I am a regular reader of Darren's Nicene Theology blog. And you should be, too. (It's bookmarked under my blog links, down the left-hand side of the main page here. If I'm not mistaken, Darren is from a Wesleyan background, though he will correct me if I'm wrong.) Yesterday he replied to my post on monergism, with his own post, God Saves His Enemies. It's not my intent to start another "me-and-Kevin"sort of diablog, but I thought it important to offer some clarifications, since my monergism post is not the most well-written example of blogging.
One example of that problematic writing is Darren's seeming misunderstanding that I am basing the charge of heresy with regard to monergism on the fact that synergism is the historic Church's understanding of soteriology. Of course, what each of us means by "historic Church" may be part of the reason he denies that either monergism or synergism has ever been the settled disposition of the Church. In any case, this is not a point about which I wish to argue, as it takes me from my main point with regard to monergism. So, in terms of my seemingly attributing heresy to monergism based on the consensus fidelium of the Church, he, rightly, claims this is question-begging, since, in fact, I did not prove that synergism is the faith of the Church.
In another related aside, I would also contend that St. Augustine is not the monergist that monergists claim. It is true that the Bishop of Hippo did, in his godly-intentioned fight against Pelagius, depart from the balance of the Church's soteriology (leading those who followed his line of thought in the West to such notions as inherited guilt, double predestination, and other departures from the Church's deposit of faith), but I am convinced that making of the saint a monergist is to extrapolate extracontextually from his anti-Pelagian works a meaning that he, himself, never intended. But once more, this is not an argument I will be making here, nor for which offering any further support.
Further, I also freely admit that my understanding of Reformation theology and Calvinism is pretty much limited to the infamous TULIP. I have based my understanding of monergism wholly on the website linked in my post criticizing monergism. I can understand presuppositions and premises and argue toward their logical conclusions. But it may be that Calvinism does not follow the logical progression I think is necessitated by its presuppositions.
All that being said, in point of fact, I do happen to believe that monergism is a heresy because, in part, it is not what the historic Church taught. But actually, my point of contention in the post was that monergism necessarily must come to the conclusion that Christ had only a divine will, which is monothelitism--or minimally, that his human will was not operative, which is at least a form of monothelitism--and monothelitism is a heresy. In other words, I contend that to properly understand human nature, including free will, and how human nature is redeemed, it is absolutely essential to start and end with the Incarnation. For it is precisely in the God-man, Jesus Christ, that we properly understand what it means to be human and therefore what it means to be saved. Christology is anthropology. Christology is soteriology.
First, I find it inconsistent that monergists claim that humans have free will, but that free will can do nothing with regard to any aspect of salvation. Darren writes:
In short, monergism describes the state of fallen humankind as incapable of actively participating in God's saving action. Men and women are dead in their sins (not merely weakened), and therefore unable to work for their salvation, or actively take hold of God's offer of salvation, or even prepare themselves to receive saving grace.
I will argue in a moment why we must start and end with Jesus, the God-man, when we discuss human nature and redemption. But let it be stipulated for now, in proleptic anticipation of the later argument, that monergism must be applied to the God-man if it is to apply to humans. Let us walk through the consequences of such a position.
If we apply monergism to Jesus, then, though Jesus' human will was "free," in reality it was completely unable to cooperate with the divine will. In fact, by this reasoning, it could only, by its very nature as fallen, be in opposition to the divine will. Yet, this division of wills in the Person of the God-man runs counter to Chalcedonian (and o/Orthodox) Christology, and is, in fact, heresy.
Thus it must be posited that, though ostensibly free, the human will of Jesus was not fallen (and Darren will do this below), it was just incompetent to cooperate with the divine will. But fallenness is the predication of monergist human volitional incapacity, so what sense does it make to say that Jesus' human will was unfallen but unable to cooperate? And furthermore, if Jesus' human will was unfallen, it did not need to be saved. But if his human will was not saved, then it was never assumed into his Person in the first place, and so neither is our human will saved. Nor can it ever be. But if human will can never be saved, then it can never be appropriated in the Kingdom. And thus, it can only follow that we do not have human will in any meaningful sense. But if Jesus did not assume a human will, then we have the monothelete heresy.
But perhaps monergists will posit that Jesus' human will was fallen but not opposed, indeed, could not have been opposed, to the divine will. But if the human will could only will the divine will, the only will essentially operative in the God-man was the divine will. But if only the divine will was essentially operative, then we will have to make sense of Matthew 26:39 and how it is that the Second Person of the Trinity could in any way will something different from the First Person of the Trinity, and what sense this would make of the unity of Father and Son Jesus reveals in his "high priestly prayer" (cf. John 17:21). And really, this position, though technically different from monothelitism in certain respects, is just another form of it.
Darren, though, does attempt to account for the freedom of the human will.
. . . the traditional Reformed position does not deny the existence of free will -- it merely denies that any exercise of the will can contribute to justification, the reconciliation of men and women to God and the initiation of the Christian life. We have the ability and the right to make our own choices, but in our fallen and sinful state remain incapable of initiating our reconciliation to God or of answering his call from our own ability. Just as my free will does not enable me to decide, "Today I shall walk on the moon," neither does it enable me to decide, "Today I shall be reconciled to God."Total depravity is a necessary presupposition of monergism, but free will is not excluded. Rather, it is put in its proper anthropological context. As free will in no way implies omnipotence, we still rely wholly on God's act for us and our salvation.
It is here that Reformed theology, as Darren constructs it, falters and must ultimately fall. It predicate