Does the Christian have any amount of responsibility when it comes to his or her own salvation, or is the Christian completely and entirely passive?
When applied to a Christian’s eternal destiny, the theology of Monergism implies that God is entirely, completely, and solely responsible for any person’s salvation. In contrast, the theology of Synergism teaches that man cooperates with the grace of God by freely accepting and working with that grace in attaining final salvation.
Simply, Monergism is a doctrine that claims absolutely no responsibility on the Christian for his or her salvation; there is no cooperation to accept or reject grace as his or her salvation is a predetermined destiny that forbids freedom of choice by the individual.
In a certain sense, God is entirely, completely, and solely responsible for any person’s salvation because anything we do, outside of inordinately choosing a lesser good (sin), is attributed to God, the First Mover. Where Monergism becomes erroneous is when it claims that man has no ability to cooperate with God’s grace in his salvation, even to the point of claiming having no free will to reject or accept God’s grace, therefore having no possibility to choose where to spend eternity, as it has been fixed from all eternity by God alone.
The irony is that Monergism does in fact cooperate with God’s grace in striving to attain eternal life. Those who hold to Monergism may claim otherwise, but in reality what they do and believe proves their synergistic cooperation with God in the hopeful inheritance of the Kingdom, regardless of whom they give credit to or under what guise of false piety and humility they may assert to emphasize God’s sovereignty at the expense of man’s nature and supposed inability to cooperate with His grace.
For example, proponents of Monergism confess to believe that Christians are justified and ultimately saved by faith alone, apart from any good works done in Christ. Faith, the virtue of believing that which God has revealed, is purely a synergistic virtue; God does not believe for you or on your behalf, but giving the Christian this gift predicated upon grace, the Christian is ultimately responsible for accepting it and using it, and allowing it to grow. It is the Christian who believes and understands what God has revealed; He does not monergistically force faith upon the individual whereas faith is merely some passive and latent virtue residing in the back of our intellects. Rather, He freely bestows on us this virtue as a gift, but we have to accept it, use it, and grow in it; all of this is nothing but freely cooperating with grace!
Furthermore, most Christians who claim Monergism confess to believe that a Christian must repent of his or her sins to receive God’s forgiveness. Although definitions of repentance will vary across different Christian denominations and Churches, nonetheless repentance is a voluntary sorrow, prompted by God’s grace, that is held by the penitent with the resolve to make amends for one’s conduct. This is hardly a monergistic endeavor, but rather, again, a purely synergistic cooperation between God and man. Again, does God repent for you? Of course not! Rather, God, by his grace, prompts sorrow in your heart, but it is you who ultimately has to heed this grace, use it, and act upon it for any true repentance to take place.
“Working together with him, then, we entreat you not to accept the grace of God in vain.” – 2 Corinthians 6:1
Not only have we been given the opportunity to work with God, but we have been endowed with the freedom to “accept the grace of God”, whether it be done piously or in vain. Surely, it is God whom prompts us with actual graces and moves our will, but we nonetheless have the freedom to accept God’s grace or resist:
“You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit.” – Acts 7:51
This kind of Biblical language would be superfluous if Christians held absolutely no responsibility in the attainment of their salvation, or their rejection of it. As proven already, the virtue of faith and the gift of repentance are both synergistic in cooperating with God. Do you believe in God and all that He has publicly revealed? If so, you, prompted by God’s grace, have accepted the grace of God, hopefully not in vain, and you have refrained from resisting the Holy Spirit. Have you repented of your sins and received God’s forgiveness? Again, you accepted God’s grace to move you to sorrowful contrition imploring God to remove your guilt, which would be impossible if you resisted the Holy Spirit.
God is entirely responsible for anything we do, save sin, even in the natural order for: “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). How much more in the order of grace is God entirely responsible for anything we do in attaining salvation, as anything pertaining to our cooperation with God is due to his grace and His moving of our wills. But, that doesn’t mean that God has not ordained our free participation in what He desires and wills.
“[W]ork out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” – Philippians 2:12