Okay! Pardon my puns. This post will point you to a defense of monergism that is written by a beliver indewelt by the Spirit (hence it is a “synergistic” defense).
What is “monergism”?
John Hendryx who heads up Monergism.com (perhaps the best online resource for all things Calvinism–or for theology period, really) gives the following brief description of “monergism” (accessible from this webpage):
Monergism simply means that it is God who gives ears to hear and eyes to see. It is God alone who gives illumination and understanding of His word that we might believe; It is God who raises us from the dead, who circumcises the heart; unplugs our ears; It is God alone who can give us a new sense that we may, at last, have the moral capacity to behold His beauty and unsurpassed excellency. “In theology, [monergism is] the doctrine that the Holy Spirit is the only efficient agent in regeneration [the new birth] – that the human will possesses no inclination to holiness until regenerated [born again], and therefore cannot cooperate in regeneration.”
So to put it simply, while synergism says man contributes or cooperates in regeneration, monergism says only God is active in the regeneration process. (For further explanation of this concept, again I refer you to the webpage where I got this quote from.)
Now on to the synergistic defense. Hendryx’s fellow blog partner, John Samson, had posted a brief post showing that 1 John 5:1 supports monergistic regeneration (regeneration preceeding faith) over on their blog, Reformation Theology Blog. One of the comments in response to that article really drew John Hendryx’s ire. He responded with a great and brief defense of monergistic regeneration. I want to point you to his post here, as it is especially helpful. He really makes a strong case for 1 John 5:1 proving monergism, and he also shows how John 6:63-65 does the same.
To whet your appetite for this post here is a brief excerpt:
Those who believe faith precedes regeneration believe we have the ability to see spiritual things before we are spiritual, that we have the ability to hear spiritual things before we have spiritual ears. That we can desire Christ and believe the gospel when we are by nature hostile to God.What does it mean when we are a certain thing by nature? A cat has whiskers by nature and no amount of willing can change that. Likewise we are naturally in bondage to a corruption of nature, slaves to sin and thus cannot be otherwise unless God intervenes to change who we are. Only God can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. To believe that our faith is the cause of (or precedes) regeneration is to believe unregenerate, unspiritual man to be spiritual, an impossibly contradictory supposition. It is a rejection of the necessity of the Holy Spirit to change our naturally hostile nature to one that sees the beauty and excellency of Christ.
[Be sure to read the whole article!]
∼striving for the unity of the faith for the glory of God∼ Eph. 4:3,13 \”¢ Rom. 15:5-7
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