OSAS feels like NTS*.
*No True Scotsman
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Interesting analogy. Yeah, it seems to be that rationalization in many cases.
Perhaps different in my denomination (Mennonites) where people are thought to have the free will that they can actually choose to end a relationship with God (i.e., apostatize). In other words, we believe that faith requires and active and ongoing commitment to the relationship.
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Once saved always saved is based on a loose form of Calvinism. Calvinistic-leaning Baptists, who often refer to it, are less concerned about the rigid formulas of Calvinism, but embrace a version of TULIP that is “milder,” for lack of a better term. It is still subject to all of the concerns expressed by the one Arminian I have discussed any of this with.
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Thanks for the clarification. Yeah, to my Arminian ears the difference between the two terms just sounds like semantics..
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God gives the gift of faith only to take it away?
The non-elect can have saving faith and go on to lose it?
Sorry. I’m not seeing how this works at all.
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Semantics between versions of Calvinism?
I can imagine it does.
Perseverance of the Saints says that the non-elect can temporarily have all of the outward signs of faith and can sincerely believe and be faithful without being saved. OSAS tends to deny that they ever truly believed or similar.
Yes, it is saying that the saved will remain saved; the difference is in how they would view apostacy-- is it someone who never truly believed (OSAS); or was it someone who may well have believed but did not persevere in faith, and thus was not elect (Perseverance of the Saints).
It’s not a huge difference, but saying that all Protestants hold to OSAS is definitely wrong.
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No wonder some of my tender-hearted Reformed sisters and brothers live in terror of having faith that Jesus is their Savior but not actually being among the elect.
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Garrigou-Lagrange’s version of Thomism is, for all practical purposes, a Catholic form of Calvinism. Although he did not claim that God actively predestines the damned to hell, the distinction he draws between sufficient grace and efficacious grace amounts to something very similar. According to him, God grants sufficient grace to the reprobate — and in fact to all human beings — yet those who receive only sufficient grace will inevitably reject it and thus condemn themselves. By contrast, God grants efficacious grace to the elect, and this grace infallibly moves a person to accept God without violating human freedom. In my view, this is effectively a form of Catholic Calvinism, which I strongly reject. On the question of grace and the relationship between human freedom and God’s saving action, I find myself much closer to Fr. Most.
If anyone is interested https://afkimel.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/william-most-predestination.pdf
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Most Calvinists also don’t technically believe that (yes, I know the following will sound like solely semantics to a decent number of people)-- the standard Calvinist belief is that God actively passes over people; their sins are what actually condemn them. Luthersns hold to a passive passing over officially, and are thus the only denomination that holds to a true Single Predestination.
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Not being a Calvinist myself, I yet must acknowledge a recent defense of it by Kaitlyn Schiess in which she said that Calvinism was originally a protestant reaction against a Catholic practice that kept people in agonized suspense over whether they had yet done enough to ensure theirs or their loved ones’ salvation. '“Do I need to buy a few more indulgences just to be sure?” And in reaction against such theological exploitation, Calvinism was intended as a reassurance that your salvation was already vouchsafed in Christ, and you need not fret that it could be taken from you or have anything to do with your performance. So it probably wasn’t intended (as it has now been taken by so many) as yet one more thing to agonize over … am I one of the elect?
That’s my paraphrase - and not all exactly what she said, but is rather what I think I understood from it. So if I still accidentally misrepresent Calvinism here, the mistake is likely my own and not hers. While I’m still not a Calvinist and have other reasons for not becoming one, still it did help me understand its original attraction a bit better.
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There may have been multiple reasons for adopting such a teaching. My own guess is that the key reasons went deeper than the reactions of some contemporary Catholics.
The theological thinking about the role of humans in the process of salvation has a long history. I guess the writings of Augustine of Hippo (and the following theologians) directed the thinking of Calvin and the Calvinist protestants. Augustinian interpretations stressed God’s absolute sovereignty, to the point where the will of the depraved humans could not have a marked role.
I am not an expert and not a Calvinist so this is just my semi-educated guess.
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This is essentially what Garrigou-Lagrange—and all the Thomists (I am one myself, but i absolutely reject Lagrange’s interpretation) who follow his interpretation—hold: those who receive sufficient grace reject it through their own fault and thus bring about their own damnation, whereas those who receive efficacious grace will freely accept God’s grace. The difficulty, however, is that they would certainly have refused God’s grace had they received only sufficient grace.
In other words, according to Garrigou-Lagrange’s view—which he claims to be identical to that of Thomas, though I have more than a few doubts about this, and which in any case does not coincide with the teaching of the Catholic Church at all, for the Catholic Church is certainly not affirming anything of the kind—God saves through efficacious grace, which infallibly (though freely) brings the elect to repentance, and above all to final perseverance (that is, dying in a state of grace). At the same time, He effectively passes over the reprobate.
Indeed, since no one, within this framework, actually accepts sufficient grace—those who receive it inevitably reject it—the very granting of such grace appears almost like a formality on God’s part: “I gave you grace; it was sufficient; you did not accept it; therefore you will be condemned eternally. Roast in peace, fu**er.”
In fact, according to Garrigou-Lagrange, God determines to whom He will grant efficacious grace ante praevisa merita—that is, prior to any foreseen merits. If that is not essentially Calvinism, I do not know what is. I firmly and absolutely reject this position (which turns God into an even worse entity than Satan), and, as I mentioned, I believe that Fr. Most’s interpretation comes much closer to the truth.
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As a Baptist who now attends a PCA church that is very formally Calvinistic, I have been shocked to hear confessions from sincere believers of precisely these worries that usually peaked in their teen years.
This does not strike me as assurance of salvation. It is just a different form of doubt and one against which there is no remedy, except to get used to the unrest and hope for the best - that one is actually among elect in the end.
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Election (roughly equivalent to efficacious grace) being in light of foreseen acceptance is often called Molinism. There is also the option (which I am somewhat inclined towards) of election and foreknowledge of acceptance being fully logically dependant on each other, rather than either independently determining the other. Calvinist confessions generally deny Molinism, but allow for the latter.
Also, Calvinism proper, as defined by most scholastically-inclined Presbyterians, Dutch Reformed, or Swiss Reformed, includes Calvinist sacramentology (real spiritual presence; communion is a means of salvation, but Christ is not present to the non-elect), rather than being coterminous with those who affirm a summary of the Canons of Dort (i.e., TULIP), which was designed primarily are “How we differ from Arminius.” Thus, referring to branches of Thomist thought as Calvinist makes sense if one is including Particular Baptists as “Reformed”, but not if one would exclude then.
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Hi, while I admire discussion of other topics in this conversation, can I ask you to please get back to please stick to the initial topic ? thank you
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I don’t know if that is your argument but Fr.Most argues that those who are saved are predestined because God foresees they will freely not resist His grace.
They could have resisted—practically, not merely theoretically—but chose not to, whereas the reprobate chose the opposite. This preserves both the necessity of God’s grace (since without it no one would be saved) and His universal salvific will (because His grace is concretely available to all). Only those who freely resist that grace until the end are damned. Thus, the elect are saved because of God’s grace, while the damned are lost because of their refusal. There is no intrinsic difference in the nature of the grace given to the elect and to the reprobate (such as the difference between sufficient and efficacious grace); rather, the reprobate are condemned because of their persistent, willful rejection of God.
Supposedly the doctrine is meant to be comforting, but I’ve met a few such terrorized people myself.
There was a debate around those very issues among Lutherans for a generation or so long ago.
There were a number of Baptist and ‘non-denominational’ types in Campus Crusade in my university days who said almost exactly that. One compared it to being in a casino watching the roulette wheel while not knowing where one’s bet had been placed.