add to Christ's finished work. It is the receptive response by which a person receives what God has provided. For that reason, human faith does not reduce God's glory or place part of the saving work in human hands.

In this qualified sense, Decalvinised can affirm monergism concerning the source and accomplishment of salvation while affirming a necessary human response. These terms are not exact opposites unless they are being used to answer the same question.