No Condemnation
Three Views on Regeneration and Faith
Augustinian-Calvinist Position. A major controversy surrounding regeneration is whether it is the cause or the result of the believer’s faith. Theologians in the Augustinian-Calvinist tradition, such as Wayne Grudem, R. C. Sproul, and John Piper, assert that regeneration precedes saving faith and gives people the spiritual ability to respond to God in faith. Grudem points to John 3:5 to argue that a person must be born of the Spirit before they can become a Christian: “No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit” (NRSV). He also views John 6:44 as indicating that humans are unable to come to Christ apart from the prior work of regeneration:, “No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me” (NRSV; compare John 6:65; Grudem, Systematic Theology, 702).
Augustinian-Calvinist theologians interpret being “dead through our trespasses” (Eph 2:5; compare Col 2:13) as lacking the faculty of the will to freely believe in Christ or do anything else spiritually good. This exegesis is consistent with the Augustinian-Calvinist doctrine of total depravity, which holds that in the fall, the primal human couple destroyed their mental faculty to perform spiritual good and passed on this corrupted state to their descendants. Since the same passages that teach humans were dead through their trespasses go on to assert that, in this state of lifelessness, God made us alive with Christ, Augustinian-Calvinist theologians claim that God gives persons new spiritual life (i.e., regeneration) before they can and do believe (Sproul, Essential Truths, 172).
Arminian-Wesleyan Position. Theologians in the Arminian-Wesleyan tradition, such as Roger Olson, Thomas Oden, and Jerry Walls, assert that saving faith precedes regeneration, as the Holy Spirit responds to persons’ exercising faith by regenerating them. Arminian-Wesleyan theologians deny the equation of becoming a Christian with entering the kingdom of God; rather, they see a cause and effect relationship between the two. By becoming a Christian, people place themselves under God’s reign (Oden, Classic Christianity, 578).
Arminian-Wesleyan theologians concur with the Augustinian-Calvinist position that humans are unable to believe in Christ without the prior drawing of the Holy Spirit; however, they deny that this drawing is the same as regeneration. They instead maintain that this drawing is prevenient grace, or prior ability-supplying grace, that the Spirit gives to all humanity (John 12:32). As Olson explains, “humans are dead in their trespasses and sins until the prevenient grace of God awakens and enables them to exercise a good will toward God in repentance and faith” (Olson, Arminian Theology, 159). But this grace is resistible, which accounts for some people choosing to believe in Christ and other people choosing not to. Arminian-Wesleyan theologians equate regeneration with the gift of the Holy Spirit and identify regeneration as the beginning of eternal life and salvation. They support their position by pointing to texts affirming that one must believe in order to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (John 7:37–39; Acts 2:38; Eph 1:13–14) and eternal life or salvation (Luke 7:50; John 3:15–16; 3:36; 5:24, 39–40; 11:25; 20:31; Acts 16:31).
Anabaptist Refinements to the Arminian-Wesleyan Position. Theologians in the Anabaptist tradition, such as Thomas Finger and Kirk MacGregor, concur with the Arminian-Wesleyan position that regeneration is the Holy Spirit’s response to the believer’s faith. However, they reject the understanding of original sin common to the Augustinian-Calvinist and Arminian-Wesleyan traditions. Anabaptist theologians typically hold that original sin is a resistible inclination toward sin that humans inherit from the primal human couple, not the destruction of the mental faculty by which humans can perform spiritual good (Finger, Contemporary Anabaptist, 480–499; MacGregor, Systematic Theology, 25–37). In this view, even though it is still possible for humans to exhibit faith, God foreknows that no one will freely place faith in Christ apart from the special prompting of the Holy Spirit. Humans can resist this prompting, which is analogous to prevenient grace, such that only some freely believe and receive regeneration from the Spirit.