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Grace: Monergist or Synergist

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  • 9Moments
  • 8Passages
  • 18Traditions

Predestination or free will: what do Christians believe?

Monergists say God alone brings a person to believe: He chooses, He calls, He gives the faith, and nobody cooperates. Synergists say grace comes first but each person must freely accept it, and can refuse. Calvinists and Lutherans take the first view; Arminians, Wesleyans and the Orthodox take the second.

Why it matters

It changes how a church talks about becoming a Christian. Where God alone converts, the invitation is to hear the gospel and trust it, and nobody is told the decision was theirs to make; where a person must respond, an altar call, a real choice and a warning that grace can be refused all follow from the same conviction. It also shapes what a pastor says to someone frightened that they have fallen away.

Where does each tradition sit?

Each dot is one tradition, numbered left to right. In the hatched middle the quiz names neither pole.

Monergist Synergist

Toward Monergist 5

Neither pole named 41–59 4

Toward Synergist 9

What does each side believe?

Monergist

Monergists (God alone brings a person to faith) hold that salvation is God’s work from beginning to end: God chooses His people, calls them, and works faith in them; the sinner contributes nothing to conversion, not even the decision to believe. This is the position most people are pointing at when they say predestination, and a Calvinist defending it will say the choice was God’s before it was ever ours. Monergists differ on whether that grace can be resisted: the Reformed hold that it makes the unwilling willing and cannot finally be refused, and that God keeps His people to the end; Lutherans hold that it can be refused, even to the end, so that the lost are lost by their own resistance and not by God’s decree.

Synergist

Synergists (the person freely cooperates with the grace God gives) hold that God’s grace always comes first and makes faith possible, but that each person must freely respond and can decline, so that election follows God’s foreknowledge of faith or rests on His choice of a people in Christ. This is the side that talks about free will: grace is a genuine offer, and an offer nobody could turn down would not be an offer. Many synergists, including most Baptists, nonetheless hold that God keeps every true believer to the end. Protestants on this side usually call themselves Arminian or Wesleyan; the Christian East speaks of synergy, its own word for the same cooperation long before the West gave the argument two names.

Did you know?

  • Luther thought this was the most important thing he ever wrote. In 1537 he told a friend that none of his books deserved to survive except his catechism and The Bondage of the Will, the one answering Erasmus on free choice.

    Luther to Wolfgang Capito, 9 July 1537.

  • The five points of Calvinism were the Arminians’ idea first. The Remonstrance of 1610 set out five articles; the Synod of Dort answered them point for point in 1619, and the argument has been counted in fives ever since.

    The Remonstrance, 1610; Canons of Dort, 1619.

  • The Christian East had its own Calvinist alarm. A confession published in Geneva in 1629 under the name of Patriarch Cyril Lucaris taught predestination; the Synod of Jerusalem condemned it in 1672 and answered that God predestines according to His foreknowledge of how each person will use their free will.

    Confession published under Cyril Lucaris’s name, Geneva 1629; Synod of Jerusalem, 1672.

How did this disagreement develop?

How the argument unfolded

9 moments, from the 5th century to the 18th

  1. c. AD 411–430 Augustine argues against Pelagius that grace must precede and enable every good will.
  2. c. AD 428 John Cassian, Conferences XIII, teaches that grace and free will cooperate at every step; the Christian East still calls this synergy.
  3. AD 529 Second Council of Orange: even the beginning of faith is God’s gift, yet it condemns any predestination to evil and says the baptized can, with Christ’s help, do what salvation requires.
  4. 1525 Luther, The Bondage of the Will, answers Erasmus’s defense of free choice.
  5. 1547 Council of Trent, Decree on Justification: grace comes first and enables, yet the will freely cooperates and can refuse.
  6. 1577 Formula of Concord (arts. II, XI): conversion is God’s work alone, yet grace can be resisted and no one is predestined to damnation.
  7. 1610–19 The Remonstrance sets out five Arminian articles; the Synod of Dort replies with five points.
  8. 1672 Synod of Jerusalem condemns the Calvinist confession published under Patriarch Cyril Lucaris’s name: God predestines according to His foreknowledge of each person’s free use of the will.
  9. 1739–41 Wesley’s sermon Free Grace and Whitefield’s printed reply divide the evangelical revival over predestination.

Which Bible passages do both sides argue from?

Passages both sides argue from

Tap one to read it. BSB, public domain since 30 April 2023 (berean.bible/licensing.htm).

Romans 9

Romans 9 · verses 1–5 of 33 in the passage

  1. 1I speak the truth in Christ; I am not lying, as confirmed by my conscience in the Holy Spirit.
  2. 2I have deep sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.
  3. 3For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my own flesh and blood,
  4. 4the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory and the covenants; theirs the giving of the law, the temple worship, and the promises.
  5. 5Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them proceeds the human descent of Christ, Who is God over all, forever worthy of praise! Amen.

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)

Romans 8:28–30

Romans 8 · verses 28–30

  1. 28And we know that God works all things together for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose.
  2. 29For those God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers.
  3. 30And those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified.

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)

Ephesians 1:3–14

Ephesians 1 · verses 3–7 of 12 in the passage

  1. 3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms.
  2. 4For He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in His presence. In love
  3. 5He predestined us for adoption as His sons through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of His will,
  4. 6to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the Beloved One.
  5. 7In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)

John 6:37–44

John 6 · verses 37–41 of 8 in the passage

  1. 37Everyone the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will never drive away.
  2. 38For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but to do the will of Him Who sent Me.
  3. 39And this is the will of Him Who sent Me, that I shall lose none of those He has given Me, but raise them up at the last day.
  4. 40For it is My Father’s will that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”
  5. 41At this, the Jews began to grumble about Jesus because He had said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)

1 Timothy 2:3–4

1 Timothy 2 · verses 3–4

  1. 3This is good and pleasing in the sight of God our Savior,
  2. 4Who wants everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)

2 Peter 3:9

2 Peter 3 · verse 9

  1. 9The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise as some understand slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish but everyone to come to repentance.

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)

Acts 7:51

Acts 7 · verse 51

  1. 51You stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit, just as your fathers did.

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)

Philippians 2:12–13

Philippians 2 · verses 12–13

  1. 12Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now even more in my absence, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
  2. 13For it is God Who works in you to will and to act on behalf of His good purpose.

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)

Further reading

Monergist

  • Luther, The Bondage of the Will
  • Calvin, Institutes III
  • Sproul, Chosen by God

Synergist

  • John of Damascus, Exact Exposition II.29–30
  • Arminius, Declaration of Sentiments
  • Wesley, Predestination Calmly Considered
  • Olson, Arminian Theology

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