Monergism/yes or no?

Monergism this is from a comment 52 here : http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2012/11/how-the-church-won-an-interview-with-jason-stellman/#comment-39984 ----

I had asserted that your criticism of Catholic soteriology assumes “monergism,” and thus begs the question. To that, you replied: “That also assumes that monergism and “effectivity” leaves anyone with no choice but final salvation.” That reply misses the mark.

My assertion was not an assumption, but an inference from (a) what you say and (b) the definition of monergism. The Wikipedia definition is pretty good: “Monergism describes the position in Christian theology of those who believe that God, through the Holy Spirit, works to bring about effectually the salvation of individuals through spiritual regeneration without cooperation from the individual.” So if you hold that God “effectively” saves us without the cooperation of our free will–and that is what you hold–you’re a monergist. Nor, I notice, do you deny you’re a monergist.

In fact, you reaffirm monergism. As a Catholic, I had written that our salvation comes about when:

…our own power of free choice is enabled, by God’s unmerited communication of his own nature, to choose as God wills within us, and thus to partake of the divine nature. Being finally saved, therefore, does not displace our freedom but restores it–if we would but have it so.

To that, you reply:

We coaxed the system with so many words but in the final analysis -IF WE WOULD BUT HAVE IT SO-the grace of God is ineffective and does not save anyone.

You seem to take for granted that it is not God who saves us if we have any choice in the matter. Salvation must therefore be monergistic if it is to be salvation at all. But that assumption is unwarranted.

God saved humanity through Jesus’ death and resurrection. If those had not happened, none of us would be able to please God by any means, including free choices, because everybody would remain enslaved to sin. But because it has happened, we all have the opportunity to be grafted, as it were, onto Christ, and thus be liberated from sin to participate in his divine goodness. That it remains up to us to stay in Christ or not, that we can grow in holiness or fall away if we choose, does nothing to change that. When a person chooses to stay in Christ, it is God who continues transforming them into a sharer in his nature, which is supremely free. So, while it is God who does the work of salvation all the way through, that work does not displace our freedom, or our activity in general, but transforms and strengthens them.

and there is this post here that has over 400 comments that discuss the subject http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2011/04/thought-experiment-for-monergists/

also some aspects about God' s glory:  http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/03/draft-soli-deo-gloria-a-catholic-perspective/

an interesting comment 21 from the post http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2011/04/thought-experiment-for-monergists/

John Thayer Jensen: Maybe what is bothering me is the idea of synergism itself. Maybe I’m just a pantheist in theist’s clothing :-)

It seems to me that either one is saying that God can do it all, but I am allowedactually to do a little bit, or else that God can’t do it all and needs my help.

Whereas in fact it seems to me that what I do I do and if I didn’t – it wouldn’t be done. At the same time, it seems to me that I cannot do anything except in God.

How about a third possibility? God can’t do it all, and God doesn’t need our help, since God is in need of nothing.

First, why do I say God can’t do it all? I say this because God cannot contradict God. God, by a sovereign act of his will, has deigned to make human beings as creatures with free will. Our free will isessential to our nature, and without it, we can’t be human beings. If God were to “save” us by forcing upon us some kind of “irresistible” grace that destroyed our free will, then we would cease to be creatures with free will. That kind of “irresistible” grace would utterly annihilate the human being that God created, and what was “saved” after the annihilation wrought by irresistible grace would not be a human being at all, but merely the shell of a human being. Therefore, God can’t force a human to choose union with God without destroying what he has chosen to create. It isn’t that the omnipotent God lacks the power to force us to choose union with God, rather, it is that such an exercise of that omnipotent power would create a contradiction within God that is irreconcilable with what God has chosen to do, namely, God chooses to save human beings as beings as human beings. And that means an adult that has reached the age of reason has to exercise his free will to choose union with God over alienation from God in order to be saved. But how can a man that is born in bondage to sin, make a free choice for union with God? IOW, how does the Catholic Church avoid the heresy of semi-Pelagianism? If the fallen man could make a choice for God out of his will power alone, then he isn’t really in any sort of bondage to sin. The Catholic Church avoids the heresy of semi-Pelagianism by rejecting the false either/or false dichotomy of either monergism or synergism. Salvation is a both/and process, both monergism and synergism.

The Council of Trent, Session VI, Chapter V directly addresses the question of the actual graces that must be received by an adult before he chooses to become justified through the Sacrament of Baptism:

“The Synod furthermore declares, that in adults, the beginning of the said Justification is to be derived from the prevenient grace of God, through Jesus Christ, that is to say, from His vocation, whereby, without any merits existing on their parts, they are called; that so they, who by sins were alienated from God, may be disposed through His quickening and assisting grace, to convert themselves to their own justification, by freely assenting to and co-operating with that said grace: in such sort that, while God touches the heart of man by the illumination of the Holy Ghost, neither is man himself utterly without doing anything while he receives that inspiration, forasmuch as he is also able to reject it; yet is he not able, by his own free will, without the grace of God, to move himself unto justice in His sight.”

The Council here is teaching that there are two kinds of actual grace that must be received by fallen man before he can make a free choice for reconciliation with God through the Sacraments of Initiation. First, he must receive the actual grace of prevenient grace that enlightens his understanding, and that grace is received without any merit on the part of man. This is a monergistic movement by God – God deigns, by a sovereign act of his will, to give fallen man enlightenment, an enlightenment that allows man to understand that he is in need of justification and conversion. After the man has been enlightened by prevenient grace, he receives the actual grace of quickening and assisting grace, and this actual grace gives enough healing to man’s wounded nature that he can now cooperate with God in his conversion and movement towards justification. Quickening and assisting grace can be resisted, and, ultimately, it can be rejected – or – this actual grace can be accepted, and by cooperation with this grace, a man can move towards reception of the sanctifying grace bestowed by the Sacraments of Initiation. This is cooperation with quickening and assisting grace is synergistic – the man can’t move in this grace unless he has this grace, yet at the same time, this grace is not irresistible, since he can exercise his free will to reject this grace.