A Response to Soteriology 101

by Chris Harris

The original article/blog post can be found here:

Calvinism’s Conflation – SOTERIOLOGY 101

It wasn’t that long ago that I was asked the question “how is it that one can be saved?” My reply was, of course, to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Throughout all of the Monergism vs Synergism (or however you wish to label it) debate over the centuries this answer, although universal, has had many different understandings. Some would suggest that man’s belief is due to a wholly monergistic work of God (Monergism), while others would suggest this belief is a cooperative effort of man and God (Synergism).

So, we can say that the pivotal point in the debate would be how someone accounts for faith in their system. The author of the above linked article is critiquing a critique, and in doing so fails to engage with the point of the quote he is critiquing. The quote in question is a quote by Broughton Knox that was a critique of a book written by Arminian scholar Howard Marshall. What Knox said was this:

“The Pelagian mind is inclined to ascribe, shall we say, 5% to God and 95% to man, the semi-Pelagian 50%-50%, while the evangelical Arminian, such as our writer, 95% to God and 5% to man. Yet, after all, it is this last 5% which makes the difference between heaven and hell, so that man is, in the end, his own saviour.”

Soteriology 101 goes on after this quote to ask the question “What exactly are these percentages representing?” which I find peculiar. You see Knox is just stating a well-recognized explanation of the difference of historical positions when it comes to how one understands faith in the answering of the question “how is it one is saved?” Also I would like to point out that in the article the author seems to suggest that Knox ascribes the term “pelagian” to the “evangelical Arminian” position described in Knox’s quote, but Knox had said no such thing. He carefully stated the Pelagian and semi-Pelagian positions and then listed the evangelical Arminian position without either label, so to say that Knox was suggesting that evangelical Arminians are any sort of “pelagian” is dishonest. But, back to the percentages….

The percentages in Knox’s quote represent the totality of how one is saved, of course this is the initial regeneration/conversion or conversion/regeneration and excludes progressive sanctification. Being as we established already that “believe on Jesus Christ” is the universal answer here, we need to deal with the differences in how one understands this answer and the implications thereof. If we posit the totality of salvation as a 100 percentile figure and within salvation there are two key players, namely God and man, then it stands to reason that a certain percentage of the 100 percent should be ascribed to each party representing their part. Let’s look at Knox’s percentages when we do just that:

Pelagian- man’s part= 95% and God’s part= 5%

Semi-Pelagian- man’s part= 50% and God’s part= 50%

Evangelical Arminian- man’s part= 5% and God’s part= 95%

We all agree that faith is man’s part, but we don’t agree on exactly what that means. Knox’s point is that if we are saved by faith alone, that faith is the condition required to be saved, then faith, that which is man’s part, is the deciding factor as to whether or not we are saved. Above, the Pelagian would ascribe the vast amount of effort to man in him being saved, the semi-pelagian sees it as a 50/50 cooperative effort, and the evangelical Arminian views it as mostly God but man is involved. So on the particular point of the author as to them not knowing what is meant by the percentages in Knox’s quote, I’m quite perplexed as to why he doesn’t. It’s actually quite simple, and nothing new.

From this starting position of not understanding the percentages, our author moves to critique Calvinists as a whole. He builds a mythical conflation conspiracy to attack rather than dealing with the actual issue, that being the origin and implication of man’s faith. The accusation of a conflation of God’s choice to save and man’s choice to be saved is unfounded and dodges the actual issue, again, the origin and implications of man’s faith. So in closing I would like to invite the author of this Soteriology 101 article/blog post to actually deal with the issue and to refrain from building a construct of the Calvinist system that seems easier to dismantle.