A few days ago I posted a response to John Hendryx's challenge to all Synergists. As I think is only fair, I sent him the link. Well, he did send us some feedback, but strangely didn't even make an attempt at defending his apparent mischaracterizations of Synergism, and tossed out a red-herring instead, telling me that I needed to deal with his arguments against prevenient grace and tried to play out the John chapter 6 card. I responded,
John,
Don't change the subject. Your challenge was for Synergists to answer your questions and show that Synergistic belief does not entail salvation by human merit or chance. Trying to shift the focus to prevenient grace is merely a red herring. I do address the issue of prevenient grace, since it is key to that issue, and very much a scriptural doctrine (John 6:44, Acts 18:27, 16:14).
I'm not sure what difficulty you're thinking John 6 is supposed to be giving me. Everyone who hears and learns from the Father is given by Him (and comes) to Christ (John 6:45), for to these God grants repentance unto life in Him. Nothing in the text indicates irresistibility in hearing Him, or that sinners are brought to spiritual life before faith in Jesus. As I pointed out from John 5:25, 'those who hear Him shall live,' not, 'Those who live shall hear Him;' not to mention the fact that we are raised with Him through faith (Colossians 2:11-12, also cited in my response).
"Most importantly you completely ignore that the Bible itself plainly teaches monergistic regeneration...."
When you actually get around to reading my response, especially the third fallacy that I point out, let me know...
"...and since the Scripture is our highest presupposition for our faith it overthrows all man-made philosophical arguments."
...because if you do read it, you might notice that I reference the scriptures not a little in demonstrating that your man-made philosophical assumption that our receiving Christ freely must 'merit' salvation for us is not congruent with the biblical record.
Getting back to the subject, your challenge wasn't over prevenient grace in particular: You put up a mocking prayer that suggests that Synergists believe that we produce faith of our own power apart from the work of God, and that thereby we believe that we pay part of the price for our own redemption, then state, I quote:
"I believe that it accurately reflects this erroneous belief system. So below I am offering a challenge to anyone, therefore, to show me where I am off target."
Which I have publicly taken you up on. Can you back up your incriminations, or not?
In Christ,
J.C. Thibodaux
Interesting development...my first response to Hendryx's challenge to all Synergists isn't even that in-depth, and already he's trying to change the subject to something he's more comfortable with. Hendryx replied that he would respond in more detail soon. He also stated that I needn't call his assertions "incriminations," since he believe that Arminians are his brothers in the faith. While I am pleased by that fact (and for the record, I embrace Calvinists as my brothers in Christ and consider the Monergism/Synergism debate to be secondary), this issue however has nothing to do with whether he is trying to incriminate Synergists of serious charges or not. To farcically pray,
"This[faith] is the one thing that is my very own that I produced of my fallen natural capacities."
and,
...my faith was the one part that I contributed to the price of my redemption...
and then insist,
Of course the prayer will be rejected by the synergist, but you must ask him how it actually conflicts with his theology. I believe that it accurately reflects this erroneous belief system.
Such an assertion is clearly nothing less than charging Synergists with the error of Pelagius and insinuating that we essentially believe that salvation is purchased by human merit. Hendryx's attempt to water his assertions down as not being 'incriminations' is merely double-talk. These two implications I'm addressing primarily can be summed up as two questions:
1. Do you believe that faith merits, earns, or purchases salvation for us?
2. Do you believe that faith is produced from our own fallen capacities, and 'the Holy Spirit and grace have nothing to do with their ability to come to faith in Christ?'
To both of which, any salvation by grace Synergist with any degree of knowledge would answer, 'no.' These beliefs are not what Synergism entails, nor what consistent Synergism amounts to, since we do not believe that faith purchases or merits salvation for us, and that we cannot come to faith in Christ apart from God's grace and the work of the Spirit. These are central tenets that are not subverted or invalidated by other tenets. This raises a few questions for Hendryx:
If he does honestly think that we believe these horrible things, then how could this challenge not be an incrimination?
If he doesn't think we really believe such things, then why would he insinuate that they're consistent with our beliefs?
From the receiving end, his mischaracterization is quite evident: It's not satire, it's not in good fun, and it's not hyperbole. He insists that beliefs that aren't ours accurately reflect our beliefs anyway, making his assertion a very obvious cheap-shot distortion. Hopefully he'll drop the word games and red herrings for his next response.
See also:
Part 3: Response to John Hendryx